The inaugural Dubbo Women’s Festival — International Women’s Day, Friday 8 March 2024, Western Plains Cultural Centre. Free, all day, built around the seasons of a woman’s life.

Who she is

Mel is a Senior Dietitian and Exercise Physiologist based in Dubbo. She has been working in the Dubbo area for over 13 years and is currently based at the Dubbo Community Health Centre as the Senior Dietitian and Team leader. Working from a Health at Every Size Approach, Mel is passionate about supporting women to optimise their relationship with food, including intuitive eating for wellbeing, finding self-compassion in body kindness and reconnecting with the joy of movement.

The panels she sat on

Panel 1 — 10.30am. Pitched to younger women and moderated light-hearted, this one asked a question most new mothers are too polite to ask out loud: what is actually “normal”? Transitioning to motherhood. Early family life. Physical recovery and emotional load, treated as the same conversation rather than separate ones. Childcare ran downstairs so women could actually sit through it.

Panel 2 — 1.00pm. Pitched to women further along, this one took on perimenopause and menopause — physical and mental health through a stage of life that tends to get handled in whispers, and practical ways to manage wellbeing through it and beyond.

Mel brought the food-and-movement conversation to both panels, and brought it from an angle women in regional towns don’t hear often enough. Health at Every Size. Intuitive eating. Self-compassion in body kindness. Reconnecting with the joy of movement rather than the punishment of it. Thirteen years working in Dubbo, currently Senior Dietitian and Team Leader at the Dubbo Community Health Centre.

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The day around the panels

The panels sat inside a free, all-day program built on one idea: make it as easy as possible for a woman to turn up. Free admission. Childcare. A dedicated space for mothers and children. Free lunch on the lawn. Transport for groups who’d otherwise not make it. An early breakfast session so women could come before work.

On the day, women had cervical screening and booked breast screening appointments. They sat in on panels about their own bodies. They took ten minutes in the Moment Lounge. They sang with Cam’s Choir. The festival was delivered by Sharon Quill, Joanne Phillips and Lorna Brennan, with more than forty partner organisations behind it.

The Women’s Festivals →  |  The first believers who backed it →