A conversation with

Hugh Mackay

Maleny Community Centre

6 for 6.30pm, tickets $27.50 and $19.20 for students

Bookings essential

Hugh Mackay has been described as ‘the man who explains us to ourselves’. He is a social psychologist par excellence and the bestselling author of twenty-five books, including The Way We Are and The Kindness Revolution, both of which he came to Maleny to speak about previously. He had a sixty-year career in social research and was for thirty years a weekly newspaper columnist. 

In recognition of his pioneering work, he has been awarded honorary doctorates by five Australian universities. In 2016 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia.   

 His new book, Just Saying, contains a series of highly personal reflections on twenty-five quotations from some of the world’s greatest thinkers and writers, from Confucius and Plato to Susan Sontag and Miles Franklin; from Samuel Johnson and Mary Wollstonecraft to Bertrand Russell and Gloria Steinem.

Interpreting our world and inspiring us to do better, Mackay explores themes ranging from kindness and humility to power and prejudice; from gender equality to ethnic diversity; from coping with change to the damage inflicted on ourselves by revenge, and the great gulf between propriety and virtue.

He will be in conversation with Steven Lang.

Lake Baroon

Caring for Catchment

A history by Elaine Green

It is with great pleasure that we launch this book.

The evening will begin with a short interview with both Elaine Green, the author, and Peter Stevens, President of Lake Baroon Catchment Care Group, talking about the book and why it was important it be written.

It is a history of both Baroon Pocket, and the dam that came to be built there, and of how a community undertook to improve the quality of the water throughout the catchment (along with lots of photos!)

It talks about the history of the region and how a different approach to catchment care - one that involved listening to those who live and farm in the region - delivered remarkable results. It explains how this group grew, over a period of 25 years, from having one person employed for half a day a week, to the single most successful catchment care group in Queensland, with three full-time and two part time staff and a frankly astonishing budget that matches their achievements.

In a world of environmental woe this is a great story, one that deserves to be celebrated (and recreated in other catchments). 

Up here in the Hinterland, we live right at the centre of it. 

We are extremely grateful for the support of the Sunshine Coast Arts Foundation