Hey Aussies et al. I hope everyone is having a good day. I just went to physio to have my various injuries looked at and now my arm and hamstring hurt. More. I should also be looking forward to a big bruise appearing on my arm, apparently. Why does physio always hurt a lot and make you look like you've lost a fight before it makes you better? Urgh!

Feature photo

Today's lovely photo was taken by @trudeehunter and is of a café on the northern part of Bribie Island, Queensland. If you like it, please upvote it here.

Last week's meet-ups

Adelaide

End of month drinks were last Thursday and a record 18 people showed up. Woo! Go Adelaide!

There were a couple of write-ups including, @henrywilson's post, @minismallholding's post, and @svitlaangel's post.

Credit: @izzydawn

Melbourne

Random Drinks took place at the Good Food and Wine show last Saturday. @mazzle shows us around and reviews some beers here. 

Credit: @mazzle

Upcoming meet-up

Melbourne 

@datascience has organised a meet-up for Sunday 24 of June, 3-5pm at the Local Tap House, St Kilda East. 

Interstate traveller @positiveninja will be in Melbourne for work a day later so a dinner is planned for Monday 25 June, 6-8pm at Upali's Sri Lankan Restaurant, Glen Waverley. 

If you're in the Melbourne area and interested in either of these events, check out this post for more details.

The Christmas Party

The third raffle is now underway. This week @mattclarke is auctioning off the granny flat at Ballerhouse. Get your bid in here. 

Congratulations to @kubbyelizabeth in winning last week's room.

Credit: @bearone

Steemit baby of the week

Hmm, this seems to be a new section since I've now put it in two weeks in a row. Congratulations to @kieranstone, who is one of my favourite Aussie photographers, who became a first-time dad last Friday. Post here. 

Credit: @kieranstone

The usual community notices

You should follow @mrsquiggle, who is doing a great job recognising Aussie creativity by curating quality content.

Check out the awesome Minnow Support Project (MSP). Details on how to join are here. Come say hi in the #teamaustralia chat room in PAL-Discord. It's fun and you will make new friends.

If you have spare witness votes, you should consider voting for @curie as well as the MSP witnesses, particularly @ausbitbank and @aggroed, who've a done a great job in getting the MSP project off the ground. Current active Aussie witnesses include @ausbitbank, @jackmiller, @thekitchenfairy, @quochuy and @bobdos.

Check out @anzub, the Australian and New Zealand upvote bot in the Australia-New Zealand Discord server. You need to register to receive upvotes and delegations are welcome. Speak to @jackmiller if you have questions.

Lastly, if you're feeling generous, you can delegate SP to the Team Australia upvote bots @centerlink, @mrsquiggle and/or @anzub (or any other bot you like) using Vessel. You can delegate to any of the MSP bots using this link.  

Candidate 1

Name and bio

@dunstuff is from the central coast/Newcastle area. He has spent a lot of time on the streets throughout his life. As a result, he would like to do a Diploma of Community Services specialising in youth services, but has not yet found a placement for the required hours.

Intro post here.

Fun fact

"If you're wondering why I went with a pony for an avatar, it's cos I have a face like Sarah Jessica Parker."

Nothing wrong with that. I'm a big fan of SJP. I loved Sex and the City as much as the next woman. Possibly more.

Candidate 2

Name and bio

@mumma-monza is @philippekiene's wife and lives in Siem Reap, Cambodia. She is a pre-K teacher at an International Academy and loves photography.   

Intro post here. 

Fun Fact 

"I enjoy big cups of coffee to get me through my days."

I think a lot of people enjoy big cups of coffee to get them through their days.

Candidate 3

Name and bio

@lasertx3 is a licensed electrician from Sydney. He's into pets, training for Spartan races, cars, and house renos.

Intro post here. 

Fun fact

"I can hum and whistle at the same time."

What? How is that even possible?

Candidate 4

Name and bio

@niuadventure is from Sydney. She's a mum who likes cooking, baking, and photography.

Intro post here. 

Fun fact

"I almost always have either my camera or GoPro with me when I'm out and about, because I like to record footage from my day to day life and make them into videos."

Well, people like vlogs. Plus if you stick 'em on dtube you might get a sweet dtube upvote.

Candidate 5

Name and bio

@idikuci is from Brisbane and a PhD dropout. He helps run comedyopenmic on steemit. 

Intro post here. 

Fun fact

"I once saw Ron Jeremy in real life in a hotel. I nearly went up to shake his hand... then I thought better of it. I know where that hand's been."

I'd never heard of Ron Jeremy until I googled him to see who you were talking about. For anyone else not in the know, he's a porn star, filmmaker, actor, and stand-up comedian.

Candidate 6

Name and bio

@stuffing is @galenkp's mate and from Adelaide. She is of the view that the experiences we gain are basically a whole bunch of stuff we jam into our ever-bulging life bag. Hence her name.

Intro post here. 

Fun fact

"I like to see how long I can go only on water, so far my maximum has been three days."

Cool. Someone was doing a water challenge here a couple of months ago. I can't remember who, but I feel like he did at least 10 days or two weeks or something. It was a while.

Candidate 7

Name and bio

@aidab21 lives in Sydney. She is from Argentina and moved to Australia as a teenager. She learnt English initially from reading and translating Little Golden Books. (Hmm, maybe that's what I should do to improve my Spanish!) 

Intro post here.

Fun fact

"I love colouring in and gardening."

These are two things I think I would like if I had more time, pencils, and had a garden (or at least a balcony).

Congratulations everyone, you're now part of Team Australia. 

The rules for joining Team Australia

If you’re not yet a member and want to be, this is what you need to do:

1. Vote here for our resident steemit witness and our Minister for Welfare @ausbitbank.
2. Send me your introduction post so I can find out a bit about you. If you’re new to steemit you'll have to write one so use the introduceyourself and teamaustralia tags to help boost your following. Use this handy guide by @teamsteem if you don't know what to write.
3. If it’s not mentioned in your introductory post, tell me which city and country you’re in, cos let's face it, a lot of us live in Australia's fourth largest city—London. You need to have a connection to Australia to join.
4. Tell me a fun fact about yourself. This can be anything. For example, maybe you have eight kids and three dogs, or you rode your bike across America, or you won the blue ribbon for javelin throwing at sports day back in high school, or Toadie came into the pub you work at one day and you served him a beer, or, maybe you can fit 55 maltesers in your mouth like Ed Sheeran can. It doesn’t matter what it is, I want a fun fact about you! The more fun, the better.
5. Regularly check the Team Australia and Australia tags and upvote/follow the content you like. You can show your support by following the centerlink curation trail in steemauto. Instructions are here.
6. Comment below or DM me in PAL-Discord that you want to join.

Once I receive this information I will try my best to write a good introductory paragraph about you for the official Team Australia membership updates. So the better your information is, the better I can make you sound. Where relevant, please use the teamaustralia and australia tags to promote your work. I will try and post weekly updates. 

Gif by @justcallmemyth

Team Australia footer by @bearone

Page divider by @kristyglas