Excellent vocational visits!

Before I begin a quick addition to Ray's earlier post: I had in fact been eating the Kangaroo Stew (it may just have been ham!) outside when Andy's chair collapsed. However, following a 2 second pause after a sound like a bull in a china shop, there was a huge outburst of laughter so we continued on with our feast without a care in the world! There may be a distinct lack at future meetings of offers for Andy to take a seat!


Today saw an action packed schedule with 2 vocational visits arranged. At 9am I arrived at the MADEC Wesley Centre (http://www.madec.edu.au/) . Expecting to visit a small adult education centre I was in for a surprise. The centre is a very modern building adjoining an historical Methodist church and was completed in Oct 2007. MADEC centralizes a wide range of job seeking and community services. MADEC operates a call centre that provides information on harvesting across the whole of Australia and forms an essential service in recruiting people to move around Australia and work harvesting crops in each region. A number of people apparently use this service to work their way around the whole of Australia.





The ground floor was particularly busy providing reviews for job seekers and advice & guidance on services available. MADEC have a strong community focus and as of June 2007 has 52 Community/Corporate members. This includes groups such as MRCC Youth Services, Neighbourhood Watch, Sleep Disorder Group, Sunraysia Arts Council to name just a few. From 10am I had the opportunity to visit the MADEC Community College located approx 5mins away which provides a comprehensive range of courses from IT and Business to Calligraphy and Belly Dancing. All of the courses are available for those aged 16+ and I was able to observe a wide age range in some of the classes running on the day. There seems to be a parallel between funding of courses here and in England although there seems to be better coordination between providers with less competing courses and more sharing of knowledge and best practice.

I also had the opportunity to join some of the staff at break time. They were very enthusiastic, particularly over the ‘sticky’ buns which appeared to be an essential element of all breaks (they even had pictures of cakes on the walls!) There seemed to be considerable interest in the GSE exchange program with a number volunteering to take part and some being told it may be a one way ticket! I would like to thank Manager, David Zacher and the rest of the staff at MADEC for taking time out to talk with me.

Following lunch with the rest of the GSE team at the ADFA café in Mildura, I set off for my second vocational visit at St. Joseph’s College. I was given a warm welcome by Business Manager, Anne Hoyle and provided an overview of the College. They are a Catholic school taking pupils from Yr7 – Yr12 and have approx. 800 students. As they have expanded their operations over time they have faced some interesting challenges in terms of acquiring land and developing new facilities. However, they have come up with some interesting solutions including purchasing adjacent land and property as it becomes available for current or future development. They have expanded their sports facilities by forming a partnership with another church in which they are able to use the facilities in return for maintaining them. They have also purchased adjacent property which is rented out long term until such time as further development is required.

One of the most interesting projects is the ongoing development of a fully featured stadium which was recently purchased. The stadium had been primarily created for basketball matches but had been struggling to keep afloat. The school was successful in raising funds and tendering to purchase the complete site. It includes a substantial sports hall, restaurant, dance studio and theatre. It also has a sound proofed corporate function room overlooking the sports hall which is being converted into a music studio. The stadium will clearly provide the students and local community groups with some fantastic facilities. I would like to thank Anne Hoyle and the rest of St. Joseph’s College for a fantastic tour of their facilities.

We are TV Stars

The Civic Reception with the Mayor of Mildura was covered by Win TV and it featured on the evening news programme. As you can hear if you run the short video we took of the TV set it was greeted with considerable mirth, derision and applause by our hosts, by the way "the old bloke at the back" was not me! Andy

Sunraysia

This is a whole new world I was woken by kookaburras and got up for an early morning walk along the Murray River the mist on the river was spectacular and their were birds everywhere the butcher birds were particularly vocal with a beautiful warbling song . The morning started with a tour of the Old Mildura Homestead then the Alfred Deakin visitors’ centre where we had a Civic reception with the mayor and a past 2006 GSE student who had visited the USA. Tom made a presentation of one of our banners and thanked the mayor for his hospitality. Then onto the RSL fro lunch similar to our British Legion but this had an excellent restaurant a big Poky machine section a multifunction hall and a permanent museum. A quick car tour of some of the highlights of Meldura and then down to the river to join the paddle steamer Melbourne to take a trip down through lock 11. The Murray has very little fall to the sea so left to its own devices would not be navigable for most of the year and places like Mildura would not exist as a dried fruit growing area, or much else, without the series of weirs and locks that effectively turn the river into a number of huge pools. In the evening we all joined PP Leon and PP Kay Wagner for a club fellowship meeting at their house. We all sat round the television in high expectation as the civic reception had been covered by the local TV station and there we were TV stars (I am going to add it to the blog but that may be beyond me. Leon is a Riverboat captain and we exchanged many yarns Tom was looking into kite surfing on the Murray. Cheryl went off to join the “Boy Scouts” we shall enjoy hearing about that! Meanwhile Andy was deep in conversation with Richard when his chair collapsed it certainly brought an abrupt end to the conversation the clever thing was he didn’t spill his drink - got his priorities right. Ray

Cross State to Victoria

An early start again to meet up at the Marion car park in the pouring rain for our trip to Merbein in Victoria State, this time with the trailer to take our luggage. With John and Lyle driving we set off at 8am and headed up the freeway but before long we were in open space and you begin to get the feel for the size of this vast country. There are strips of scrub along the sides of the road but the rest of the country has been cleared and the red paddocks (fields to us) are immense this is really big sky country. We stopped in Karoonda to stretch our legs and a comfort break this is big sheep country with the mighty merino which is celebrated by a huge statue in the middle of the town. The traffic was a good deal lighter than we had become accustom to in Adelaide and that’s an awful lot quieter than the UK. Then on to Loxton where we had a quick tour of John’s Almond works then back into town were we were greeted by the local Rotary club and our new hosts. We were served lunch in the “breeze way” between the house and the maids quarters of “The Pines” a beautiful house to which we had a guided tour after our meal. President Bert Hasland wished us well for the rest of our exchange and we presented him with a District banner, he gave us a pictorial guide of the house. We waved off our Edwardstown hoists and were back on the road with the trailer transferred, now in the charge of our Merbein hosts. Crossing into Victoria we reset our watches for the 30 minute time difference for another stop this time at Lake Culleulleraine where we were introduced to our first red back spider in the public dunny. Later we saw 3 emu before taking a trip on the Lyrup Ferry over the River Murray where we saw a tree which had an Aboriginal canoe cut out of its bark. In Merbein we went round the houses to drop all the team at their new hosts. I am with PDG Doug and Alys Beasy in a wonderful house on the banks of the Murray River, I could definitely get used to this. Ray

A week and a bit in already!!

Hi Team

How you doing then. Great to see the news on the blog. Sure looks like you are having a great time. How many of those leaflets you got rid of. Want me to send any more!!!!! Hope the weather is good. It's a scorcher here!!! (I wish)

I'm sure you have met Peter Ochota and his team by now, but give him my best wishes again when you see him again.

Ray... I delegate a friendly DG's kiss and a hello for Meredith to you to deliver for me.

Don't forget those Projects guys. Peter was all in favour.

Cheers for now.

Denis
DG

The Farm

A casual day at John and Jenny‘s farm “Panardia” Macclesfield. After a leisurely start and catching up on some “admin” we set of on the scenic route via Windy Point a lookout from the southern end of the Adelaide plain. The rain has cleared the air of dust and smoke form the burn offs and the views were very impressive. We have had more rain and heavy showers today and we could see heavy rain squalls coming in off the sea. The drive to Macclesfield about an hour to the SE of Adelaide took us though dense gums keeping a look out for koala and roos. Following some nifty navigation and spotting bunches of balloons at the entrance we all got stuck into an excellent roast lunch. There were a lot of the older club members present who now live local to the Henshall’s and it was great to catch up with them. We had what is now recognised as the official sad farewells, we are on our way tomorrow but Rob took the opportunity to make a presentation to Ken Rowland of his Honorary Life Membership plaque having achieved 46 years of membership, which was a nice touch. John invited us all down to feed the cows Aberdeen Angus beautiful animals as well as a somewhat frisky bull who apparently is about to do his thing any day now, in which case he is entitled! The gums here are spectacular and the clear air gave the scenery a special quality some of us walked up the hill and caught sight of some roos when they broke cover. Back to our hosts to pack and make the early start tomorrow to Merbein. Rob laid on a BBQ for me and his two daughters who came round and I actually had the proverbial shrimp on the BarB! I said Edwardstown were a rowdy bunch and they really have been great fun thanks guys we will catch up with you at the Farewell Dinner, although that still seems a long way off, perhaps not.

I'm still here!!

After having set up the blog initially everything has moved at such a fast pace I haven’t yet had time to add an entry – so this may be a long entry, you have been warned! Up until the Wednesday before leaving the UK we were still due to move house on Friday 18th – the day of our flight. Fortunately this has been postponed till after my return which is a big relief to myself and Alison who would have had to cope with the aftermath.

As a keen car enthusiast I’ve been eager to check out what sorts of cars are popular in Australia. Holden (which would be Vauxhall in UK) and Ford are of course the big players although different models to the UK. Japanese makes such as Mazda, Mitsubishi and Nissan are also big sellers. The photo below shows me in a ‘ute’ (short for utility vehicle). I was quite impressed with this one which had a 5.0L V8 engine!

As you’ll see from the rest of the team entries we’ve been enjoying some fantastic cultural trips to museums and wildlife parks. I’ve been particularly impressed by the number and range of vocational trips the GSE committee has managed to arrange for us. On Wednesday I took a day out to visit Annesley College, a girls school from primary to Yr12. They are a private school (public school in the UK) with fees in the region of £6k per year. There seems to be a growing trend towards fee paid education and they have a very complex funding system here. The school is the 3rd oldest in Adelaide and it was interesting to see the mixture of original buildings and extensions that have been added over time.

On Friday I took a trip to Westminster School (http://www.westminster.sa.edu.au/). Unfortunately, a member of staff had left the school without the arrangements being passed on. However, Fiona Winwood, Events Coordinator came into the school on her day off and although unable to show me the site there and then very kindly agreed to provide me with a tour of the site on Sunday morning. The school has a huge site covering 23 hectares and took about 1 ½ hrs to cover all facilities. The stunning facilities include a chapel, auditorium, swimming pool, gym, rock-wall, boarding facilities, fully equipped conference rooms, vineyard and fully operational farm. Although I’m sure many of the staff at CCW would like to see a vineyard as part of the new school build I’m not quite sure this will get the go ahead! My sincere thanks to Fiona Winwood and Westminster School for the tour of the site and some great ideas to take back to CCW.

We enjoyed a very pleasant Sunday afternoon at the Henshall’s farm near Macclesfield. The picture below shows the Huddleston family (Mark, Debra, Aaron[4yrs], Elise[2yrs]) at the farm house, whom I have been staying with for the past 4 days. They have been fantastic and made me feel extremely welcome and certainly kept me well fed (including a huge spit roast at the farm!) Mark is also responsible for the Rotary Club of Edwardstown website which can be found here - http://www.edwardstownrotary.org/

I will save more details of the trip to the farm for Ray to add as I know he has it well documented with photos. That’s all for now.

A Girls Weekend!

Well you have heard about the boys trip to the football so i thought it was only right that I tell you about the fun that Merilyn (my host) and I have had. After the shopping centre we venture to Glenelg even though the weather was slightly suspicious. We looked at all the boats we couldn't afford and had a trip to the Bay Discovery museum. In true girl style we stopped to look at the two weddings that were battling the weather and ate plenty of cake!

While the boys took their testosterone fulled selves to the sporting venue we ventured into the realms of class by going to the theatre. Adelaide Arts Centre is an amazing venue with 4 performance spaces inside. I will tell you all about this in a future post as I had a vocational day there that was amazing. We went to the space called the Dunstan Playhouse to see Joanna Murray-Smith's play The Female of the Species. This is a modern day farce about a feminist writer suffering from writers block and the strange events that happen one evening at her house. I don't want to give away anymore of the plot but with the tag line of "I remember when a Brazilian was a person" this is a must see piece of theatre. The direction was excellent and there were some stand out performances from the strong cast.

After the show we went to Adelaide's Casino having a go on some of the tables and on the famous pokies machines. I even won on them! not much but enough to keep me happy. Being one to show me as many different things in Adelaide as possible, we drove home via Hindley Street. This is the equivalent to the adult parts of Soho London if you catch my drift! It was certainly an experience but don't worry we stayed in the car!

The evening was rounded off with a trip to Windy Point to see the stunning view of the city by night. Boys you just don't know what you missed!

Book Shop

Well it actually rained last night, real heavy stuff but apparently apart form the rain water harvesting systems it will not do a lot of good as the ground is so hard it just runs off, still it was a start and the forecast of more to come materialised and it rained on and off most of the day. This seems to be an odd thing to be burbling on about but everywhere is on very strict water regimes and reservoirs are bordering on empty, it would be interesting to the transformation if we do get some reasonable rain. And we could become heroes if we can claim the credit! This morning we visited the Edwardstown Rotary Club Book Shop. The shop was purchased 10years ago as a going concern for $35,000 with loans from six club members these were repaid within four years whilst still making significant contributions to the club to fund other projects $7000 in the first year and $25,000 in the last . The project has just topped the $1M turnover; however, like other projects I have seen since I have been here it’s the hands on element that is quite incredible. Edwardstown is not a large rotary club but the majority of their 35 members are regularly involved in the organisation and running of the shop. The shop deals in second hand books which on inspection are of a very high quality these are available both as sales and exchanges 50% being given on a return. It is run as a separate business within the Rotary Club having its own Board including Chairman, and Treasures and the willing team of volunteer helpers includes some non Rotarians. The shop opens Monday to Friday from 9.30 to 5.00 Saturdays 10.00 to 5.00 plus late night shopping on Thursdays tying up with the adjacent Marion shopping to cope with this the club directly employs two part time staff a truly incredible project requiring total commitment from the club. ANZAC weekend would not be complete without a visit to a footy game and we were taken to see Port Adelaide play St Kilda. Aussie Rules or “aerial ping pong” is a fast and furious game. John Henshall had arranged his son’s private box for us plus food wine and beer. As well as John our hosts from Edwardstown RC were Rob Fick, Lloyd Lewis. We even had Lyle Strachan, a Crows supporter, with us for entertainment, top bloke. Thanks guys we had a really great night; Oh by the way Port Adelaide won 82 to 61. We travelled to the footy, the other side of town, on the “footy express” a special bus service with priority lanes when we got back to Mophettvile it was white with hale, Linda Fick said the noise on the roofs had been incredible.

ANZAC Day

We were particularly privileged to have been in Australia on ANZAC day. Early on we were advised that part of our programme was to attend the Dawn Service at the Brighton memorial, a coastal suburb of Adelaide, and we had asked Edwardstown RC if it would be possible for us to lay a wreath at the service. Getting up between 4and 5am was no real problem for any of us as we still haven’t established any sensible sleep pattern yet, except Cheryl who has an amazing ability to power nap. We all converged on at the Brighton Council Offices and lined up behind a piped band and marched to the sea front to the tune of Waltz in Matilda; on bagpipes?! There was huge crowd which shows a great dedication at that time in the morning and the service was as you would expect conducted with great reverence. Particularly impressive were the young people who spoke with great sincerity and relevance to past and present conflicts. As the dawn broke to the sound of the last post the memorial and the light clouds above were tinged with pink and hardly a sound could be heard from the thousands of people who were there. The “GSE team from the UK” were called up to lay our wreath and we all found the experience a profoundly moving occasion.ANZAC day is of course a public holiday and Tom’s host John & Jennifer Henshall live in Brighton so we were all able to walk round to their place for some very welcome coffee not to mention the traditional Australian breakfast of Vegimite. They have a beautiful house right on the beach which Tom is fully exploiting, the beach that is. We all returned to our hosts to change into something more casual for our holiday day out. First to Merilyn Russell’s, Cheryl’s host in Woodcroft for brunch, wonderful but I fear we are or I am eating far too much. We were scheduled to go for a ride on the catamaran but the wind and sea were both getting up and there was a threat of rain, that caused some excitement we therefore reluctantly agreed to go to a winery instead, who I am I kidding I was nearly trampled in the stampede! We decided to treat this as a vocational day and took the wine tasting very seriously which required tasting a considerable number of different wines and much deliberation about their quality this all collapsed when John took us onto his son’s vineyard where they produced their own Shiraz the wine glasses were dispensed with and we all agreed it was the finest of wines and drinking straight from the bottle and tumbles certainly improved the wine. Returning to our hosts via the cost made it a perfect day. - Ray

On to Edwardstown

We had only been with our Campletown RC hosts for 4 days but we had all become firm friends and were very sorry to be leaving but we will see them again at the Farewell Dinner. We packed our bags and made an early start to tie up at the LeCornu car park to transfer over to our new hosts at Edwardstown RC a very colourful and somewhat rowdy bunch who seem like good fun. Rob Fick my new host picked me up loading my increasing luggage into his boot and we immediately visited one of their community Service projects. This is a rose garden in Glandore a public park containing an “Oval” and tennis courts. The rose garden had fallen into dereliction and Edwardstown RC volunteered to take it over. The garden is now in a tidy state the roses are well pruned and some replanting and mulching has taken place. The Council, with the severe water restrictions in place water it once a week. This project is a true co-operation project between Rotary and the local council and without doubt a much appreciated community service project we made a visit to the beautiful sea side suburb of Glenelg, the first time I had seen the sea since our arrival and made me feel quite at home. On to the Westfield Marion Mall where Rob and Linda have a card and gift shop called “Wild”. I managed to say a quick hello to Linda and we left her to the customers whilst Rob and I returned to my new home for the next 4 days in Morphettville after a quick sandwich it was down to Westminster School to join Richard and Cheryl on their vocational day. The same day we had our second presentation this time to 7 clubs and an audience of 101. We were delighted to again see DG Peter; Rob is President of Edwardstown and he ran a fun meeting where our impressions of a rowdy bunch were confirmed (just like home). The team were absolute stars and, not being quite as tired as the fist one, they really shone and were there long after the meeting closed chatting with the assembled throng. We haven’t been here a week yet! - Ray

D.I.K.

The first of our vocational days and I have been given my own vocational programme. Today I went under the umbrella of Rotary Australia World Community Service (RAWCS) led by Steve Head to visit Donations In Kind (DIK) a huge Rotary project. DIK under the guidance of Norm O’Flaherty which is mushrooming it has derived 7, 11, and a projected 21 containers of aid over the last three years with an annual value estimated at AU$300,000 an it has not cost Rotary a cent. This is a joint District 9520/9500 project. I spent the whole day with Norm who filled me in on the logistics, receiving of goods, sorting, repairs, packing, stuffing of containers, shipping and distribution. Steve then explained the workings of Safe Water Saves Lives (SWSL) and Rotarians Against Malaria (RAM). Rob Cesana also joined us to give me full details of Volunteer (PV) and finally David Riggall came in specially to give me the details of International Infancy Midwifery, Obstetrics & Gynaecolology aid Programme (IMOG) all these projects are very impressive and some give us the opportunity to potentially set up matching grants in conjunction with UK clubs but the really impressive aspect of IMOG was that it relied on and used all the other wings of RAWCS to achieve its considerable success being one of the few programmes that is able to specifically measure lives saved; Following the provision of an ambulance the actual women saved was increased form 4 to 90. Within the confines of this blog it is impossible to explain the detailed working s of all these projects but all are accessible via the web. Following my own incredible day I phoned the team to how they had got on and they had all had very successful and worthwhile days and all seem to have something they can take back to the UK.

A Lovely Lady

Just prior to our departure, from the UK, we received the sad news that PDG, 9520, Bob Norhtcote had passed away. Bob and Margaret were scheduled to be Richard’s host and full credit to the committee for quickly and quietly, in consultation with Margaret, rescheduling Richard to stay with Milton and Janette Lewis. We were very appreciative of the committee’s swift action and particularly grateful to Milton and Janette for stepping in at the last minute. We of course had not met Margaret but we really felt for her and asked if the committee would pass on our condolences and also asked if there would be any opportunity fro us to meet up with her. In the event Margret was a great supporter and attended a number of our activities and I came to know her quite well even meeting her new puppy, a labradoodle called Amber. With Bob she has been a great supporter of GSE for many years and gave me much encouragement for the start of this Exchange programme with Campelltown RC. Her courage at this difficult time was an inspiration to us all and a tribute to Bob. She is a lovely lady and receiving considerable support from her many friends in Rotary and we wish her well for the future - Ray