"THE RANGE" Vol. 59 No.17
WEDNESDAY 18th April 2018
THIS WEEK'S MEETING
Maleny Hotel at 6:30 for 7:00pm with Guest Speaker Kelli Dendle on Low Cost Housing.
APOLOGIES
Apologies to Bernice before noon on Tuesday 17th.
DUTY ROSTERS
18th Apr 2nd May 16th May
Duty Officer Jim A Greg W Ric T
Assist DO Malcolm B Roly N Rick V
Registration CL C John W Keith R
Fellowship David F Laurelle O Bill H
SAUSAGE SIZZLE ROSTER
21st April
Bill Hankinson (Leader) Greg Williams Ric Townsend
5th May
Malcolm B (Leader) Chris Ross-Smith Phillip Stark
CLUB ORGANISATION
Details of the make up of the currrent Board and Committees can be found at the end of this bulletin. An additional Committee has been added this week.
MINUTES OF MEETING OF 4TH APRIL
President Alan welcomed members. As the guest speaker was unable to be present, he dragooned four of those present to speak for 5 minutes each on a topic of their choosing.
Chris Brooker spoke of the plans to celebrate the centenary of the end of World War 1. A Victory Parade was held in Maleny at that time. It is planned that there will be a reenactment of that parade on 11 November this year. There will be a street parade involving community groups and the public with horsedrawn buggies and floats included. With period costumes, Chris hopes that this will be a grand occasion as Maleny will be only one of three towns on the Sunshine Coast to celebrate with a Parade.
Mike Gregory spoke passionately about Rotary and the opportunity it gives people to do things you would only dream about. Mike has been a member of Maleny Club for 23 years. He highlighted many of his experiences in Papua New Guinea as well as the many friendships he has formed with people from many different cultures from around the world.
Adria,our Exchange Student from Spain, has only 3 months to go before he leaves for home. He thanked the Club and his host families for their wonderful hospitality. He will be attending District Conference and is looking forward to meeting more Rotarians and learning more about Rotary projects. He also enjoyed going with Rick to the Montville Wood Craft Club and seeing people enjoying themselves whilst helping each other. Holidays around our great country are also highlights and it is very evident that he has appreciated his time with the Club.
Greg Williams spoke about his willingness to be involved in the
community. He ran a small family friendly law firm in Maleny for quite a few years. While studying Greg worked in law firms, heeding advice such as listen to what the problem is before forming your opinion - and do not let the client spend too much money. Greg is currently involved in many community projects such as canvassing for the Hydrotherapy Pool and Presidency of the Maleny Sports and Rec Club.
TS CENTAUR'S SAILING ACHIEVEMENT AT NATIONAL SAILING REGATTA 2018
Chris Brooker is the Rotary nominee on the TS Centaur Support Committee and reports regularly on their activities. This is a really top result from a relatively small unit.
PREAMBLE
Each year, normally during the Easter School Holidays, the Australian Navy Cadet National Sailing and Shooting Events are held in Sydney. Each Flotilla, there are 10 in Australia, each comprising approximately 10 Training Ships, gets to nominate 4 Cadets for the Shooting and 6 Cadets for the Sailing. The events are held over 2 days with the Shooting being at the Sydney Olympics Shooting Venue and the Sailing at Lake Chipping Norton. Cadets are accommodated and messed at Holsworthy Army Barracks. Daring Flotilla, of which TS Centaur is a member, normally have a weekend activity late in the year to select the teams for both the Shooting and Sailing.
2018 EVENTS.
TS Centaur has not been able to shoot recently due to Range availability so we did not enter any of our Cadets. However we had 6 Cadets at the Sailing Selection and TS Centaur was able to secure two places in the team of six with two other of our Cadets being selected as reserves! CDT LS Israel Macdonald-Parker and CDT AB Ben Maclean were to be our representatives in the Daring Flotilla Sailing Team. This year there were to be 17 boats on the water for the Championship. On arrival in Sydney, teams were selected and both our Cadets together with CDT AB Rio Knott, from NTS Sheean, were nominated as Daring Flotilla’s First Division Team. In 2017 AB Maclean and AB Knott had been part of the winning team in Division 2, hence the upgrade to Division 1.
RACE RESULTS
On the first day there was reasonable wind although more would have been better. Our Team did exceptionally well in the five races sailed, coming first in three of the races and two seconds. Day two saw virtually no wind, with only two races being possible. However we still managed two thirds and that was sufficient for the Team to be declared National Champions in Division 1.
OTHER RESULTS
 |
| The winning crew |
Daring Flotilla performed well in the overall scheme of things with the following being achieved:
• 1st National Sailing Championship Division 1
• 2nd National Sailing Championships Division 2
• 1st National Shooting Championship
Our thanks to PP Lt Eddie Vann, ANC, Training Officer, TS Centaur for this report.
GLASSHOUSE MOUNTAINS AND MALENY ROTARY CLUBS DEBATE
This has been scheduled for Monday 23rd April at 6:30 pm at Country Kitchen Landsborough Restaurant with a dinner cost of $25 plus BYO drinks. The restaurant is next to the police station - whose residents will hopefully not be disturbed. Maleny will propose the motion that "Wine is better than beer." The rules are that there will be three speakers per team with each speaker allotted three minutes. The time keeper will be Peter Farrell and the judge is still to be appointed. The Glasshouse Mountains will provide a trophy for the winner.
A UPDATE FROM RUSS STEPHENSON RE HIS PNG PROJECT
Many thanks for your support for the project to alleviate malnutrition in the Mougulu area of PNG. I expect to submit the application as soon as I finalise a couple of small issues.
No doubt you are aware of the devestation caused by earthquakes and land slips throughout many parts of PNG, including my project area (see report below).
My project will be timely in the area covering mainly the Biami language people but others as well in this area that is so often forgotten by the rest of the World (including the rest of PNG). For example, during the 2015-2016 drought throughout PNG, food relief was flowing to many of the affected people throughout the country, but not in this remote, impoverished area. In early 2016 my project partner Sally Lloyd broke the news at a news conference in Port Moresby that people were dropping dead in the field from hunger, babies were dying. It was only after this that food relief started being distributed to these disadvantaged people. I chose this area for my project because the people are among the most disadvantaged and impoverished in PNG. (See http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-21/western-province-people-desperate-for-food-in-png-drought/7105784).
Some of the people who are partners in my project are mentioned in the report below, particularly Sally Lloyd. I thought you might be interested in getting an insight into my wonderful partner. Sally Lloyd is frantically busy just now, doing what she can do to help. I am hoping to be in the Mougulu area within 6 months to kick off the first stage of my project but will not get into more remote areas until late this year or early next year. If nothing else, my modest project will send a message that we are thinking of the people and hopefully doing a little bit to make their lives a bit better - see report below.
ANTON LUTZ SHARES WHAT LIFE HAS BEEN LIKE NEAR THE EPICENTRE SINCE THE QUAKE STRUCK 3 WEEKS AGO
This week, a disaster relief team operating out of Mougulu in Western Province demonstrated how key partnerships can lead directly to efficient outcomes. As the largest earthquake in more than a hundred years rocked the centre of New Guinea in the early hours of Feb 26, I lay petrified in my bed listening as things fell all through the house. As the shock waves subsided, I flipped on my phone and checked in with my friends in Mt Hagen, Goroka, Lae. They were shaken, but ok. But we were the fortunate ones.
Days passed and every day we learned more of what had befallen the people nearer the epicentre. I knew I had to do something to help the people most affected. I contacted Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) and my longtime friend Mrs Sally Lloyd, a woman who not only grew up in Mougulu where her parents have served the Biami people for fifty years, but who has devoted much of her adult life to continuing that legacy and selflessly serving her people in that area. “I want to help. Is there anything you think I can help with?” I asked. “Yes!” was the reply.
By the time 4 March came around, I was in Hagen coming up to speed on the information that was coming in on the HF radio network and through the MAF pilots who were working in the affected areas southwest of the earthquake. Following meetings with MAF and the PNGDF and their ADF counterparts on 5 March, a plan was formed that Sally and I would go to Mougulu in Western Province and form part of a forward operating base to help MAF and MAF’s partners facilitate the
disaster relief work. I bought some tinfish and rice and charged up my phone. That night, Sally told me the good news that OTML was working with the office of the MP for North Fly, Hon James Donald, and that a helicopter and pilot would be ready to assist our work the next morning.
On March 6th, we were picked up by a helicopter in Hagen and taken to Huya and Dodomona, two of the worst affected places on this side of Mt Sisa. Sally wanted to stay overnight with the people at Huya so that she could get a good sense of what was happening there. I reckoned I could do a night with the refugees at Dodomona; after all, what’s the worst that could happen? Our assessment process involved meeting with the ward councillors and pastors, the village recorders and the local leaders. We did earthquake education, listened, prayed with them and asked about health problems, displaced persons, damages to houses and gardens, injured and missing persons, deaths. By the time midnight struck, I was fast asleep, but only just.
Just in time to be lifted out of bed by a 6.7M earthquake detonating under Dodomona like a nuclear bomb. By the time I got out of the house, part of it had fallen. The aid post which had stood for 38 years had fallen to the ground. People had minor injuries and were standing in the dark, afraid to go near the houses that they’d been sleeping in moments before. A pile of mumu stones that I’d stood on to take a photo six hours earlier had vibrated so fiercely that the stones were now spread out all over the village. But we had it easy. Over at Huya, Sally and the refugees huddled on the airstrip as the cliffs in the distance gave way, weakened a week earlier by the 7.5M, and huge landslides now fell, one after the other for hours. The noise of a rushing howling wind thundered down on them. People cried out in fear. The slopes below the airstrip fell away into the river. Cracks opened in the airstrip as the shock waves went on and on.
At dawn we surveyed the damage. We cared for those we could and arranged for medIvacs for those who needed more than first aid. Later that day we met up in Mougulu with team volunteer Samson Suale, MP James Donald, North Fly Project Officer Larry Franklin and officers from the Western Province Disaster Office and the North Fly District Disaster Office. As a matter of high priority, even before coffee, I related my findings from Dodomona to the group. People were missing and presumed dead. Others were believed to be trapped and dying on the other side of a treacherous, mud-choked river. We looked at each other. “Let’s go!” several of us said at once.
That was nearly three weeks ago. Every day since has been that intense, that focused, that full-on. We found the “dead” people. They weren’t dead. We found the missing people. We conducted our community assessments in 26 locations from Tinahae in the north to Fogomaiyu in the south, carefully identifying and communicating which locations which will need ongoing aid and which will not. We learned which people were displaced, where they were moving, and what they were fleeing. We moved patients who needed help to the health center at Mougulu. Nearly twenty of them. We rescued a woman with cerebral palsy who had been abandoned by her community as they fled. She was alone for nearly four days before I came in the helicopter to take her back to where her community had fled.
We’ve dismantled the fallen aid post at Dodomona and rebuilt it in three days. Take what is fallen, make something useful out of it, get on with life. Two newly graduated Community Health Workers volunteered to treat patients there with medicines that we got out of Hagen. They’re there now, treating yaws, grille, diarrhea and so many sores. We’ve installed water tanks at Dodomona, Adumari and Huya. We’ve helped the Rural Airstrip Agency conduct a two-day technical assessment of the fractures in the airstrip at Huya which will allow a plan to be put in place for its repair and re-opening. We’ve given people the tools they’ll need to rebuild houses, gardens, lives. Hundreds of tools, thousands of packets of nails. And, of course, we’ve delivered aid. Food aid. Water. Tarpaulins, tents, pots and blankets. Family hygiene kits. All donated by individuals, churches, business houses, CARE International, the North Fly MP’s Office, OTML. All of it flown by Adventist Aviation Services, MAF, SIL, and the ADF Chinooks.
This natural disaster has highlighted what many of us have known all along, that there are people living on the outer edges of Papua New Guinea. People like you and me. People, however, who do not have soap or salt, a school or an aid post. People whose lives have been shattered by the mountain collapsing beneath them and who must now survive long enough to rebuild. For the people gathered now at Adumari, Dodomona, Huya and Walagu, perhaps their greatest need now is that their plight is not politicised nor impeded by infighting among the aid groups. They have a long road ahead of them as they decide whether or not to permanently abandon their damaged homes and villages, and if so, how to build new lives that are full of meaning and possibility.
Our small team here at Mougulu has shown how cooperation and transparency can achieve significant outcomes and I, for one, am proud that I was part of that.
FUTURE MEETINGS & EVENTS
20th-22nd April
District Conference Maroochydore RSL
23rd April
Debate with Glasshouse Mountains at Country Kitchen Landsborough at 6:30pm.
25th April
ANZAC DAY - no meeting.
2nd May
Maleny Hotel at 6:30 for 7:00pm with Guest Speaker Deb Lynde on Bushfire Preparation.
5th-7th May
Wood Expo car parking duties.
9th May
Board Meeting at the Masonic Hall.
16th May
Meeting details to be confirmed.
23th May
Joint Clubs Meeting at USC.
1st-2nd June
Maleny Show
BIRTHDAYS FOR APRIL
1st Nancy Baker 4th Phillip Stark 8th David Fraser 12th Chris Brooker 23rd John McLennan 27th Chris Ross Smith & John Whan
WEDDING ANNIVERSARIES FOR APRIL
13th Jeff & Jan Cornfoot 26th Bill & Marlene Hankinson
AND NOW FOR SOMETHING DIFFERENT
A SERIES OF ABSTRACT MEANINGS IN PICTURES
THIS IS WHAT THIS IS WHAT COURAGE LOOKS LIKE
MALENY ROTARY CLUB EXECUTIVE TEAM FOR 2018-2019
BOARD MEMBERS
President - Alan Wilson
Vice President - Michael Gregory
Secretary - Bernice McLennan
Treasurer - Jim Atkinson
Vocational - Ric Townsend
Club Admininstration / Membership - Philip Stark
International/Foundation - Angela Griffin/ CL Claridge
Community Relations/Youth - Greg Williams
Service Projects - Rick Vickers/Chris Ross-Smith
Other Roles
Minute Recorder - Lionel Tilley
Guest Speakers - Michael Gregory
Bulletin Editor - Keith Rogers
MALENY ROTARY CLUB COMMITTEES
1.Grants Committee 2.RAWCS - Ebenezer Zambia
Confidential Angela Griffin
CL Claridge
Jim Atkinson
3.RAWCS-Nepal
Chris Ross-Smith 4.Show Committee
Jim Atkinson Bernice McLennan
CL Claridge John McLennan
5.Social Committee 6.Calendar Committee
Phillip Stark Lionel Tilley
Roly Neiper Rick Vickers
Jeff Cornfoot
7.High School Project Jim Atkinson
Chris Brooker
Jeff Cornfoot
Greg Williams
8.Membership/ 9.Qld Australian Cross Country Athletics Title
USC Project Committee Rick Vickers
Phillip Stark Greg Williams
CL Claridge Chris Brooker
Angela Griffin
Roly Nieper 10.Plan for Maleny Education Support Fund
Chris Ross-Smith Angela Griffin
Rick Vickers CL Claridge
Roly Nieper
Jeff Cornfoot
