Merbein

Doug and Alys like previous hosts have really taken me into their family to the extent that last night I joined them for their daughter in law Brenda’s birthday party. Being part of family life on a trip like this is without doubt the special element. I am also impressed with the water conservation regimes that they personally implement where hardly a drop of water is not used twice and in some cases three times. Yesterday with the other members of the team we were ferried around by our hosts for our vocational day. I had two fantastic opportunities; in the morning I visited the Sunraysia Hearing Clinic where Don and Jane McDonald welcomed me into their practice and introduced me to Neville Thomas. Neville spent the whole morning with me and I found we had a lot in common including both being “Grey Nomads”. Neville a former Rotarian suffered severe hearing loss at a very early age and has had cochlear implants and has since then devoted much of his life to helping similar sufferers though voluntary work, public speaking, consultancy as well as establishing his own business supplying and installing induction loops and similar equipment. With the voluntary work that I do with my local audiology department we had a lot to talk about and I certainly got some very good tips. I am sure we will maintain contact long after I return to the UK. I was even part of a photo shoot to promote communication; at least I hope that is what it was for!
In the afternoon I was the guest of Mildura Specialist School where Principal Marg Curran gave me and extensive tour and introduced me to many of the staff and pupils. As in the morning this is something very close to my hart and I hope to establish links between pupils and staff here and at St Mary’s in Bexhill where I help out in number of their programmes. Mildura host a much wider range of special needs students than the autistic children I work and their facilities are very impressive; noticeable, of course, are the amount of outdoor activities that they are able to do. The tree planting programme they have reclaiming a 100 acres of “run off” land was particularly impressive growing the trees form seed the students plant and care for the trees which gives them a real sense of ownership. Throughout the day I again picked up mountains of literature.

Thanks to all the people I met during the day and especially Ian Gardner who has put this programme together for us. Ray