Take a spin

PEOPLE Vintage car turns heads

Robert heads off on an adventure

Sandra and Robert Boone, Halcyon Greens

Motoring enthusiasts Robert and Sandra Boone are accustomed to turning heads in their vintage cars, the latest a 1959 white MG TF. “We’ve had Jaguars, BMWs and even a gold Porsche with gold wheels,“ Robert said. “People made a fuss about the Porsche.” Sandra laughed: “The police used to follow him in that one!”

“I haven’t driven it though, I’m not up for that.” The couple, who live at Halcyon Greens, have owned the MG for around six years having bought it from a collector who had installed a Mazda engine and gearbox, making it a 5-speed instead of a 4-speed. “One of the other benefi ts of having a Mazda engine is that you can drive into any Mazda dealership and have it serviced.” Over the years the pair have been incredibly active in car clubs and spent many weekends on jaunts around the countryside. “I just love cars,” Robert said. “They have been a passion of mine ever since I was old enough to drive one.”

Cook’s Halcyon Days

Words by Rob Davis, Halcyon Parks

John Ingram ‘Lord Barge Pole’, Yoka Fengler ‘Sailor #1’, play creator/writer Rob Davis and Linda Smith ‘Connie’.

Off we walked one Friday morning…

There’s this group called The Halcyon Parks’ Pacers. At dawn each Friday we stride the Sunshine Coast’s scenic walkways, sniffi ng out eggs and bacon. One beautiful sunrise in 2019, a few of us paused on Moff at Headland. Out to sea was a sailing ship beating north with the rising sun on its starboard bow.

Perhaps Captain Cook, on the same sparkling sea 250 years earlier, might have hove-to and surfed ashore. Imagine that for a minute. Back at Kings Beach for breakfast, with suitable fanfare, I announced to the rest of the group that I would write a play about Cook’s visit to Moff at Beach. “That’s nice,” they said. The rest of the group tucked into their breakfast and then we caught the bus home. I’m sure you understand that in addition to bashing together a script, there’s one or two other small details involved in ‘doing’ a play. We didn’t. Breakfast on Kings isn’t where you discuss details. You concentrate on your acai bowl. You don’t consider stuff like actors, lights, sound, music, costumes, props or money. Somehow, that always sorts out magically back at Halcyon Parks. It’s something I’ve known for a long time. Ours is a remarkable community. The place brims with wonderful homeowners and management support and generosity. People step up at HP! Emotionally, I am humbled by the remarkable personal and corporate donations we received. I’m proud to call my community ‘home’ and watched more magic happen… Aiming for two shows in November, 20 actors joined vocalists and a technical crew to begin rehearsing Cook, with Music! last February. Cook, with Music! is an historical musical comedy. There’s tragedy, sadness, romance and eventually some compromise and reconciliation. The cast are desperate to keep it under wraps, but there are some memorable characters who poke fun at themselves and history. Believe me they’re very good! Cook’s real purpose is to feed enthusiasm to form a Drama Company. If we succeed, perhaps other communities might try the same. It just takes a walk and some imagination.

Sew, it’s come to this

Christine Stuer, Lynn Whybrow and Lyn Taylor

Stitch by stitch, Halcyon Lakeside homeowner Lynn Whybrow is helping make a diff erence for kids in need.

Lynn is the convenor of the Stitcher’s Hub in the Bli Bli community, a group which began as a sewing get-together and has grown into a volunteer workforce of tailors giving new life to old clothes. “It started when Halcyon Lakeside fi rst opened, which is nearly fi ve years ago,” Lynn said. “It started in somebody’s house and then we got bigger and moved down to a craft room within the recreation club, then that got too small after a while. “There was another room being used for something else and Halcyon turned it into the Stitcher’s Hub, which is quite a large room, but we use every inch of it.” The Stitcher’s Hub are using their sewing expertise to support the work of Uniform 4 Kids, a charity that repurposes old government, police and fi re uniforms into clothes for disadvantaged children around Australia.

“My main forte is dressmaking, that’s one of my loves,” Lynn said. “I heard about Uniforms 4 Kids and thought it was something we could do and now we get a load of old uniforms which we unpick and turn into kids clothing. “They’re usually quite fun clothes but they’re also quite practical clothes. Mainly skirts, shorts and little tops ... the organisers have given us some really good ideas and it’s just limited by your imagination.” Lynn and her husband David came to Halcyon Lakeside as one of the fi rst homeowners, only six weeks after it opened. A retired accountant, Lynn said they enjoy the idyllic coastal setting and the casual, go-at-yourown-pace lifestyle of the community, which has won two national awards.

“We like the outlook here, it’s absolutely beautiful,” she said. “We really enjoy the community spirit here and I think if you lived in a house in the suburbs now, it would be really lonely.”