This is our first newsletter for 2026 and we haven’t really started yet!! It’s shaping up to be a very creative, hectic year for Nannas.
Check out our events page as that is where we’ll be – specific Nanna events are in yellow. To receive links to our Zoom meetings starting Friday 23 January and other important information contact us.
Our next in-person meeting at Customs House is on Friday 30 January at 10am. It’s a great place to meet us – there’ll be singing and lots of plotting and chatting.
Hat Making Workshop
Eighteen Sydney Knitting Nannas gathered for the first time this year at Reverse Garbage in Marrickville on January 16 for a hat-making workshop.
In anticipation of a big 2026, Nannas made protest hats from things (mostly yellow) found at Reverse Garbage to wear at Nanna events. We had lots of fun and all agreed it was a fab way to start 2026 – crafty, creative and chatty.
Thanks to Christine, a retired milliner, who gave us expert advice and helped us move our ideas to wearable creations. She was very supportive and encouraging, and gave us tips on how to make hats that stay on our heads! Staff at Reverse Garbage were wonderful too.
Where there are Nannas there is often tea, cake and biscuits. What a treat!
Nannas in Court
On Tuesday 13 and Friday 16 January, the brave Nannas arrested at the Rising Tide blockade of Newcastle coal port in November were summonsed to appear in court in Newcastle.
Tracey C and Wendy B were in court on Tuesday charged under NSW protest laws with a maximum penalty of $22,000 and two years in prison. Other Nannas travelled by train from Sydney to Newcastle to support them and Hunter Nannas were also there.
It was only a ‘mention’ and was over in a few minutes. All cases were adjourned and the arrestees with cases on Friday were told they did not have to attend. The magistrate thanked everyone for coming and acknowledged that it had been an inconvenience.
The next mentions will be on February 17 and 20 – but arrestees don’t need to attend if they are represented.
Big Swifty Build
Following on from the short appearances in court on Tuesday, Nannas joined the Lock the Gate Big Swifty build, a collaborative creation of a giant, colourful sculpture of the critically endangered Swift Parrot.
There are only around 500 Swifties left in the wild so it’s essential that their habitat is preserved. But on Gomeroi land in the Leard Forest, Whitehaven Coal wants to expand their Maules Creek coal mine. If approved, the mine would destroy 500 hectares of Swiftie habitat. Local landholders and environmentalists are standing together to stop that happening.
Big Swifty will be mounted on the back of a ute, and will be a colourful mascot for regional communities campaigning against the coal expansion. She’ll be flying soon!
Nannas are watching
Midnight Oil – Beds are Burning – October 2009
Greenland speaks – great video here https://www.facebook.com/reel/3031218263933702
Nannas are listening
Vested interests vs public interest? The relation of Australian governments with the fossil fuel industry (ABC Big Ideas)
Nannas are reading
Bob Debus, a former NSW Labor environment minister has called on the government to halt imminent logging in a forest on the state’s south coast, after citizen scientists recorded 102 trees that they say are home to endangered greater gliders. (The Guardian)
Australia’s longest waterway is under such dire threat of collapse that the entire lower Murray River ecosystem, which stretches nearly 1,000 kilometres from western NSW, through Victoria and to the sea in South Australia has been classified as critically endangered. (ABC News)
Deaths in Custody campaign vows to defy Minns government’s protest ban, and how the new protest laws give police powers to restrict all protests for up to three months. (By Wendy Bacon at Michael West Media)
Flying foxes die in their thousands in worst mass-mortality event since Australia’s black summer (The Guardian)
Outback NSW lake home to hundreds of turtles set to run dry in 130-year first (ABC News)
The failure of Iran’s water supplies is only the most dramatic example we have to date of how the climate crisis is threatening our most essential systems – and with them, political stability. (The Guardian)
Forthcoming Events