On Thursday 8 April, the Official Launch of the Greek-Australian Society (GAS) was held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Sydney’s Central Business District.
A capacity attendance of close to 60 guests were present for the intimate cocktail event, with delegates and representations across the Greek-Australian community in Sydney, including the Consulate-General of Greece in Sydney, clubs and associations, and members of the media.
GAS President, Mr. George Psihoyios addressed those attending to thank them for their trust and support, announcing the first major initiative of the Society, the GAS Mentoring Program.
Photo: Supplied
The GAS Mentoring Program, an initiative exclusive to members, will connect students and young professionals with senior community leaders, providing a competitive edge in professional development while encouraging community participation and leadership.
Mr. Psihoyios stated that the Program gave GAS a clear objective and point of difference in a rich community tapestry, adding that the Society would provide “a pragmatic and genuine platform for emerging Greek-Australian talents and leaders”.
Keynote speakers and GAS Mentoring Program mentors, Mr. Paul Nicolaou and Mr. George Karagiannakis, both spoke of their immense pride to participate in the Program, stating their excitement at the growing momentum in living culture and promising to learn as much from their mentees as they could offer themselves.
Photo: Supplied
His Eminence, Greek Orthodox Archbishop Makarios also issued a letter of congratulations to GAS in his absence and wished every success, particularly to the GAS Mentoring Program launched on the night.
After the formalities, a silent auction was held for ‘GAS Member #1’ and, after a number of bids were received, the successful bid of $1000.00 was made by Mr. Emmanuel Alfieris.
The Consul General of Greece in Melbourne, Emmanouel Kakavelakis, visited Fronditha Care’s headquarters on Thursday, April 8.
During his visit, Mr Kakavelakis, discussed with President Jill Taylor (Nikitakis) and CEO Faye Spiteri, about the organisation’s beginnings, its activities and the long-standing services to the elderly members of Australia’s Greek community and enjoyed a guided tour of the facility.
“I thank Fronditha’s staff for the warm welcome and the detailed information on the organisation’s history and work. Fronditha provides an essential service for our community.
“It didn’t take long for me to realise the professionalism and exceptional training of the organisation’s staff and above everything, their devotion to our compatriots. I am very proud and congratulate the management, the staff and the volunteers for their dedication,” Mr Kakavelakis said.
Fronditha’s CEO, Faye Spiteri said that it was important for Fronditha to welcome the new Consul General in Melbourne and to present him with the various services provided to the community’s elderly.
“Fronditha is intertwined with the Greek language, culture and tradition and every possible contact with Greek authorities in Australia is important to us,” Ms Spiteri said.
The oganisation’s President, Jill Taylor (Nikitakis) said she was pleased and honoured with the Consul’s interest for the organisation.
“The Board of Directors and I, look forward to show Mr Kakavelaki our nursing homes and also our new aged care home in St Albans, which will be completed by the end of August.”
Prince of Wales Hospital Craniofacial director Dr Mark Gianoutsos has warned against using shopping centre lip filler injection clinics, saying they are preying on social media obsessed young women.
The leading plastic surgeon said cheap credit services like Afterpay are fuelling the abnormal sized lip trend.
“Particularly in the filler market, there are a lot of people who are driven to have injections and people who go and put it all on Afterpay in the shopping malls,” he said.
Lip fillers became popularised in 2015, when Kylie Jenner admitted that her plumped lips were the result of fillers, after intense media and fan speculation.
Kylie Jenner in 2011. Picture: Frazer Harrison/Getty
Kylie Jenner. Photo: Instagram
On an episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians, she said: “I have temporary lip fillers. It’s just an insecurity of mine, and it’s what I wanted to do.”
Although popularised by mainstream celebrities, the trend has become ubiquitous with Instagram influencers.
“There are elements of that which are predatory on people who do live their lives through other people’s social media accounts,” Dr Mark Gianoutsos adds.
Jessica Simpson. Photo: Getty Images
Dr Gianoutsos warned unscrupulous operators were providing lip filler services to people who did not need them with any counselling about having injections.
“You can see the results of that when you walk down the street and see what I would argue are people with very overfilled lips,” he said.
“It is often bizarre looking faces and appearances … I think it is a degree of body dysmorphia but it is largely social media driven.”
Psychologist Janine Rod said she had numerous patients who suffered with body image issues which she said came through social media because of the saturation of images which are edited beyond recognition of the original person.
“Abnormal has become normal because our sense of what is normal is so skewered,” she said.
“Their views are so distorted and then they look at their girlfriends who are all doing it so it becomes normal.”
On August 27th, 1829, Gikas Voulgaris becomes one of the first Greek convicts to arrive in Australia 192 years ago.
Voulgaris is hailed as the founding father of the Australian-Hellenic community.
Gikas Voulgaris was born around 1809 in the Aegean port village of Hydra, Greece.
Voulgaris grew up to be a sailor-fighter in the Greek War of Independence in the 1820s.
The Greek War of Independence was in its sixth year when the captain of the ship Herakles, Antonios Manolis, led an attack on the British ship Alceste on the 29th of July 1827. The Alceste was en-route from Malta to Alexandria, Egypt, when it was intercepted by seven sailors from Hydra, Greece, including Manolis and Voulgaris. The other Greek sailors, including Damianos Ninis, Georgios Vasilakis, Georgios Laristos, Nikolaos Papandreas, and Konstantinos Strompolis, removed Alceste’s cargo in attempt to curtail its plans to supply the Ottomans with weapons.
The Royal Navy, travelling on the Gannet, apprehended the sailors near Crete and led them to face their trials in Malta, a former British colony.
The trial controversially sentenced the group to be exiled to 14-years of death row in Sydney, Australia, on charges of piracy.
Subsequently, Gikas, along with 192 other criminals, set sail on the Norfolk on the 20th of May 1829.
Gikas arrived at Port Jackson, Sydney, on the 27th of August 1829 to serve his sentence.
The seven sailors were employed in the shipyards of Sydney Harbour, the vineyards of Parramatta and Camden, and as construction workers on Elizabeth House in Vaucluse.
Aftermath:
Greece was able to extend absolute pardons to the seven sailors in 1837, ahead of their sentence terms, once gaining independence.
Five of the sailors returned to Greece two years later. The other two, Manolis and Voulgaris, remained in Australia as free settlers.
Gikas married Irishwoman Mary Amelia Lyons in 1836 while living in Braidwood. Lyons was a 19-year-old girl who had migrated to Australia from County Cork, Ireland, on the Red Rover ship four years prior.
The pair constantly moved around in the Monaro district of southern-NSW to work as graziers.
They moved to Bukalong, where Voulgaris worked as a carrier on the Bibbenluke Station, in 1851.
Gikas became an Australian citizen and allegedly changed his name to Ginger/Zinger in 1861.
The pair moved to the Boco Creek, now part of Rockybah, which was just outside the Bibbenluke Boundary, in the late 1860s. Here, they built their house. Many remnants of Voulgaris’ stonework can still be seen, including the house foundations, stone wall and remains of a small church.
Legacy:
Gikas died less than 10 yeas later, aged 65, in 1874 in New South Wales.
He lies in Old Nimmitable Pioneer Cemetery in south-east NSW, Australia.
Gikas had 10 children, 5 girls, 5 boys, and 52 grandchildren.
It is understood via Kalie Zervos’ Australia’s Hardworking Greeks (2017)that Sue, a puppeteer in The Rocks, Sydney, claims to be one of Gikas’ many descendants. The families of Bulgary, Macfarlane, McDonald, and Stewart, are also speculated to descend from Gikas Voulgaris.
Newspaper articles from 1900 suggest that Greeks arrived in Australia decades before Gikas and his six fellow compatriots. Furthermore, what’s known about Gikas’ life is sketchy. His name had many variations, including Jigger Bulgary, Jekier Bulgaire, Jaickar Bulgaria, and Tsikas Bolgkeris.
The Greek Orthodox Community of Canberra and District, under former President Costas Tsoulias, held a requiem mass at his restored grave on the 23rd of March 2002 and more recently, on the 6th of December 2020 a memorial service was also held by His Eminence Archbishop Makarios as part of the National Committee events for the 200yr anniversary of Hellenic Independence.
The board of St Basil’s Homes NSW/ACT is understood to be considering the future of CEO Spiro Stavis, who was found by the NSW ICAC to have engaged in corrupt conduct in his former role with a local council, according to a report published in Australian Ageing Agenda.
The finding relates to activities that occurred between 2014-16 and is not related to his position with the provider.
In a report released on March 22nd, the corruption watchdog said Mr Stavis engaged in “serious corrupt conduct” in relation to planning proposals while he was the Director of City Planning at Canterbury City Council.
The NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) said Mr Stavis’ corrupt conduct included misusing his position to influence the outcome of a development application for a neighbour’s property, influencing a consultant to prepare a report for a planning proposals for a development to favour the developer’s interests, and editing a planning proposal to remove material critical of it from a draft report to the council’s City Development Committee.
The ICAC has referred the matter to the DPP and recommends it consider charging Mr Stavis with misconduct in public office.
Mr Stavis joined St Basil’s in 2016 and is a qualified town planner with more than 28 years experience in the private and public sectors. He was appointed CEO of St Basil’s in NSW and the ACT in 2020.
St Basil’s NSW/ACT is a registered charity and an activity of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia. It operates six residential facilities across metropolitan Sydney and provides community based services to more than 300 home care package consumers and days centre attendees in NSW and ACT.
The ICAC report also recommends charges against Canterbury’s former general manager Jim Maguire, former councillors Michael Hawatt and Pierre Azzi, and NSW MP Daryl Maguire in relation to ICAC’s investigation.
Criminologist Andy Kaladelfos is blunt in their assessment of how Australia’s justice system deals with sexual offences, the ABC reports.
“It is demonstrably not working in every way,” they said.
The University of NSW researcher has watched the issue of sexual assault and the harassment of women dominate news and politics in recent weeks.
Now, they are calling for a “wholesale re-evaluation” of how the justice system itself handles these crimes.
Dr Kaladelfos wants lawmakers to address the reasons why nearly 90 per cent of sexual assault victims don’t engage with the justice system.
They said the experiences of victim-survivors who do go through the court system also needed to be examined.
They are concerned trials have become so “awful” for victims, the justice system itself is deterring some people from reporting sexual offences to police.
It’s a sentiment echoed by sexual assault victims and victim advocates across Australia, but often not shared by those working within the justice system.
Dr Kaladelfos has spent years researching the way adult and child sexual assault victims are questioned during criminal trials.
In 2017, they and their colleagues published a study that compared the questioning of adult sexual assault complainants in contemporary trials, to trials run in the 1950s.
The researchers wanted to know if decades of law reform had improved the way victims were being questioned while giving evidence.
“We were expecting to find an improvement now, 70 years on,” Dr Kaladelfos said.
In that study, the researchers compared historic transcripts from NSW to contemporary transcripts from New Zealand, because the academics found “contemporary Australian transcripts are subject to access restrictions that make research untenable”.
Australian health authorities have advised the Pfizer vaccine should be given to Australians aged under 50, amid concerns of rare blood clots potentially linked to the AstraZeneca vaccination.
The federal government’s expert medical taskforce met on Thursday to consider the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine, following advice from the European Union’s medical regulator that “very rare cases of blood clots” were a side effect in the weeks after the vaccine was administered.
The United Kingdom has already decided to offer other vaccines, such as the one produced by Pfizer, to people aged under 30.
Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly made the announcement, flanked by the Prime Minister Scott Morrison, in an unexpected press conference on Thursday night.
Professor Kelly said people who have had their first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine, and had not experienced any “adverse side effects”, can be given their second dose.
Greece mulling age limitations for AstraZeneca vaccine
Greece’s National Committee of Vaccinations is considering whether to restrict the use of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine to a specific age group, because of the risk of a rare blood clot syndrome, a Health Ministry official said on Thursday.
“The National Vaccination Committee will most likely give its opinion on the AstraZeneca vaccine today or tomorrow at the latest,” said Marios Themistokleous, Health Ministry secretary general for Primary Health Care.
“We do not expect major changes in our vaccination schedule and there is no question in any European country of stopping vaccinations with this vaccine,” adding however that “what is being discussed is age restrictions.”
He went on to say that despite the upheaval, the rate of the public’s participation in vaccinations exceeds 90 percent and that there are 10,000-12,000 vaccinations with AstraZeneca on a daily basis.
The move follows an announcement by Europe’s drug regulator on Wednesday that it had found a possible link between AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine and rare blood clotting issues in adults who had received the shot, while adding that the incidents are rare.
Former EU Commissioner, Anna Diamantopoulou said the head of the European Commission should have addressed the diplomatic mishap in Ankara where she was left without a chair during a meeting with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The incident took place when European Council President Charles Michel, who was with Ursula von der Leyen at the meeting, took the only chair available next to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, relegating her to an adjacent sofa.
Το #SofaGate θα έπρεπε να έχει πρωταγωνίστρια την Ursula von der Leyen. Να απαιτήσει, μπροστά στις κάμερες, την τήρηση του πρωτοκόλλου ή να αποχωρήσει μεγαλοπρεπώς. Αυτό θα περίμενα, ως γυναίκα και ως Ευρωπαία.
— Anna Diamantopoulou (@adiamantopoulou) April 8, 2021
“Ursula von der Leyen should have been the protagonist of #SofaGate. She should have demanded, in front of the cameras, the observance of the protocol or leave in grand style. This is what I would have expected, as a woman and as a European,” she said in a tweet on her official account.
— Aušra Maldeikienė MEP 🇱🇹🇪🇺 (@maldeikiene) April 7, 2021
Draghi accuses Erdogan of humiliating EU’s von der Leyen
Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi accused Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan of humiliating European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen earlier this week, and said it was important to be frank with “dictators.”
Von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel met Erdogan in Ankara on Wednesday. The Commission chief was clearly taken aback when the two men sat on the only two chairs prepared, relegating her to an adjacent sofa.
“I absolutely do not agree with Erdogan’s behaviour towards President von der Leyen … I think it was not appropriate behaviour and I was very sorry for the humiliation von der Leyen had to suffer,” Draghi told reporters.
“With these, let’s call them what they are, dictators, with whom one nonetheless has to coordinate, one has to be frank when expressing different visions and opinions,” he added.
Kogarah’s Greek Orthodox church, ‘The Resurrection of our Lord, our Lady of Myrtles, St Elessa,’ is set to upgrade its entrance doors after receiving a $20,000 grant from the New South Wales Government.
The exciting news comes after Member for Oatley, Mark Coure MP, successfully wrote to NSW Premier, Gladys Berejiklian, on behalf of the Kogarah parish and local Greek community.
“Thanks to a NSW Government investment from our Premier, Gladys Berejiklian, the Greek Orthodox Parish and Community of Kogarah has received $20,000 to upgrade the entrance doors to the venue,” Mr Coure wrote on a Facebook post.
Kogarah’s Greek Orthodox church is set to upgrade its front doors.
“This compliments the fantastic facilities at the church and it will further enhance the state of the art precinct as a whole. This is great news for church attendees, Greek Australians and the entire St George community.”
In response, the Kogarah Parish Committee and parish priest, Father Kyriakos, say they are “pleased to have received the grant… towards the much needed replacement of our church front doors.”
“We would like to thank Mark Coure MP for coming to the assistance of the Parish Committee in procuring the funding,” reads a Facebook post.
TV entrepreneur and Number 96 actor, Harry Michaels, couldn’t sell his Point Piper Spanish Mission apartment last June for $3.3 million – now it’s sold for $3.7 million after just one open home.
The four-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment in the famous circa-1929 Santa Barbara block at 2/7 Longworth Avenue had a $3.5 million price guide, but an investor from Longueville came through on Saturday and fell in love with it, agreeing to pay whatever it took to own it.
The ground-floor apartment in the block of six features harbour views, soaring ornate ceilings and original fixtures and has a French Provincial style kitchen with a full Art Deco bathroom.
The ground-floor apartment has harbour views. Photo: realestate.com.au.
It’s sale is a far cry from the previous campaign, when the apartment sat without interest on the market for eight months between October 2019 and June 2020, initially with a price guide of $3.5 million to $3.7 million.
By last June, the guide, with sales agents Cae Thomas and Jye Emdur of Ray White TRG (The Rubinstein Group), had dropped to $3.3 million and there was still no buyer.
Fortunately for Michaels, his luck changed.
Who is Harry Michaels?
Harry Michaels is of Greek Cypriot descent and he first became famous in the late 1970s as Italian Deli assistant, Giovanni Lenzi, in the iconic TV series Number 96.
Harry Michaels is of Greek Cypriot descent.
He was also the host of Greek Affair and The Greek Variety Show from the 1980s.
More lucrative was his role as a football broadcasting pioneer, buying the TV rights for the National Soccer League in the 1980s.
And Michaels’ production company, Silk Studio, produces Aerobics Oz Style, with his aerobics instructor wife, Effie, often appearing on the show.
The couple reside in a seven-bedroom mansion in Wentworth Road, Vaucluse, purchased for $12.35 million in 2008.
He bought the Santa Barbara apartment, which also has double parking, for $2 million in 2010.
