Kicking Off 2026: Why The Voice of Mill Park Exists

[00:00:01] Cameron Blewett:

Good morning, Mill Park, and thank you for joining me here on this episode one as we kick off 2026. This is the Voice of Mill Park. My name is Cameron Blewett, I’m the host of this podcast. For episode one I’m going to do a bit of a recap to talk about this podcast, why you should listen to it, and what we’re going to achieve with it. So, obviously, this podcast is about Mill Park, not just for Mill Park itself, but more for the surrounds and those who live in the area. I’ve been a resident of here for five, years now. I found that there’s a lot of stuff lacking with being able to have one resource for everything that’s going on in the area.

You can join some of the Facebook groups, they tend to be a bit bogged down with spam and all that sort of stuff. So I thought, you know what? It’s an old adage that I’ve always lived by you’re either part of the solution or you’re part of the problem. So instead of just sitting back and whinging and complaining all the time about it, I thought, You know what? I’m going to do something. So I started this podcast. It’s a website that I’m developing into a resource for those in Mill Park. It’s called millpark.blog. That’s where you’ll find the show notes and transcripts for this episode, as well as developing a business directory on that website, news and all that sort of stuff that’ll pop up on that.

So, as I said, that’s what this is for. I wanted the podcast because I thought, you know what, just something to plug in. This is going to be released on Tuesdays. I had a bit of a think about what’s going on. And to bore you a little bit, was going to do a twice a week one. Looking at what I want to do and life and everything like that, I’d be very time poor and I’d be rushed and I’d end up skipping episodes. Something that I want to do is, every Tuesday morning at about 09:00 there’ll be a new podcast dropping. Just give me an idea of what’s coming up in the week, things of interest that have happened over the past seven days, as well as maybe a bit of a chat with any local business owners in the area and just give them a bit of a plug.

It’s not going be sales y, this isn’t a political thing, this is all just for those who want to find out about Mill Park. I’m going to be honest here, I’ll plug businesses that I go to and that I use. So it’s a thing. I’m not advertising or anything like that for that one. I’m not taking any sponsorships. If I promote something, it’s because I’ve used it and I believe in it. And I think I’m giving this as a resource for you. Going back to why I started the podcast now, it’s a thing. Too often things happen in this area that we don’t know about until afterwards. Without getting political or anything like that, politicians and councils and government are good at promoting themselves when they’ve done something, that they think you’re lying. They’re not too good on saying, Hey, let’s get feedback on this’ or when things are open for comments and all that sort of stuff.

The plan is, as the podcast grows, to get more information, events that are happening in the neighbourhood, anything happening council wise that we need to be aware of, anything state wise that will impact the residents of Mill Park, and things like that. So as I said, this podcast exists to be a source of information for those who live in the area and for people to talk about what keeps them in Mill Park, what brought them to Mill Park and all that sort of stuff. As I said, it is a place for local news, events, conversations about things that are going on. That’s a platform for those in the community to talk about what they do that can benefit the community and things like that.

What I don’t want this and what this podcast isn’t going to be about is it’s not going to be a talk show. So if you see me out in the street, it’s not going be a talk show where you can say, Hey Cameron, I’ve got a problem with this, blah blah blah. It’s not that. I’m not doing rage baits or anything like that. I’m not getting into any political discussions, no party messaging or anything like that, promoting one party or the other, because 2026 is an election year, rhetoric is going to be ramping up pretty soon. That’s not what this podcast is about.

What we’ll hear on it is, as I said, we’ll be talking about what’s happening in Mill Park, sporting events, anything happening at the different places around, anything going on at the stables. I know Pliny Valley is technically not in Mill Park, but it’s still semi part of the area. Local community groups that have got anything going on, there’ll be promotion of that and discussions with those people. Anything that impacts local people, we’ll have whatever the issue is explained. And it’ll be simple no propaganda, no rhetoric, or anything like that.

What you can expect from me is top petitions because I’ve got some things that I want changed in the area. I’ll be writing some petitions and letters to local council because these are local council matters, Whittlesea Council things. So when they come out, I’ll be letting you know about that so we can have a discussion about it and hopefully get some signatures. As I said, conversation with locals throughout the year. You’ll see me wandering around different shopping centres, I wandering around stables, wandering around Plenty Valley and some of the other areas in Mill Park through Rivergum and all the other names of the places just Escapia at the moment, put myself on the spot.

Any listener questions and messages is to keep it away from the rage bait issues not to make it political, but more about things that impact those in the area. So talking about things that impact you, how can you get involved? Well, you’ll be able to get involved by submitting events and topics or anything that you want discussed on the show. The email address for that is notesmilpark. Blog. I will be reaching out to a number of the community groups in the area to get an update on what they’re doing and information. Will, as time goes by, put a calendar of events on the website so you’ll be able to have a look at the calendar and see what’s going on.

Something else you could do is if you don’t happen to see me wandering around with the microphone in the hand or anything like that, create a voice note or even just make it a text note. Just send me an email. It’ll be notesmilparker. Blog. If it’s suitable, I’ll read it out and publish it. One thing I do ask is that there is respectful dialogue. We can disagree with what’s going on in the neighbourhood, but we can do it respectfully because we all do have to live here. So that’s the thing. This is about community involvement, getting people involved in things. It’s something that I’ve ranted a bit about, and I’ll admit I’m just as guilty as the next person, is that we spend all this time looking and communicating with friends on social media.

And yet, when was the last time you talked to your neighbours next door? And as I said, I’ll be the first one to put my hand up and say, Yep, I’m as guilty of that as anyone else. I think it’s the thing that this needs to change. Up, admittedly, didn’t grow up in this area. Grew up on the other side of the town, but I grew up in a little court and we all knew each other. We didn’t go around and have teen scourings at porch and all that sort of stuff, but we were a group of kids and we knew each other from school or anything like that. And it was sort of little bits of activities going on in the court, skateboarding and all that sort of stuff.

So it was something where all the neighbours knew each other. And that’s what I’d like to see Mill Park get back to. As I said, a couple of soapbox issues that I’ll be putting forward or launching throughout the year is some sort of neighbourhood watch. Because this is what we need to do. Be aware. And I’m not talking about the nosy neighbour thing or anything like that, but just an idea of what’s going on with everyone else. What’s that phrase? If you see something, say something. And all that sort of stuff. I know that St John’s trialed it in Reservoir and somewhere else, but I’d like to see some community defibrillators put around the place.

These are targets that I’m looking for launching throughout the year because I do believe that we need these things in the area. It’s a sad indicator of society that heart attacks and heart problems are becoming more prevalent where defibrillators, if you have early access to one, it does improve the survivability chances of that. When it comes to launching that, I will talk about that a bit later on. As I said, these are things that I’ve got planned. I’m not going to launch them all at the same time, but it’s things that I’ve got planned over the next twelve months and all that sort of stuff.

While I’m on that this podcast, being a community resource, does exist on the Value for Value model. It was created by, coined or proposed by Adam Curry and John Tzu Devorak of the No Agenda show. It’s about value. And as I said, nothing can be hidden behind a paywall, I’m not going to be asking for advertisers, there’s no sponsorship of any episodes, you’re not going to find any affiliate marketing on any of the links or anything like that, or anything that I do talk about, so there’s not going be any code MILKPARK10 or anything like that. This is all about providing value to the community, and the value for value model exists.

You get value out of this, feel free to pass some of that value back. And that can be done in a number of ways. Normally the big three, which is time, talent and treasure, share your time, send me a note, talk about this podcast to someone else, send me an email to say, Hey, you got this wrong, or Hey, this is something you need to be talking about. Talk to other people about this podcast and things like that. Your talent helped me fluff up the website, improve that a bit more. I need help with the email newsletter that’s going to be coming out every week just before the show, so there’s assistance there. And then obviously the other, the final scene, which is a treasure bit.

Sadly, everything costs money, there’s hosting and all that sort of stuff that needs to be paid for. But you know what, I’m not telling you to do it, but if you get value out of this, if you think, mate, it’s only worth $2 to me, that’s fine. If you want to contribute $2 that’s it, go for it. I’ve got a Stripe account. I don’t have PayPal. And there is an AID email that you’ll be able to use for that if you are that technically savvy. So yeah, that’s value for model. For value. I think you probably noticed by now this is unscripted, so this isn’t going to be a big glossary production. This is just going to be raw. I won’t say unfiltered.

This is about talking about what’s going on in the neighbourhood. Now speaking of talking, I think I’ve talked about enough for this one. Thank you for tuning in to this first episode for 2026. I look forward to having you join me on the next one. I’ve got no idea what the next one is going to be about because I haven’t gotten that far ahead. But that will be coming out obviously next Tuesday. Once again, you for joining me and I look forward to having you join me on the next one. Until then, bye for now.