Cr Jenny Dowell, Mayor of Lismore City Council – proud of the Move2Change program.

Lismore City Council has just won a national award at the 2014 Heart Foundation Local Government Awards, beating six other finalists with its Move2Change initiave.

Lismore Mayor Jenny Dowell thought the Lismore City Council was in the running to pick up an award when the Council were invited to sit on the head table with the Heart Foundation attendees. “It made me think, yes, we’re in with a chance, and I was thrilled when we won because it really acknowledged the work that we’ve done creating that Move2Change program.”

The program, targeted at people who normally don’t exercise, or eat as healthily as they might, allowed various sections of the community to attend classes for a subsidised amount of $2. “We offered the program to Aboriginal people, people with disabilities, the aged and the unemployed, and it gave them a chance to do classes such as water aerobics, or gym, or nutrition classes for a small amount of money,” says Dowell.

The program was a massive success. “It was very well subscribed,” says Dowell. “Lots of people undertook the program, and a lot of people have continued with the classes at a slightly higher rate. We’ve got community gardens planting and growing fresh food, then harvesting and sharing it at the gardens for people to take home, and I think it’s really proved once more what you can do when a community pulls together.”

Even starting excercise over 60 has a beneficial effect.

The Council has also put its money where its mouth is, quite literally. “We now have a Council Healthy Food Policy which is part of our sporting facilities, and of our own canteens,” Dowell says. “Also we’ve putting a lot more emphasis on the recreational side of family life such as walking paths in the area and bike tracks. Everything that gets people out there and being healthy. A lot of these things have come out of our debate around the design of public spaces, and what we are finding as these programs are self-sustaining. We’ve now trained our own fitness survivors of these course, and the program is reaching out to other areas like Clunes, Dunoon and Nimbin.”

Dowell feels it won’t be long before other councils will approach Lismore. “I believe that this program has the ability create long-lasting change,” she say. “We’ve got to be proud of that.”

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Yoga teacher Sue Hawkins greets the dawn in Byron Bay

Television and radio producer Sue Hawkins was working 18 hours a day and suffering from stress overload before she discovered yoga. 20 years later, Hawkins is one of the pioneers of yoga retreats, holding them regularly in Byron Bay, Bali and Europe, writes Georgina Bible.

“I felt something was missing from my life,” Byron-Bay based Yoga Health Retreats founder Sue Hawkins says of her past career in Sydney. “I was burnt out – like so many people working in advertising my entire life was built around work and eighteen hour days were not unusual. I was under huge stress and I’d started to read books about raising consciousness to try and deal with the pressure.” Scanning the pages of a new book, the words, ‘I need to find my centre,’ struck a deep chord, and Hawkins began the process of dissolving her life as she knew it. “When I read those words about finding my centre, it was like something fell into place,” she says. “I didn’t know how I would find my centre but I knew that somehow it involved going to yoga.”

Hawkins had already had a brush with yoga as a 21 year-old. But somehow she caught the attention of the teacher who was a 65 year-old yoga matriarch. “She was strict and was so hard on me if I missed class,” Hawkins says. “But I wasn’t looking for anything serious – I was just trying it out, so I stopped going.”

When the call to find her centre came seven years later, Hawkins inadvertently picked another taskmaster for a yoga teacher. But this time, she welcomed the discipline of a daily early morning yoga routine. However the more she studied the more yoga began to expose her inner conflict about working and living in the two divergent worlds of advertising and yoga. “I was running my own production company and was putting in huge hours every week,” Hawkins says. “My adrenals were burnt out. I was unhappy and ready for a change. So when a boyfriend told me he was moving to Byron Bay I jumped at it. I told him, ‘You’re my ticket out of Sydney!’”

Sue Hawkins: Founder of Yoga Health Retreats

Hawkins made the move from Sydney to Byron Bay in 1993. She continued with her yoga classes, bought a clothes shop and began importing clothes from Indonesia. One day she noticed a sign advertising a nine-month yoga teacher training course – it was a defining moment when everything fell into place. “I’d always wanted to be a teacher,” Sue says. “I remember as a child I loved to play games where I would pretend to be a teacher in front of a class of students. So becoming a yoga teacher was the most natural thing.”

In 1999, Sue sold her clothing shop and headed to India to deepen her knowledge in Astanga yoga, Ayurveda and philosophy. In Mysore she received a mantra and underwent initiation with a Vaishnava Guru which cemented her on the yogic path. Hawkins returned to Australia and taught yoga for Yoga Arts studio in Byron Bay where she also began to develop her dream of hosting yoga retreats.

Since 2001, Hawkins has been hosting yoga retreats internationally. Retreats are now held regularly in Byron Bay, Bali and in Europe. Sue says the main focus of the retreats is to nurture and inspire others to live a healthy and empowering life. However, it’s something she’s had to remind herself to do, especially earlier this year when her father died and after a major relationship breakdown.

“It was a difficult time,” says Hawkins. “There were days I did not even want to get out of bed in the morning, let alone do yoga. But I found that if I nurtured myself by going outside and just letting myself be in nature, nature gave me the energy to move. Nature gave me the energy to get out of bed in the morning. Nature gave me the energy to move to the mat, to continue my yoga practices and to be present with what was happening – to be present with the grief – and I feel great now. Life is cyclic – there will always be good times and hard times. You just have to be with what is – you have to find your centre in it.”

* An exclusive to Verandah Magazine readers – Yoga Health Retreats is offering a special discount to their next Bali Joyful Retreat in October. Bring a friend and receive a 10% discount off the price per person. To book, call 0404 467 744 or visit www.yogahealthretreats.com/yoga-retreats/bali-joyful-spirit/

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