Top Local Podcast Listens
I do it while I'm cooking. Hubby does it in the garden. We both jostle to plug in on drives. Podcast listening is the easiest way to multitask and Shoalhaven voices have much to reveal to anyone willing to tune in.
Complementing these catchup episodes (below) of Col Hesse's regular interviews on his Triple U FM Friday breakfast program, I recommend immersing in the Better Together podcast episodes interviewing volunteers from all over the Shoalhaven, be it surf life saving, art galleries and op-shops or even helping the terminally ill navigate their final moments in this mortal coil by becoming a palliative care volunteer or biographer.
The wide-ranging podcast, produced by Community Connect South Shoalhaven, with their partners at Business Milton Ulladulla, recently won a commendation in the Resilient Australia Community Awards.
The show explores everything you ever wanted to know about volunteering in the Shoalhaven. The joys, the struggles, the practicalities and the enormous diversity of ways to get involved in making your community - and your own life - better.
Better Together: Just One More Thing, Before I Go
Season 1, 2024 (19 episodes)
Season 2, 2025 (9 episodes)
" It's just amazing. The stories and the things that we learn every day, I know it's been said before, and probably every volunteer feels the same, but we certainly get back more than we give."
"People think it's a morbid idea, but it's far, far from it. We have some of the biggest belly laughs of any volunteers around."
"Now, we're doing a biography service and on the 17th of October, the first of the volunteers are doing their training in biography service.”
Catch-up on last week's Col Hesse Triple U FM interviews.
Dopamine hitting the brain's pleasure centre with the force of crack cocaine
"We've never been prohibitionist... but when we have the greatest losses per head in the world in Australia and when we have the greatest gambling harm in the world, we have to have serious reform."
"The world looks at Americans and says: 'guns are their problem, they are absolutely out of control'. The rest of the world looks at Australia and says: 'gambling is their problem'. And what has become normal to us in Australia is absolutely abnormal in the rest of the world."
"Before pokies were introduced, women constituted less than 7% of problem gambling. With pokies it jumped to 52% of problem gamblers were women. The belly of the beast is NSW."
Gambling Costs More Than Money
"The percentage of people who gamble across the state is at about 53.5%, but here in Southern NSW it's at 67.4%. Lotto, sports betting and online casinos are areas we're seeing an increase in participation."
"The Gamble Aware Helpline provided 9538 people support in 2024/25."
Call 1800 858 858 for free support or counselling 24/7
Looking Organically at Place
"The (council) document we got was nothing about us advising anybody, it was all about us being told. It doesn't even contain a definition or description of what heritage is.
"Can anybody imagine a society that kept nothing of its past, that kept nothing that told us what our stories were, that kept nothing of our natural environment - and that's a big one here in the Shoalhaven."
"Tourists love this area for the pristine purity...a good heritage policy would outline all of that."
