Helen Grasswill is the dynamic producer behind the ABC’s brilliant and enduring program Australian Story.
ABC Friends Blue Mountains invites you to hear Helen Grasswill speak at the Grand View Hotel, Wentworth Falls. 11 am Saturday 16 November.
Our AGM will be at 10 am. The Grand View offers a great lunch menu, should you decide to stay after 12 noon, when our meeting closes.
Enquiries: Sue 0421 020 610
Helen Grasswill has more than 40 years experience as a journalist, author, editor and television programmaker. She is Australian Story’s longest-serving story producer and was part of the program’s foundation team. Many of Australian Story’s major newsbreaks are among more than 90 stories that she has produced for the program.
Her work has been acknowledged with many awards including the Walkley, peer-voted Logies and the Human Rights Award for Television. Notable stories include Gina Hancock, Hazel Hawke’s revelation that she had Alzheimer’s disease, Kerry Packer speaking about his kidney transplant, Governor General Peter Hollingworth discussing sex abuse in the church and the later two-part program about sex abuse victim Beth Heinrich. Her most recent stories include a moving tribute to Hazel Hawke, a revelatory background story about Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox whose actions helped trigger the Royal Commission into sexual abuse of children in institutions, an exclusive interview with former Guantanamo detainee David Hicks that ran as a one-hour special on ABC1 and the major scoop on the legal appeal of Jeffrey Gilham, who several weeks after the program’s broadcast won his appeal on grounds of miscarriage of justice canvassed in the program.
ABC Friends AGM 2019 Poster : click here to download a copy of the poster for this event, which you are invited to circulate widely.
Margaret with Michael Rowlands, ABC Breakfast TV, Melbourne
by Margaret Foy, Vice President, ABC Friends Blue Mountains
This was obviously going to be something big. Special, and important too.
The hype and advanced briefings, instructions and directions were very precise and unequivocal.
The excitement and advanced planning reminded me of my friends and I preparing for our day at the Toowoomba Royal Show in the 1940’s and 50’s!!
When I knew my application to attend was confirmed, I was happy to hear other members of the BMABCF were also attending. Oh joy!
At last the Big Day arrived. Naturally I missed my early train. I was going to be late. I would not be allowed inside. Frantic texts went back and forth between friends –
I would be able to attend after all. I was seated in time to hear the honoured “welcome to country”.450 members from all over the Nation filled the studio (where Q&A and The Book Club are also produced). A palpable sense of wonder and expectation filled the air. [continue reading…]
Sue Noske
2018 President Sue Noske with Jeremy Fernandez, ABC News and Vice President, Margaret Foy
Thank you to all the Friends and friends of Friends who attended our first branch meeting this year. It was great to see some new faces, and some “old” faces too! A positive start to the year indeed.
Margaret Foy and I reported on the Inaugural ABC Public Meeting held at the Ultimo studios on the 9th Feb. We found it to be a highly scripted and “slick” affair with presentations by several ABC Board members, including Managing Director Michelle Guthrie. Questions from the public were limited, and chosen as representative of the major concerns of ABC consumers. You can still watch the event on-line. Definitely worth watching! [continue reading…]
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