Ellen Linke and Robyn Peacock

Members enjoyed two diverse guest speakers on Tuesday at the Portland Library.
Ellen Linke gave us a brief outline of how she became the first female editor of the Portland Observer.
Ellen spent most of her childhood in Heywood, and after leaving school was accepted into the Army.
Ellen met her husband Graeme there. After a time in the Army they decided to start a family and left to pursue business interests. Again, they faced a change of direction when Ellen saw that there was a need for workers to build the Portland Aluminum Smelter. Husband Graeme commenced working there, when they returned to Heywood.
Ellen was a stay at home Mum, when she saw an ad in the Portland Observer for a Heywood scribe.
Ellen began reporting on events in the Heywood area, as well as taking advertising and this was a gentle start to her career in the newspaper world. Her career blossomed from a small part time role, to a bigger role and finally full time journalist. Eventually Ellen became the Editor of the paper.
lt seems she has grasped every opportunity that came her way, and her love of words and writing, as well as a feeling for the community she lived in stood her in good stead.
Army, wife, mother, journalist , editor and even activist, as we all saw when she rallied us to march in support of our Hospital. A very interesting insight into Ellen’s life.

The second speaker was Robyn Peacock, a reasonably new import to our city. Robyn introduced us to geocaching, a sophisticated version of treasure hunting. The love of this activity has seen Robyn and her husband travel all over Australia and visit the countries of United States, Canada, Singapore to name a few.
They have solved over 12000 ‘caches’. Clues are given on an app, and then it is a matter of using your brain, as well as physical exercise to solve the puzzle. There is no ‘treasure’ as such, just the knowledge that they have solved and found the cache.
Check out geocaching.com.au or have a chat to Robyn if you are intrigued and want to follow up this topic.