REGARDING THE RESILIENT HOMES INITIATIVE Serenitas Celebrates Mother’s Day with New Cookbook of Sweet Delights

Following the success of last year’s inaugural Mother’s Day cookbook, Serenitas’ over-50s lifestyle communities across the country have again shared their favourite family recipes for the Mother’s Day Sweet Moments Cookbook that is being gifted to all homeowners.

The Northern Rivers Reconstruction Corporation (NRRC) has announced that the first buy back of a flooded home in North Lismore has been completed. The purchase of the home was done for an undisclosed sum, and the NRRC has fenced and secured the area.

The NRRC has released an update of the Resilient Homes Program progress as of Monday, 8th May.

831 people have been assessed as eligible for a buyback, and 326 valuations have been undertaken. Of these 831 people, 251 have now received offers, and 61 have accepted their offers. This is up from 191 when the dashboard was last updated on April 27.

Overall, 6471 people have registered for the Resilient Homes Program. The NRRC has also released a Resilient Lands Strategy, which is due for release by the end of May. Buybacks in some of the hardest flood hit areas of Lismore, Tweed, Byron

Bay, Richmond Valley, Kyogle, Ballina and the Clarence Valley are being prioritised in the first phase of the program.

The NRRC has also pledged to let everyone registered for the program know of their indicative eligibility by mid-year. The Resilient Homes Program also includes house raising and retrofitting. The NRRC is working with local councils, landholders, and relevant stakeholders to ensure the best outcomes for these communities.

They have also revealed that they are considering other options for people who are unable to access buyback offers.

The buyback of the first flooded home in Lismore is a major milestone for the NRRC, and a sign of the progress that is being made in the region. The NRRC is continuing to work with local communities and stakeholders to ensure the best outcomes for the residents of the Northern Rivers region.

Serenitas CEO Rob Nichols says, “The Mother’s Day cookbook was a huge success last year, celebrating the many wonderful home cooks within our communities and paying homage to the many women, past and present, who have made a significant and lasting impact in our lives.

Due to popular demand and the overwhelming positive feedback, we have created a new Mother’s Day cookbook, this time with a focus on sweets and treats, because it’s the right of every mum, grandma and great grandma to spoil loved ones.”

From watching our mums or grandmothers cook and bake, to sharing a sweet treat with a cup of tea, to serving up a showstopper dish to celebrate a special moment, food is a powerful connector. All the recipes in the Sweet Moments Cookbook embody meaningful moments and capture the love that is synonymous with our mothers’ powerful presence in our lives.

Allison Sharp, a homeowner at The Anchorage Lifestyle

Resort, says of her Nana Poochy’s Biscuit Pastry recipe, “This recipe came from my mum’s handwritten recipe book, which I will always keep with me. I learned my baking skills from my nan, who was an amazing cook and an even better teacher.”

Robyn Gartrell from Tuart Lakes Lifestyle Resort grew up living make do with what was in the pantry and so the Mystery Cake was created using a can of tomato soup.

“About ten years ago I got out all my old recipe cards, the yellow kind that we used to write recipes on and keep in a plastic box. I sat down for about two months and handwrote each of my recipes for all my the best gift she had ever received, and that means the world to me as her mother.”

“The Mother’s Day Sweet Moments Cookbook is a tribute to the many memories that are etched forever in our hearts and minds, as most of the recipes have been passed down through the generations and shared at special moments. These memories are brought back to life as we cook and share these favourite treats,” adds Rob Nichols.

With over 20 recipes from Serenitas homeowners and staff, the Mother’s Day Sweet Moments Cookbook features favourite go-to recipes that are perfect for when you need to quickly whip up a batch of biscuits or slice, bake a celebratory cake or decorate a flan, and everything in between. As Anna Brown, Resort Manager at Thyme Mareeba, so aptly puts it, “Nowadays whenever the family gets together, we always say Mum is with us, because there is always a dish that makes us think of her.” far out of town so popping down to the shops wasn’t an option. Her mum often had to three children and gave it to them all as gifts,” explains Robyn. “My daughter told me it was

The Mother’s Day Sweet Moments Cookbook is a wonderful, memorable keepsake for Serenitas homeowners and an important reminder to us all to cherish the women, past and present, who have impacted our lives as we serve up their sweet delights to family and friends.

IN English, the most compatible if not complicit of verbal and notional accomplices are the words silence and solitude. The alliteration alone pairs them up in the most suited of ways; what’s more, they could even be spelt ‘sigh-lence’ and ‘soul-itude’, and no one would even know, seeing their pronunciation remains practically unchanged.

The Polish Nobel Prizewinning poet Wisława Szymborska once suitably said, “When I pronounce the word Future, the first syllable already belongs to the past. When I pronounce the word Silence, I destroy it.” Defined by an absence, silence is the ultimate orchestrator of the medium of speech, without it, there would be just uninterrupted noise – nothing but the rushing jibber of sound that makes no sense whatsoever. Little wonder then, the Estonian word for silence is ‘vaikus’.

Relatedly, Brennan Manning once noted, “Silent solitude makes true speech possible and personal. If I am not in touch with my own belovedness, then I cannot touch the sacredness of others.

If I am estranged from myself, I am likewise a stranger to others.” Thus, without the strengthening aid of reflective silence we become disconnected from the distinguishing essence of our true selves; and from there we become mere drifting presences, lost within the all-intrusive static of a culture incapable of saying anything of worth, let alone ever shutting up.

For some, silence and the ability to remain silent is like a superpower, it enables time – however little or a lot – to lessen the