News

Get a load of this: Soft plastics drop-offs coming to Wollongong after Christmas

It’s been two years since the collapse of the REDcycle supermarket scheme for recycling soft plastics. But the volunteers at Circular Plastics Illawarra are ending the year on a happy note – the soft sound of scrunching plastics at special...

Stanwell Park’s Banksia Bushcare wins award for fostering community spirit

After a lifetime of Bushcare work at Stanwell Park and lots of local love, Kieran Tapsell has received his first official award.

Speaking to power

The University of Wollongong’s Ty Christopher has a cost-cutting clean energy message he says we should be “screaming from the rooftops”. It’s been lost as election-bound politicians debate our electricity mix decades into the future and the...

Donations pour in as community rallies round to support local family

Donations have poured in for Monica Offergeld after her husband, Shaun Wendt, passed away suddenly in December. Almost 200 people have rallied round to raise more than $25,000 to help Monica and her sons, Rhys and Max. Otford local Natasha Watson...

Bushwalk reopens: First look at Wodi Wodi Track

Where once bushwalkers had to scramble or slide, there are now beautiful sandstone stairs. Welcome to the new and improved Wodi Wodi Track. After being closed for repairs for a year and a half, the track reopened today, December 20. It’s another...

Living Connected offers a life-changing service for seniors lost in the digital fog

Ok, all you baby boomers reading this, trying to pretend (as I do occasionally) that we’re so up to date with rapidly changing technology. I could only wish!! Did you know there’s a fabulous service available in the Illawarra (much of it free) which...

Support growing for world-class Illawarra regional museum

Momentum is building for ambitious plans to create a world class regional museum and cultural centre in the Illawarra. The Illawarra Flame has revealed exclusively two concept proposals; one to be located on surplus steelworks land at Port Kembl...

Opinion

Yours and Owls’ mega foreshore event: why our Council is caught between a rock (’n’ roll) and a hard place

Can I start this piece by being totally up front – you won’t find a bigger lover of noisy, outdoor live music events than me (so put another coin in the jukebox baby). Over the past 25 years, I’ve had the privilege of playing a lead role (together...

Last Weekend edition of the year

TAFE courses help prepare us for the Christmas party food and wine frenzy

Every December the Illawarra’s restaurants, pubs, bars, and function spaces are booked solid as we eat and drink our way towards Christmas and New Years Eve. It’s that time of year again. School formals, work Christmas parties, long lunches and...

From volunteer to pilot manager: John Buchelin shares an electrifying journey

John Buchelin started out as an Electrify 2515 volunteer, letterboxing flyers on local streets with his daughter after soccer practice. Two years on, he’s the operations manager for the new community pilot, a partnership by non-profit Rewiring...

Dear Santa: All the Otford kids want for Christmas is a playground

Santa may find some special requests in his mailbox at Helensburgh Library, as the children of Otford share Christmas wishes for a playground of their own.

Expert hopes abandoned rail project will get back on track with support of new Lord Mayor

“I’ve spent half my lifetime working on this project.“ Local rail expert Dr Philip Laird wrote his first submission in support of the Maldon to Dombarton rail link way back in 1983. Decades later, he’s more hopeful than ever that the on again-off...

Media release

Council’s Yours and Owls Flagstaff Hill event statement

On Tuesday, 10 December Wollongong City Council issued the following statement on Yours and Owls at Flagstaff Hill. Flagstaff Hill has been available as a potential event location since March 2014, when the location was captured as part of the...

Wollongong City Council

City celebrates rise of Green Gravity in Wollongong

Elon Musk’s Tesla home batteries beware – there’s a new, cheaper and more sustainable way of storing rooftop solar on the rise, and it’s made in Wollongong. “At Green Gravity, we are an energy storage developer and we’ve developed...

What's On

Lights, carols and action: 6 festive things to do

Late to the Christmas fun this year? There’s still time to find your Christmas Spirit™. Our round up will have you jingling your bells and reaching for the eggnog. Christmas Carols You can keep your presents and your trifle (okay, maybe share your...

Amanda De George

Community forum seeks a green, safe, flood-free city for our future

Submissions have now closed for the community to provide input into one of the most important strategic documents to guide Wollongong’s future for the next decade. Wollongong City Council reviews its Community Strategic Plan – ‘a shared community...

Windang Public School kids’ art features in new book

Nothing captures the imagination like an enchanting children’s picture book and Windang Public School have created one that is exactly that. ‘The Island and the Bridge’ is a spectacular children’s book written by former student and current...

Lesley Roulston

Exclusive

City’s elder statesmen call on Council to support grand cultural and heritage centre

There’s overwhelming support for the proposal to create a world-class regional museum in the Illawarra from two of Wollongong’s most influential people of the past 50 years. As reported exclusively in The Illawarra Flame, last month a proposal was...

Electrify 2515 Community Pilot: Locals share their views

After 600 people packed into Anita’s Theatre for Electrify 2515’s Community Pilot launch on Sunday, November 10. After the offical speeches by Dr Saul Griffith, pilot leaders and an audience Q&A, local residents shared their thoughts. Courtney...

What's On

Your Weekend edition is out

Christmas Carols begin this Saturday, December 7 in Helensburgh and then on Thursday 12th there’s a new addition to the calendar: Carols in MacCabe Park, directed by jazz vocalist and tutor Trish Delaney-Brown of the Wollongong Conservatorium of Music. Read all about it in today’s cover feature. Inside the Weekend magazine, you’ll also find the stories of Tim Donnelly, the local dad launching his first art show tonight after a year of battling cancer; Sage McAteer, the 16-year-old playwright we featured on a cover in December 2017, now a professional actor and dancer. Plus, Cathy Law meets the Lili J Cafe sisters planning pop-ups in the new year.