This project was put together as part of the Community Curator Program run by the Coffs Harbour Regional Museum during the latter part of 2021, with the aim of gathering stories to fill gaps in the museum collection. It contains impressions and recollections from my own memory, and of those cited in the text, about alternative approaches to living, health care and education. In many instances it represents a particular period in time, and I feel I have just begun to scratch the surface of our diverse and complex community. There are a vast number of people who were part of an early movement for change in the 1970s and 80s who still have their own stories to tell.