Punching above their weight: Volunteers on Coochiemudlo Island
Coochiemudlo Island Coastcare Dunecare session with both island and mainland volunteers working in April 2026. [Photo from Coochiemudlo Coastcare Facebook]
National Volunteer Week: a timely shout-out
Every year in Australia, National Volunteer Week is scheduled to celebrate and acknowledge the important role that volunteers play in communities. In 2026, this dedicated week is from 18–24 May.
When it comes to getting things done on Coochiemudlo Island, volunteers are the backbone of the community. Liaising with the local council about community issues is done on a voluntary basis. Input towards social connection, organising cultural events, and providing transport, medical and shopping services on the island — all offered by volunteers.
The focus of this article is on the island’s incorporated organisations that provide these services. However, there are many individuals who contribute their time, voluntarily, to the community. There are many, but one individual deserves special mention — Adaire Palmer has punched above her weight as a longtime admin on the Coochie Community Facebook page. Acknowledgement and thanks must also noted for the Firies, SES, and other volunteers who provide invaluable emergency services on the island.
As brief side step, we start with an overview about volunteers in the national context, specifically with Meals on Wheels, one of Australia’s best known and loved volunteer organisations.
National context: Meals on Wheels in transition
Australia’s first MoW service started in 1953 with a single volunteer delivering meals on a tricyle for two shillings each. In Queensland, the service started from a backyard in Ipswich, without government funding, and meals were delivered for two shillings each. These services grew and more local groups formed, driven by the same mission — to help people live independently with dignity. Overtime, MoW expanded nationally through donations and, eventually, with government funding.
Today, MoW is primarily funded by the federal government’s Home Support Program. However, in some areas, MoW volunteer numbers have dropped off while the demand for meals has increased. To manage the shortfall in volunteers, the Program has put in place a plan to transitioning the service to providing frozen Lite n‘ Easy meals to their clients — once a fortnight. This transition started a few years ago in some areas throughout Australia. [Integrated Living, 30 June 2021]
In March 2026, Tegan Taylor on Life Matters (ABC RN, Can a frozen delivery replace Meals on Wheels?, 9 March 2026) interviewed a volunteer from a MoW service in regional Victoria. The volunteer expressed her concern and sadness about the Lite ‘n’ Easy transition that was about to start in her area. Her big concern is that the value-adding that MoW volunteers provide during the meal drop-offs — wellbeing checks, social connection — will fall away. Also, some clients would have difficulties with the online component of managing their Lite ‘n’ Easy service.
Meals on Wheels on Coochiemudlo Island
At the time of writing, 8 residents on Coochiemudlo receive meals from the Victoria Point MoW. Lori Wilson, the manager, reported in April that there is no such plan to transition the Victoria Point MoW service to Lite ‘n’ Easy frozen meal deliveries.
After the island’s longtime MoW volunteer recently moved away, Lori has managed to recruit two new island-based volunteers to continue with meal deliveries. “We do sometimes struggle to find volunteers. Other (MoW) services might be reducing their ‘cooking kitchens’ due to the rise in costs of produce, however we pride ourselves on the fresh meals cooked daily in our kitchen here at Victoria Point. The other 11 services that are a part of the Meals on Wheels Brisbane South amalgamation provide a mix of kitchen-cooked and frozen meal suppliers. We also freeze our own freshly cooked meals here as well to ensure consistency for our clients”, Lori said. See the contact details for MoW Victoria Point.
I felt this is good news! And I thought, gosh, the island is lucky.
Expect what must be acknowledged is that ‘our luck’ involves a lot of work, time, and generousity — from volunteers.
The quality of our island lifestyle would decline without volunteers
The population of Coochiemudlo Island was 850 when the last Census happened in 2021, with the predominant age group registered as 60–69 years. Of course many of us are older than that. The average household size is less than two people which means that many of us live alone. Services that provide social connection, cultural experiences, and lifestyle support are important.
Running an organisation reliant on volunteer workers isn’t a walk in the park. Aside from managing service provision, teams, scheduling, and raising funds, it’s no surprise that resource shortfalls are a perennial problem.
Not all volunteer organisations like those on Coochiemudlo Island can operate smoothly over years without a brief hiatus. None of us can work consistently like machines, paid or unpaid. Often it takes ‘new blood’ to join committees to help steer and propel things along.
It will be interesting to find out what the 2026 Census reveals about our demographics when it happens later this year.
Coochiemudlo’s volunteer organisations
There are numerous volunteer organisations on the island that contribute to our health, wellbeing, the environment, and cultural experience — it’s hard to imagine island life without them. They all offer social connection, one way or another.
They all have the island and our community at heart.
The island’s organisations are listed below along with a ‘rough’ number of regular volunteers that regularly contribute to their work.
Environmental / Heritage
Bushcare— 20-25 volunteers: Assisted regeneration of the island’s native bush including combatting invasive weed outbreaks.
Coastcare — TBA: Preservation of the island’s natural environment and ecosystems including a focus on erosion and invasive weed managment.
Heritage Society — 12 volunteers: Focus on curating the island’s heritage and history with a focus on environment and culture. They organise events, and advocate and educate where necessary and possible. The Heritage Society worked over years to get heritage listing of the island’s Emerald Fringe.
Native Nursery — 13 volunteers: Propogation, provision and sale of native plant species on the island.
Recreation / Practical services
Isle of Coochie Golf Course — TBA: Manage and maintain the golf club grounds with the help from their volunteer team. They hold events and staff the bar to raise funds.
Recreation Club — 12 volunteers (at least): Dedicated to supporting a wide range of recreational activities for the island residents including the gym, tennis, pickleball, pilates, bingo, croquet, Op Shop, plus the committee executive roles. See all these recreational services plus contacts here.
Shopping Service and Fuel Run — 14 volunteers. This service is now open to all island residents. For a small fee, the service picks up residents’ Click and Collect shopping from Coles at Victoria Point, then return to deliver the bags to their doors. This happens twice a fortnight, in the shopping service’s dedicated van. Then once a month, in a ute, volunteers do the ‘petrol run’ to the mainland and back with residents’ fuel cans to fill.
Progress Association — 45 volunteers: Wide range of service provision as outlined below …
Coochie Progress
The Coochiemudlo Island Progress Association is featured here because of they provide many vital services to the community. These include social connection and important practical assistance such as medical and transport services.
Since inception in the 1990s, Coochie Progress has had a huge input into the island including the push to get mains water and sewerage connected to the island.
Current Coochie Progress president, Elizabeth Rankin, took on the role in 2020 after it looked like the organisation was heading into a hiatus period — or even ‘shutting down’ — after decades of community service. A big shout out to Elizabeth and other Progress volunteers for their tireless work, some of which is outlined below.
Coochie Progress holds quarterly community meetings to consult and inform us about what’s in the pipeline.
Community bus
The community bus hit the island’s roads at the end of 2021 after years of mulling over ideas and planning for an island transport service — a true community initiative if ever there was one. At the time of writing, the service has provided more than 75,000 passenger trips around the island from the ferry terminal to where ever people need to go.
The bus was bought secondhand for $35,000 secured from the Gambling Community Benefit Fund. No grant money has been received to run this service which generally runs 5 days/week from 7am – 7pm. Progress raises funds to keep the bus operating, including maintaining the bus which again requires a lot of volunteer hours and hardwork. Russel Austerberry, John Rodham, Peter Rankin and others have been stalwarts with dealing break downs and the rest.
Fares contribute to fuel costs. How does the petrol to run the bus get to the island? Volunteers of course.
Phones for the bookings cost money. Technology issues with the logging apps? Fixed by volunteers.
Over the years countless kms around our small island, driving no faster than 40km/hour speed limit, the bus is falling apart. So, Elizabeth and other Progress volunteers are focussed on acquiring a replacement bus, and raising funds to achieve this.
Volunteers do the: driving; organise rosters; training; phone-call bookings and logs; book keeping; maintenance and cleaning; fuel pickups.
RFDS Medical Chest on Coochie
For years, volunteers planned for a health service to assist the community. In 2025, the then Coochie Health Hub (now integrated into Coochie Progress) set up a health service for the island that provides free telehealth sessions from the Royal Flying Doctors Service for anyone on the island, 24/7. The doctor on call can prescribe medications from the wide range that is stored in a medical chest on the island.
Progress volunteers are rostered to answer calls, drive to the medical chest, and deliver the prescribed medication to the person who needs it.
Equipment hire
Tables, chairs and gazebos are available to the community to hire through Coochie Progress.
Medical equipment including wheel chairs and crutches are also available to hire.
See Coochie Progress for Equipment Hire.
Community advocacy and government liasion
Maybe the best example of Progress’s community advocacy was during the island’s water transport issue in 2024. This was when the island’s ferry service was in the spotlight because of Amity Trader’s rising costs, especially their landing fee paid to local government, which, at the end of the day, would have to passed onto island residents as increased fares. Also, there was potential that the night-time ferry service would wind-up earlier. Progress liaised with Amity Trader, and local and state governments about this issue. The outcome was impressive: we now have cheaper ferry fares and a timetable that does provide, within reason, a schedule for residents returning home from evening events in Brisbane. See the Ferry Issue article from 2024.
Markets
Coochie Progress organises about 5 markets a year on the island. This is an opportunity for organisations and islanders to set up stalls to promote and/or sell what they do. Markets also provide an attraction for mainland visitors to the island.
Island volunteers at work: Random snapshots of community events
