Speakers

Margaret O’Neill – Bio

Keilor Resident

Altona City Rotary Community Director

CBA Branch Manager

I am a born and breed proud Keilor girl.  My parents built their first home in Bonfield Street in 1962 for the grand price of $1200 pounds a home in which they raised 7 children.  I myself owned my first home on the Calder Rise estate where I raised my son and now in Church Street.  4 of my 6 siblings own homes in Keilor, hence my passion for this project.

No truer word has been said than give a busy girl a job and it gets done.

I have worked for the Commonwealth Bank (former State Bank) for 34 year this year, and currently the Branch Manager of Altona Branch.

Just over 3 years ago I was approached by Altona City Rotary and have now been the Community Director for 3 year, enjoying the vast array of projects, not to mention sausage sizzles.

I have always found enrichment from volunteering roles, many years ago driving a bus for an organisation in Spotswood taking some of our less fortunate in the community to South Melbourne Market for a cup of coffee, a conversation and a walk around, for some the only time they got out and engaged with anyone.

For 5 year I was involved in the Mental Health Fellowship, running courses for Carers of people with a mental illness, as I am also a fulltime carer of a family member with a mental illness.

But tonight I would love to talk to you about the Horseshoe Bend Community Garden and the Committed group of Local residence lead by Cynthia Frain and the involvement,  hopes and dreams for the current space.

“From Gods to Gigabytes – A Brief History of Weather Forecasting”
This tells the fascinating story of humanity’s love affair with the weather –
together with the strong desire to predict it.
Many different forecasting methods have been tried down the ages such
as using prayer and sacrifice to the Sky Gods, observing the behaviour of
plants and animals, looking at cloud patterns and in more recent times using
science, technology and mathematics as the main forecasting tools.
Modern weather prediction is one of the more recent scientific endeavours.
Mathematics, physics and chemistry can be traced back for centuries but
mathematical weather forecasting is barely 100 years old and has made
astonishing progress in such a short time.
We can now predict the weather far more accurately than ever before and the
story of how we reached this point has involved inspiration, communication
and calculation. It is one of the great philosophical and practical triumphs of
human achievement.