Twenty years ago when Millicent Chalmers moved to Millers Point with her family, she never thought she would become one of the area’s most active residents.
For close to 20 years Ms Chalmers has been campaigning on behalf of local residents through Millers Point Resident Action Group and has been working as chairperson for the Darling House aged care facility.
In January Ms Chalmers was included on the Australian Day Honours List for her service to the community and to aged persons.
“It was amazing,” Ms Chalmers said. “I thought to myself that I enjoy doing the things for the resident action group and Darling House, and then to suddenly find that the residents obviously have got in touch with the Commonwealth people. It was very touching.”
Shortly after moving to the area, Ms Chalmers heard of a local resident action group that was campaigning on behalf of the Millers Point residents. “I’d been told there was a resident action group, so I thought I’d go along. I was shy at first.”
For 14 years she worked as secretary for the group. Today she is the group’s chairperson.
“We were the sort of group that didn’t want to just be NIMBYs but more to be constructive,” she said.
“Rather than just saying ‘don’t do that’, we try saying ‘what about this’. It doesn’t always work and sometimes we just have to grin and bear it. But it’s much harder for them (the council and government) to deny an idea if you offer other real alternatives.”
Ms Chalmers also chairs Darling House aged care facility.
“It was originally really designed for locals, but when we got going there weren’t enough locals who needed to move in and we got people from outside [the area] and now we have a mixture.”
Located in Dawes Point, Darling House houses nine residents and provides respite care for short term stays. “For elderly people who can’t manage alone anymore, they can be somewhere so central. A lot of their relatives for instance work in the city and they can pop around anytime at lunchtime or after work.”
Apart from her community work, Ms Chalmers also works as a research lawyer.
On the side Ms Chalmers has been completing a romance novel she has been writing for some time. “It’s great fun. Don’t ever start doing that – it’s far too much fun.”
“It’s about a lady who is in her 20’s who is thought to be over-the-hill and she meets this rather stern man who’s come down from London and she gets the wrong idea that he’s against education. She is really keen on the local country kids getting an education, and there’s one of these misunderstandings and then she gets kidnapped and so on. It’s all very exciting.”
by Ehssan Veiszadeh
