Dorset Community Adopt-A-Town Project

Flowerdale Principal Receives Dorset Gifts

2009-03-25T15:27:00.005+11:00

Flowerdale Principal Ross Davis, teacher Ruth Konig and some of the FPS students receiving donated gifts from Max Willson

A big thankyou to all who gave items and esepcially to TT Line who shipped them over from Tasmania free of charge.

Postcards from Bridport

2009-03-21T15:09:00.004+11:00

Below is a sample of what some of the Bridport Primary School students have been writing on postcards for Yea & District schoolchildren (click images to enlarge):

Photos of Donated Goods

2009-03-21T11:47:00.006+11:00

Progress on boxes of donated pens, textas, pencils, books, games, etc

Below: Some of the goodies that have been received at
the various collection centres throughout Dorset:

Right: Packing the boxes. Packing has been just about completed and ready to send to schools.

Left: a box of books for older readers

Adoptatown.net

2009-03-09T20:45:00.004+11:00

The official adoptatown website is now operational at http://adoptatown.net, thanks to Graeme Loosmore at BiWeb. You can see there a gallery of pictures, mostly at this stage just stock photos that give some idea of the extent of devastation, but soon we hope to have pictures of the hay deliveries, etc.

Postcards progress

2009-03-08T21:04:00.002+11:00

We are distributing the photos, tent cards and envelopes to schools for the kids to make up, write on and send.

Thanks to Regal Press Creative Printing for their generous discount on the cards.

Update from Today's Meeting

2009-03-04T13:17:00.008+11:00

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.

Latest News. Exciting New Developments!

2009-03-02T13:04:00.007+11:00

Responses from Yea

We have begun to receive favourable and appreciative feedback from people in the Yea area to our project. The Rotary Club of Yea at their last meeting unanimously endorsed our idea of Dorset adopting Yea as a community, and will begin liaising with us about needs in the area.

Educational Materials for Schools

Gayle Edson, secretary of the Adopt-A-Town committee, has put out a call for books, board games, word games, Legos, colouring in books, pencils, etc for children and families in Yea. Donations will be able to be dropped off at the Pavilion Information Centre at Bridport and at the Scottsdale Advertiser. People from 'up the coast' who wish to donate can contact James Burroughs from Winneleah on 0429 808 177 and he will deliver materials to us from the Winnaleah Derby Branxholm Ringarooma area.

This has resulted from contact with Ross Davis, principal of Flowerdale Public School and Ruth Konig, a teacher and member of Yea Rotary, who have let us know that these are the things that the students need. They will be working together to distribute them to the schools in the area.

After speaking to Ruth Konig we are also looking into the possible transport of students from Yea to Dorset sometime later in the year to attend a special educational camp. We will need offers of help with transport to site, catering, chaperones, food, activities, etc. More information on this later.

Making Yea while the sun shines!

Two more truckloads of Hay are ready to roll to the farmers of Yea! A big thankyou to the generous farmers of the Northeast who have donated this fodder, and to John Lette and the Rotary Club of Scottsdale for organising it. Because of the current extreme fire danger in the area there may be some delay getting it from Melbourne to Yea, but it will be moved in as soon as possible.

Thanks also to all those involved in getting it there, or who have offered help with future transport needs. These include:
- Peter & Wendy Jones Stock Transport of Winneleah
- Clarrie & Roseanne Cassidy Transport of Springfield
- Noel & Yvonne Gerke from Samjack
- C.R. Jones Transport, Minstone Rd
- Geoff Taylor from Bass Strait Shipping and Craig Morris from Tasman Logistics for arranging a trailer each from their respective companies.
- Wendy from Toll Shipping in Burnie for all her help, and Toll for shipping the loads from Tassie to Melbourne
- Toll Transport and Linfox Transport for shipping from Melbourne to Yea. This is a historic association - the first time these two companies have worked together as a team! Special thanks to Nick Best, Operations Manager from Linfox

As you can see just from those mentioned above, this is quickly snowballing into a real northeast community effort, and even wider, with larger companies as well enthusiastically supporting this project!

We'd also like to thank Wendy at the Advocate, Peter Fish and Sharyn from the Advertiser, and Peter Sanders from the Examiner for their support and articles. Watch your local newspaper for further details.

First meeting of Adopt-A-Town Steering Committee

2009-02-26T23:51:00.010+11:00

The team met at Kevin and Liz's place today and decided to focus our efforts on the community of Yea in the Seymour district of central Victoria. Yea is a town of similar size to Bridport or Scotsdale, with small satelite towns similar to those of the rest of Dorset. Their rural economy is also similar, and there has already been contact through the Rotary club and John Lette's visits with fodder. Yea has also been the scene of one of the 'tent cities' that have sprung up to house refugees from the fires.

It was decided that the first step would be to get hold of community directories for Yea so that we can begin to contact groups there and ascertain needs, etc.

It was also decided to commission Graeme Loosmore to create a website for us, and this will be hosted on the domain name www.adoptatown.net. Committee members were also deputised to produce letterheads, advertising brochures, and liaise with newspapers, Radio and TV stations. Kevin has already been interviewed by ABC Northern Tasmania and will be again shortly now that we know what area we will be 'adopting'. The committee will also be approaching schools to provide them with postcards for the children to fill and and send to Yea district schools.

Next meeting is next Wednesday.

View Larger Map

The Adopt-A-Town Project

2009-02-25T13:31:00.000+11:00

The idea came from a group of residents of Bridport on the north east coast of Tasmania. They took it to public meetings at Bridport and Scottsdale, where the concept of the Dorset community 'adopting' a community affected by the Victorian bushfires received enthusiastic support from all sectors represented. Representatives from Dorset Council, Industry groups, TFGA, the Combined Churches of Dorset, Youth, Schools and others all agreed in principle that adopting a town would be a worthwhile project to pursue.

At the meeting at Scottsdale RSL on Thursday 19th February there was much discussion about possible outcomes, pitfalls to avoid, and potential problems. But all were unanimous that we should appoint a steering committee to choose a suitable area, based on size, needs, and social and economic likeness to our own area in order to maximise our effectiveness in helping.

The idea is not to duplicate what is already being done by government and private agencies, but to reach out with moral support, social, material and spiritual help to an affected area. This would be done by 'networking the networks' that we already have. By helping the right hand to know what the left is doing. And by linking needs in the fire-affected area with skills, resources and generous offers of help in our own community. Above all, this was to be not so much concerned with the immediate future, as with the mid and long term needs of bushfire towns. We want to be there with a helping hand when the mass media has moved on and the attention of the world has passed to other things.

This blog will contain information about the ongoing state of this project and how you can be involved. We want to hear from you, too. If you have comments, ideas and suggestions, please post a comment here.