FOREWORD

FOREWORD

This companion document of the Bi-centennial project - "The History and Memories of Freestone" details the commitment of Freestone people to faithfully record and reflect upon recent community development.

If ever there was a quality easily ascribed to a group of different, yet very similar people it would be of commitment. The community of Freestone is an intensely committed one; readily working for quality. Whether it be in education, or the groups they organize to maintain our social fabric like the Bush Fire Brigade, the playgroup, QCWA and the Hall Committee, the chief concern is to advance the quality of service for local people.

Generations have stood on the same group and seen very different landscapes. This will continue. It is the inevitable path of change. But resourceful people prosper and I have seen only prospering in my short experience at Freestone. It may not be the prospering of material gain or income, it may be, and has been, a prospering of the spirit through adversity, through sharing at church, welcoming and including newcomers of simply raising a family. It is a learning based experience and we grow as we gather those experiences through life’s phases.

The people of Freestone are committed to an upward spiral of development that preserves the precious quality of human and family life loosely defined as country living. Moreover, it is a development that is responsive to, and valuing of, technology and advancing scientific practice, so disposing their families and their futures to the opportunities of a changing world.

As time passes and the children of Freestone leave to explore and learn and pursue new histories for their families, the cycle of growth for the community of Freestone is assured by reasserting that the commitment they have stems from their affinity for the land, and this marvellous place they call home.

Clayton Hansen - Dip Teach., B.Ed.St., M.Ed. Admin

(Principal) 1989 - 1994