A comment about Cootamundra that 'it takes forever to do the shopping' was remarked on by Australia Day ambassador Dr Benjamin Veness on Sunday.
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Dr Veness said people stopping to chat at the supermarket is 'a really good sign that Cootamundra is doing something right'.
With top school grades, Dr Veness studied accounting and graduated university with a job in banking.
"Being a doctor wasn't on my mind but as I started to work on things like efficiency dividend programs - ways of squeezing jobs to reduce costs - I realised it wasn't what I wanted to do with my life, and it's what led me towards medicine," he said.
It was when working in an emergency department of a major hospital he came across cases of social isolation he started thinking of specialising in psychiatry, and it was during 'rotations' in his psychiatry training he worked in various settings including child and youth mental health services.
"I remember one of the psychiatrists saying to me that kids need total connection and mastery to thrive.
"They need hope in the future, connection to others and a sense of purpose, a feeling they can do something well whether riding their bike or their school work or whatever.
"That was more than a year and a half ago now and the more time I spend working in psychiatry the more I realise these things are probably what everyone needs.
"And it's partly why I get so much enjoyment in coming out to towns like Cootamundra because it is so evident from the crowd that's here today and from my chats with people and my research that you guys have social connection in spades.
"Whether it's the soup kitchen that provides food for people who maybe can't afford a feed but also provides a place for people to have a meal with someone else - or the Bradman's birthplace, where volunteers help share the place with visitors and locals. Or the Coota Beach Volleyball Festival with something like 20,000 cubic metres of sand being trucked in - a fantastic initiative that demonstrates the cleverness as well as the connection within town.
"Then there's the Arts Centre friendship groups, the Muttuma Creek Regeneration Group, the CWA, Probus, Lions Club, the car collection I've really adored seeing here, the Blues concert coming up next month to raise money for the fireys, the Meals on Wheels and the fact that you have a community-run nursing home - these are fantastic,
"Connection is so key, standing around each other especially in times of need is truly the best prescription that a doctor and somebody's who's interested in public health like I am could ever write."
