Update from Today's Meeting

Materials for Children

We now have a storage room offered at Bridport. Donations of games, books, pencils, etc have begun to come in.



Hay for Yea

Good news! The first trailers have arrived, despite some problems with tyres blowing and delays due to the fire warnings and road closures. Special thanks to Jeff Taylor of Bass Strait shipping for his understanding in us getting his trailer back to him late becaue of this. Tim Fryer (Linfox) has been put in control of transportation from Melbourne to Yea. Mick Best continues as our initial contact.

We must thank the Tasmanian minister for Transport & Infrastructure, Jim Cox, and his hardworking office staff, for their invaluable help in dealing with transport issues involved in getting goods from Dorset all the way to Yea. They have made our job much easier and smoothed the way for us.

Another four trailers of silage to leave Scottsdale within the next couple of weeks. And two more trailers of hay will leave soon.

School to School Contacts

We have several hundred photopostcards of the Northeast to give to Schoolchildren in Dorset to send to their counterparts in Yea and surrounding schools. Our school chaplains will be coordinating this over the next week or so.

We discussed further the possibility of organising one or more educational camps later in the year. Small groups of students from Yea and other schools could be bussed in or flown over with their teachers to attend recreational and educational activities. This would be with the aims both of providing respite from the difficult recovery environment they have been experiencing, and providing a genuine educational experience for them. We have had offers of supervisory and educational help from teachers at Scottsdale High School who have run camps, and from the Presbyterian State Youth organisation who could provide several trained counsellors/leaders. Other groups such as the Bridport Girl Guides and various Church groups and ladies guilds have offered to cater and provide food for one day each for the duration of the camp(s). We are compling a list of resources and offers we have, and considering our capabilities, along with feedback from the schools of the Yea area, to determine the dates, nature and length of these camps. If this proceeds we will need to convene a separate committee to plan and organise this. We are thinking at this stage that several small camps of around a dozen students each may be better than one large one, especially considering that some students who have undergone traumas from their experiences in the fires may need individual attention. We will be guided in these sorts of things by teachers and parents from the Yea end.

Contact with Service & Other Clubs

We continue to liase with the Rotary Club of Yea, and have also made contact with Ruth & Bob Crocket and Noeline Birnie at Yea Lion’s Club. Peter will be endeavouring to contact local RSL clubs also, and if anyone from an RSL in the area reads this, you might like to email him: peter dot edson at bigpond dot com.

The Committee will next formally meet on Wed 25th March but we will have more updates here before then as things come to light.