Margaret and Max Thomson are the sort of volunteers every community needs, although you won’t see them posing for selfies as they go about their unpaid work.
For more than 30 years they’ve been at the centre of community battles to save Peregian Beach from high rise, a string of greedy development proposals and the push to add South Peregian Beach to the Noosa Shire where “it always belonged”.
In fact, for a time back in the ’90s, their home in South Peregian Beach was known light-heartedly as The War Office.
Margaret and Max were both made life members of the Peregian Beach Community Association and at their Sunday meeting Deputy Mayor Frank Wilkie was there to celebrate and farewell the pair known locally as the ageing agitators.
The rigors of beachfront bushcare and going toe-to-toe with developers are behind them now as the couple retire just outside their favourite village, but Margaret and Max still have a message for residents: “don’t just chat about our challenges on social media, get involved, join the PBCA, find out what’s going on…and do something about it.”
