Margaret Skagias has been awarded a Community Recognition Statement for her work with CaringKids, a charity dedicated to supplying toys for youth carers.
The award was given for their efforts in raising awareness and providing support to children who provide care for a family member living with a disability or illness.
“Thank you Dr Marjorie O’Neill – Member for Coogee for all your efforts to recognise and support charity work in our community,” CaringKids said on social media.
“You have assisted CaringKids to collect donations of toys, games and puzzles for children in need and been a voice championing the recognition and support of children with caring responsibilities.”
Margaret Skagias, founder and director of ‘CaringKids’, was motivated four years ago to make sure that these children are able to enjoy their youth while taking care of their family members from home.
“We’ve recycled half a tonne of toys over the last three years and our toy boxes have travelled over 50,000 km around Australia,” Margaret Skagias said to The Greek Herald.
“It’s that one moment where you can make that difference”
Community Recognition Statements congratulate or acknowledge the achievements of people or groups in the community, recognise charity work, retirement or honours and award or express words of thanks or condolences.
Donations for CaringKids are received at the Office of Dr Marjorie O’Neill. Find donation guide here:
Many Australians have loosely heard about the traditions that take place during Greek Easter, but unless you’ve lived it, nobody really knows. The cultural experience is unrivalled among any other global Easter celebrations and will be showcases on the Network 10 program ‘The Living Room’ this Friday at 7:30pm.
Kristina and Tim Theodorou appeared with their family on the Network 10 program to talk about how Greek easter brings their family closer than ever.
“Easter is important to us because it’s a time where we share our Greek traditions… It’s just a really special time to get everybody together and celebrate,” Kristina and Tim said on the program.
Photo: Supplied
The Greek Herald spoke with Kristina Theodorou ahead of the programs airing date to find out how Greek Easter celebrations are more unique than other cultures.
“I think it’s a really big celebration in our culture,” Kristina said to The Greek Herald.
“We’ve got a lot of traditions attached to Easter in our culture. Not only religiously, but whole build up… What we do is very different and very unique like dyeing the eggs, having god-parents and exchanging gifts and having a huge feast.”
The COVID-19 pandemic last year saw Greek Easter celebrated isolated and at home for the first time in history. However, this only made families like the Theodorou’s grateful and more excited for a more enriching experience this year.
Photo: Supplied
“We’re really looking forward to going to church and having family be able to come over and not just drop biscuits on the veranda door,” Kristina added.
“Just having our kids have their godparents come and exchange gifts as well.”
Kristina said concluded that she felt “privileged” to share her cultural heritage on The Living Room, adding that she hopes Australians will understand their traditions for the future.
Photo: Supplied
“I think it’s really important for Australians other than Greeks, Greek Australians, to see how we do it and to see our hospitality, our traditions that we passed down through this generation,” Kristina concluded.
“Being Greek Australian we really to keep to traditions as much as we can, and follow what our parents taught us. Hopefully our children do the same, but it’s really important to share it.”
All New The Living Room, this Friday at 7:30pm on 10.
Hippocrates (460 – 370 BC) was a Greek doctor who studied the human body and discovered that there were scientific reasons for ailments. Hippocrates’ breakthrough in medicine include developing the theory of the four fluids, or ‘the four humours’, giving the first description of clubbed fingers, thoracic empyema, a cure for haemorrhoids, the principle of endoscopy, documented epilepsy, used the rectal speculum as a diagnostic tool to detect ailments, first understood the importance of a good diet, and pointed out the symptoms of pneumonia. Hippocrates was the first to recognise that disease occurred naturally and was not due to supernatural influences. Hippocrates teachings and practices, including the Hippocratic oath detailed in the Hippocratic Corpus, remains relevant today.
2. Mathematics and Music
Pythagoras of Samos (569 – 470 BC) is well-known for inventing numerology and the Pythagorean theorem. Pythagoras began his theory of numbers by discovering the numerical relationship between numbers and musical notes. Pythagoras identified the physics of intervals, or distance between notes, that form the primary harmonic system which is still used today. Particularly, Pythagoras discovered the foundations of musical tuning known as Pythagorean tuning.
3. Heliocentrism
Aristarchus of Samos (310 – 230 BC) first proposed the astronomical ‘heliocentrism’ model in 200 BC to suggest that the Earth revolves around the Sun. Aristarchus’s model placed the Sun at the center of the solar system with everything else, including the Earth and other plants, revolving around it. Nicolaus Copernicus, a 16th century mathematician who later went on to prove Aristarchus’s hypothesis, is often credited with the discovery. Heliocentric theory became the foundation of all modern astronomy and advanced the understanding of gravity and inertia.
4. The water screw
Archimedes of Syracuse (287 – 212 BC), an engineer, physicist, inventor, astronomer and mathematician, invented what is commonly known today as the Archimedes screw around 250 BC. The Archimedes screw is a machine used for transferring water into irrigation ditches. The screw is widely used by agriculturalists to raise irrigation water and for land draining. In addition, Archimedes is credited for his “Eureka!” moment in which he discovered the ‘Archimedes principle’ of buoyancy, designing the Iron Claw war machine, theorising the concept of an odometer, and developing the pulley system.
5. Geometry
Thales of Miletus (624 – 546 BC) has been credited with the discovery of five geometric theorems: that a circle is bisected by its diameter; that angles in a triangle opposite two sides of equal length are equal; that opposite angles formed by intersecting straight lines are equal; that the angle inscribed inside a semicircle is a right angle; and that a triangle is determined if its base and the two angles at the base are given. Today, Thales is most commonly remembered for his hypothesis that water is the original principle of both nature and matter.
Emeritus Professor Paul Cartledge will present an online lecture entitled The Forgotten City of Thebes, on Thursday 8th April 2021, 7.00pm, as a part of the Greek History and Culture Seminars offered by the Greek Community of Melbourne.
Thebes – the one in ancient Greece (not to be confused with its Egyptian homonym) – was a major city, both historically and mythologically. In this talk the aim is to treat both the city of Myth (Oedipus et al.) and the city of History (Epameinondas).
Thebes has suffered historiographically from being squeezed between the histories of Athens, Sparta and Alexander the Great. It suffered in another way at the hands of the latter: he had it physically destroyed, near-obliterated. For those reasons it’s been too often ‘Forgotten’.
Professor Paul Cartledge is the AG Leventis Senior Research Fellow of Clare College, and formerly the inaugural AG Leventis Professor of Greek Culture in the University of Cambridge.
He is the author, co-author, editor or co-editor of some 30 books, most recently Democracy: A Life (Oxford University Press, 2018) and Thebes: the forgotten city of ancient Greece (Picador & Abrams, 2020).
He was chief historical consultant for the BBC TV series The Greeks and the Channel 4 series The Spartans, presented by Bettany Hughes. Professor Cartledge is also a holder of the Gold Cross of the Order of Honour of Greece and an Honorary Citizen of modern Sparta. Most recently he has been awarded the Commander of the Order of Honour (Ταξιάρχης τῆς Τιμῆς), for his ‘contribution to enhancing Greece’s stature abroad’.
Second seed Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece was sent crashing out of the quarter-finals by Polish 26th seed Hubert Hurkacz as the upsets continued at the Miami Open on Thursday.
A day after top seed Daniil Medvedev was bundled out of the tournament, Tsitsipas was sent packing 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 on the Hard Rock Stadium’s Grandstand Court in 2hr 20min.
Tsitsipas exited the tournament after a tense encounter that saw the 22-year-old Greek given a time violation after the second set for taking too long to change his shirt and headband.
The world number five was also reportedly involved in a tense exchange with officials before the match after refusing to share a golf cart with Hurkacz used to ferry players to the court.
Stefanos Tsitsipas beaten 6-2 3-6 4-6 by Hubert Hurkacz in the quarterfinals of the Miami open. Photo: Getty Images
There was no sign that incident had unsettled Tsitsipas early on, however, as he dominated a one-sided first set to win 6-2.
Tsitsipas then quickly broke Hurkacz at the start of the second on the way to a 2-0 lead.
But just when it appeared the match was heading for a brisk conclusion, Hurkacz finally found his range.
After staving off two break points at 15-40 in the third game, Hurkacz went on to hold and then broke to level the set at 2-2.
Another break of serve in the eighth game put Hurkacz 5-3 up and he made no mistake on his next service game, clinching the set with an angled drop shot that left Tsitsipas scrambling to the net.
Tsitsipas demanded an appearance from the tournament supervisor at the end of the second set after being given a time warning by the umpire.
The momentum was with Hurkacz in the third and seized control with a break in the fifth game, which would ultimately prove decisive as the Pole closed out the win.
Former Metro Trains manager Peter Bollas is under investigation by Victoria’s Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) for tipping off a cleaning company about a surprise COVID-19 cleaning audit during Melbourne’s deadly second coronavirus wave last year.
IBAC is holding an inquiry into alleged corrupt payments from a cleaning company to two public transport officials, including Peter Bollas and Transclean employee Steven Kyritsis.
Today’s IBAC hearing, ABC News reports, heard an intercepted phone call in which Mr Bollas gave advance warning to Transclean about a surprise COVID-19 cleaning audit.
Metro Trains assured the public in March that enhanced cleaning was being undertaken on all trains “to keep people safe”.(Supplied: Metro Trains)
The tapped phone call played today revealed Mr Bollas giving dates and times of the surprise cleaning audits to Transclean employee, Steven Kyritsis, and also telling him to improve their special COVID-sanitising procedure, inferring it might not be up to standard.
“The spraying needs to get better,” Mr Bollas told Mr Kyritsis on July 13, referring to the microbial spraying mandated by Metro to reduce the risk of spreading coronavirus.
Transclean provided cleaning services to V/Line and Metro Trains, and last year Mr Bollas admitted to IBAC he received up to $150,000 in corrupt cash payments from Transclean.
“If you need to put an extra person on there … put a f***ing extra person and that’ll show your extra hours.
“Do not f*** it up.”
Mr Kyritsis responded by saying he had “redone all the documentation for North (Melbourne station), refilled, checked it”.
But under questioning at the IBAC hearing, Mr Kyritsis denied their cleaning was not adequate and public safety was at risk.
Scientists have been working for more than a century to decipher the Antikythera Mechanism, which is a hand-powered, 2,000-year-old device used by ancient Greek’s to calculate astronomical positions.
Now researchers at University College London (UCL) believe they have solved the mystery of the ‘world’s oldest computer’ by building a digital replica with a working gear system at the front – the piece that has eluded the scientific community since 1901.
Using a combination of X-ray images and ancient Greek mathematical analysis, the team decoded the design of the front gear to match physical evidence and inscriptions etched in the bronze.
Computer model of how the Antikythera mechanism may have worked. Photograph: UCL / The Guardian.
The digital result shows a center dome representing Earth that is surrounded by the moon phase, the sun, Zodiac constellations and rings for Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.
“Ours is the first model that conforms to all the physical evidence and matches the descriptions in the scientific inscriptions engraved on the Mechanism itself,” lead researcher, Professor Tony Freeth, says in the journal Scientific Reports.
“The Sun, Moon and planets are displayed in an impressive tour de force of ancient Greek brilliance.”
Thinking behind the new research:
In 1901, divers looking for sponges off the coast of Antikythera, a Greek island in the Aegean Sea, stumbled upon a Roman-era shipwreck that held the highly sophisticated astronomical calculator.
The Antikythera Mechanism has baffled scientists for years.
The Antikythera Mechanism has since captivated the scientific community and the world with wonder, but has also sparked an investigation into how an ancient civilisation fashioned such an incredible device.
Michael Wright, a former curator of mechanical engineering at the Science Museum in London, pieced together much of how the mechanism operated and built a working replica, but researchers have never had a complete understanding of how the device functioned. Their efforts have not been helped by the remnants surviving in 82 separate fragments.
Writing in the journal Scientific Reports, the UCL team describe how they drew on the work of Wright to work out new gear arrangements that would move the planets and other bodies in the correct way. The solution allows nearly all of the mechanism’s gearwheels to fit within a space only 25mm deep.
Pictured is the digital construction of the front gear system. Photo: nature.com / UCL.
The researchers believe the work brings them closer to a true understanding of how the Antikythera device displayed the heavens, but it is not clear whether the design is correct or could have been built with ancient manufacturing techniques.
The concentric rings that make up the display would need to rotate on a set of nested, hollow axles, but without a lathe to shape the metal, it is unclear how the ancient Greeks would have manufactured such components.
“The concentric tubes at the core of the planetarium are where my faith in Greek tech falters, and where the model might also falter,” Adam Wojcik, a materials scientist at UCL, told The Guardian.
Greek kefi was on full display at George’s Mediterranean Bar & Grill in Sydney on March 27, as the local Greek community gathered to celebrate the bicentenary of the Greek Revolution.
Attendees of the Greek Independence Dinner, which was organised by the owner of the restaurant, George Vardis, along with co-organisers Christina Tsatsoulis and Nikos Andriotakis, danced and sang until the early hours of the morning.
Everyone enjoyed the night. Photos: Vasilis Vasilas.
Throughout the night, they were also treated to professional dancing performances from St Dimitrios Dance Group, as well as music from Grigory Golas on the klarino, Michalis Platyrrahos on the laouto, Yiannis Polkas on the guitar and Chrystoforos Skenderidis playing the keyboard. The sound mix itself was organised by Bill Iliadis and Byron from Enmore Theatre.
The event was hailed a great success by all who visited the family restaurant on King Street Wharf, including those hundreds of passerby’s who stopped to record and share in the celebrations on the night!
The Cretan Federation of Australia & New Zealand and the Battle of Crete & Greece Commemorative Council in conjunction with Major League Brands, are proud to announce that six iconic images all relating to the Battle of Crete will feature on the BAKERS FINEST Commemorative Anzac Biscuit Tins. These tins – which contain Anzac biscuits – are produced by Major League Brands with proceeds going to the RSL to support its work assisting veterans and their families.
All six tins have been dedicated to the 80th Anniversary for the Battle of Crete with images including: (a) Three Stuka Force planes screaming down, the seaside town of Chania, showing peaceful serenity which eventually gave way for a devastating attack, (b) The airborne invasion as the menacing spectacle that confronted the ANZAC and Allied Forces, (c) The Australian RAF Spitfire crew including Australia airmen returning from Rethymnon, (d) Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance, (e) Canberra’s Australian War Memorial and (f) Sydney’s ANZAC Memorial in Hyde Park.
Each edition of the tin is adorned with a historic image from Australia’s ANZAC legend. This is the second time that an image from the Greece and Crete campaigns has featured on the tins. The first was in 2017 with The image of the diggers on the Acropolis, resting beneath the famous Caryatids of the Erechtheion, symbolising the experience of Greece and its culture by the thousands of Australian soldiers and nurses during the campaign in Greece and Crete.
Mr Tsourdalakis, who is President of the Cretan Federation of Australia & New Zealand, said that it was a great honour to have Crete and its connection to Anzac chosen to feature on this year’s commemorative tins. He thanked Mr. Matt Usher from Major League Brands for accepting the proposal to dedicate this years Tins to the 80th Anniversary for the Battle of Crete.
“This recognition will bring the Anzac connection to Greece into tens of thousands of homes across Australia. This is a great initiative for all of us interested in raising awareness of the Anzacs in Crete in 1941 and more generally for the whole of the Hellenic community in Australia,” Mr Tsourdalakis said.
Battle of Crete & Greece Commemorative Council Chairman, Mr. Jim Papadimitriou, pointed out that the photographs are very unique photographs of the Australian involvement in the Battle of Crete held in the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.
Both Mr Tsourdalakis and Mr Papadimitriou, urged members of the community to purchase their own Commemorative Anzac Biscuit Tins to support the RSL’s work and to have a beautiful reminder and memento of the year when Anzacs came to Greece in WW2 – before they sell-out!
Mr Tsourdalakis also stated that the Federations National program of events commemorating the 80th Anniversary for the Battle of Crete would be announced in coming days, including events in Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane, Hobart, Adelaide, Perth and in New Zealand.
The Tins can currently be purchased at all major Woolworths, Coles and Aldi stores across Australia.
Anyone who knows me well would know that I’m an avid reader of all things romantic fiction, so when I was asked to review Peter Prineas’ new book, Wild Colonial Greeks, I have to admit I was a bit hesitant.
The book’s blurb spoke of all things history and “colonial times” and a quick flick through the pages made me aware of an over 50-page reference list – all things I typically don’t look for in a book.
But boy, was I wrong! From the minute I started reading, I was hooked.
Bringing colonial Greeks to life:
Wild Colonial Greeks not only brought to life Greeks who arrived on Australian shores in colonial times, but it also expertly weaved in how colonial Australia viewed these Greeks at the time through frequent newspaper reports.
Two Greeks who stood out to me in particular were the goldfields doctor, Spiridion Candiottis, and Melbourne port hotelier, Andreas Lagogiannis. Spiridion drew my attention due to his clear surgical skill and fight to be recognised as a legitimate doctor in Clermont, Queensland. The tragic circumstances of the death of his daughter, Eugenie, also highlighted the extreme hardships these Greeks faced in a foreign land.
Peter launched his book ‘Wild Colonial Greek’ in March.
Andreas on the other hand, surprised me for totally different reasons. He was constantly fighting to defend his name and honour in the local court and although some would say he didn’t understand the culture of the place, in my opinion he came across as someone who wasn’t willing to give up no matter what hardship was thrown his way.
Now, it must be mentioned here that as someone who is in the 20-30 age bracket, these specific stories resonated with me the most because the way they were written made me feel as though I wasn’t reading a historical book, but rather a narrative of the everyday lives of everyday people.
However, that’s not the only reason why the book is so relatable. In fact, I can definitely see how others might relate to the book even just for the simple fact that it focuses on migration stories and helps people understand how Greeks contributed to multicultural Australia right from the very beginning.
The first Greek:
And then of course there was one of the main aspects of Prineas’ book – its attempt to push back the date of Greek settlement in Australia by nearly six years.
Back in August 2020, I wrote a historical article for The Greek Herald about “the arrival of the first Greeks in 1829.” They were, according to the article, Georgios Vasilakis, Gikas Voulgaris, Georgios Laritsos, Antonis Manolis, Damianos Ninis, Nikolaos Papandreas and Konstantinos Strompolis. With this information already in my mind, I was unsure whether Prineas would be able to convince me that Greek settlement had actually occurred years before the arrival of these men, but he does.
Prineas points to a report in The Sydney Morning Herald dated June 28, 1878, which mentions the funeral at Castle Hill of a ‘George Manuel or George Emanuel’ who is said to have lived in the colony for 76 years – that would mean he arrived in Australia much earlier than the seven convicts.
Now, while I won’t spoil the rest of the supportive evidence for the readers of this article, I can guarantee you that Prineas makes some valid points for his argument that George was the first Greek to arrive in Australia. Valid enough to give his new book, Wild Colonial Greeks, a solid 9 / 10 rating. Although some chapters could’ve been shorter, with less newspaper references at times, I would still recommend this book to anyone who’s interested!
