Australia Day change
Evelyn Leckie
THIS year’s Australia Day celebrations by the City of Whittlesea may mark a pivotal moment in council history, as Indigenous perspectives will be acknowledged during Sunday’s event.
A minute’s silence at the council-run event will acknowledge past injustices in Australian history.
In December, council voted to host a culturally-appropriate mourning service on the morning of January 26 to formally acknowledge the pain and suffering the day brings for Aboriginal people.
Whittlesea Reconciliation Group co-chair Sarah Gafforini said council’s decision in December was the first small, but important change to the way Australia Day was celebrated.
Ms Gafforini added the group would’ve liked to see more promotion of the minute’s silence on council’s events page.
“They should have been proud of their decision to finally make changes. It should be celebrated, not hidden. Councillors tell us they are proud of their involvement in reconciliation – so prove it,” Ms Gafforini said.
In 2017, Whittlesea Reconciliation Group requested council consider ceasing Australia Day celebrations on January 26. Council did not accept the request.
Cr Norm Kelly said at council’s last meeting that although he knew people weren’t proud of what happend in 1788 – he did not think cancelling Australia Day was the right way to go.
“My recollection is celebrating what’s good about Australia – at the end of the day, I never hear people say ‘let’s celebrate because Aboriginal people were invaded today’,” he said.
Mayor Emilia Sterjova added the Federal Government could strip council of their right to host citizenship ceremonies if they changed the date.
“Australia Day does signify the beginning of genocide of Aboriginal Australians,” Cr Sterjova said.
“Unfortunately we’re in a difficult situation because we also want to celebrate the wonderful cultural diversity that Australia has.
“That in turn doesn’t allow migrants and refugees, who have every right to call City of Whittlesea their home, a way to enter into our municipality.”
Australia Day celebrations will kick off in the City of Whittlesea on Sunday at 6pm with music, kids’ activities, face painting and food.
There will be live music by Big City Beat and a musical performance by Rua. Recipients of the City of Whittlesea Australia Day Awards will also be announced.
City of Whittlesea Acting director of community services Neville Kurth said council would continue to work with the community to review the Australia Day activities for 2021.
Crafting community spirit
By Jackson Russell
A group of Riddells Creek crafters have been overwhelmed by community support as they make pouches and raise money for refuges caring for wildlife affected by bushfires raging across Australia.
Ranges Rescue began when founders Kate Nabarro and Sally Olinowski put out the call on social media for donations of fabric and material to craft pouches.
Both were inundated with community support, filling their houses with secondhand doona covers, blankets, pillowcases and fabric.
“It turned out that a few people wanted to help and that turned into a full scale working bee, which has now turned into even more donations and more community engagement,” Ms Nabarro said.
With their houses full, a bed and breakfast business and Riddells Creek Scout Group offered their buildings to help store the donations. The group also had to register as a not-for-profit organisation.
“We’ve been blown away by the enormity of something that was supposed to be just a couple little groups getting together and doing a little bit of a sew into how the community has come together,” Ms Olinowski said.
Volunteers have cut, trimmed and sewn hundreds of pouches, ranging from extra, extra small for sugar gliders to extra, extra large for kangaroo joeys, have been made from the donated fabrics and will be sent to Coopers Animal Refuge and distributed to fire-affected areas.
“We’ve also got some amazing knitters and crocheters that are doing handspun woollen pouches with liners and little nests that they can use for possums and sugar gliders,” Ms Nabarro said.
As part of their efforts to support wildlife refuges, Ranges Rescue is hosting a fundraiser on February 1 at Riddells Creek Scout Hall.
Tote bags, crocheted animal keychains and other crafts will be for sale, with all money going to refuges helping fire-affected wildlife.
“Some of the fabric that’s been donated has been brand new, quality stuff that we thought instead of making the pouches, we’ll create tote bags and things like that and sell them on the day,” Ms Nabarro said.
There will also be a sewing bee for people to help make more pouches as well as sewing, crafting and colouring competitions.
“We’ll have the machines set up and they can come down and just do a couple of hours or an hour or so to help make some of the pouches and things like that up,” Ms Nabarro said.
The money raised will help buy formula for animals, which can cost up to $400 a week, and bottle teats, which are $7 each, all of which comes out of the carers’ pockets.
“Some of them have to drive and pick up injured animals from all different locations and they’re using their money,” Ms Nabarro said.
“If we can do to something little to show that they’re not forgotten, then that just helps encourage them.”
To get involved, donate or lend a hand, visit Ranges Rescue group on Facebook at facebook.com/groups/1100943983576130.
Romsey falls short
Roger Fletcher – a fine line of destiny
THERE is a long standing myth about becoming a local in a country town – either your grandmother was born here or you have lived here for 30 years.
Roger Fletcher rewrote the rule book on that theory.
Within a year of moving from Melbourne to Heathcote Junction, Roger was a presenter on local radio station OKR-FM and an active participant in a host of community groups.
Roger showed us all that being a member of a community was founded more in making a significant contribution to your community than serving that 30-year apprenticeship and Roger’s contributions were indeed significant.
But even more significant was the humble man who preferred to compliment others for an achievement rather than take the kudos for himself.
This is best illustrated when following the memorial service for Wandong resident Robert Bamford, who died in mid-April last year.
Roger organised the memorial that he said “was motivated entirely from the community.”
“I thought it was an excellent turnout. I think it’s a great illustration of the community in Wandong-Heathcote Junction,” Roger said humbly at the time.
At 11.40am on Monday, January 6, Roger Fletcher lost his two-year battle with cancer with his wife Lee and family by his bedside.
So passed a great community member – gone but never to be forgotten.
Beyond, or possibly because of, his involvement with his guests on OKR-FM, Roger became an active member of many community organisations.
Mitchell Suicide Prevention, Positive Ageing Ambassadors, Rotary, Love in Action – he was passionate about the community social welfare group – all benefited from his membership and support.
Phil Clancy recalls Roger attending the national suicide prevention conference in Darwin.
“Roger went there as our delegate and came back with a host of contacts that expanded our network throughout Victoria. He told me that being a local organisation was not enough. If we really wanted to serve our communities we needed to develop a strong network. Thanks to Roger that network exists to this day,” Mr Clancy said.
The story is the same with Mitchell’s positive ageing ambassadors.
Fellow ambassador Alan Edwards recalls Roger as an influence that provided a focus and direction.
Roger Fletcher was born on July 4, 1933 in Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire, England with his childhood influenced by the war years.
He was educated at the Royal Russell School in Leighton Buzzard and it was here that he made his mark as a rather impressing all-round sportsman – excelling in cricket, rugby, soccer boxing and athletics.
Some decades later Roger wore his old school tie to a charity volunteer’s event in Melbourne organised to meet Prince Charles.
The Prince recognised Roger’s tie and came over for a chat.
“It made my day,” Roger was to say later.
“And I was able to inform him that as a school boy I visited the palace to donate nursery furniture that my schoolmates and I had built for the Prince’s first birthday.”
Roger’s journey to Australia came by chance when the company he was working for in the late 1980s advised him they were opening branches in South Africa and Australia – Roger chose Australia.
“My choice was a fine line of destiny,” Roger told his wife Lee some years later.
Roger and Lee met in 1993 and were married a year later in 1994.
They ‘merged’ their two families of five children into one that has now grown to an extended family of eight grandchildren.
Looking back it is not only Roger’s family that has enjoyed that fine line of destiny – there are many in our community who have also benefited.
A memorial service for Roger Fletcher will be at Kilmore Trackside at 11am on Friday, January 24.
The family have requested in lieu of flowers there will be a donation box for Roger’s two favourite charities Love in Action and Mitchell Suicide Prevention.
Kilmore SES looks to the future
By Jackson Russell
Kilmore’s SES unit will soon be able start work on some much-needed upgrades as the title of the land on White Street has officially been transferred to Victoria State Emergency Service.
Once council rezoning is finalised, the unit can apply for grants that it was previously denied as the land wasn’t owned by the unit or the SES.
Kilmore SES unit controller John Simpson said the unit had a difficult time attracting funding for upgrades to its site.
“We made applications for grants and we kept getting knocked back on all these grants and eventually we got reasons for the knockback in that we didn’t own the property,” he said.
“The government and other organisations that were making the grants wouldn’t let us have the money for something that might be taken over in six months for something else.”
The first thing the unit wants to do is to replace its current doors to allow more room for vehicles and members in its shed.
Vehicles were smaller when the shed was first built, but now members have to squeeze between vehicles and contort themselves to get in when called out.
“We’re allowed eight minutes for a road accident from the time the pager goes off to having a truck out the door, regardless of where our members are coming from, and when you’re spending two or three more minutes opening and closing doors and that sort of thing, that makes a big difference,” Mr Simpson said.
“A person’s life is on the other end of it. Something like played electric roller doors that automatically close after you’ve gone, things like that mean no one’s hanging back to close the door and then the truck’s waiting for that person to get in.”
Other upgrades the unit wants to make is to cover its training and sandbag collection area and improve its indoor training room and disabled access.
In December 1984, the then Shire of Kilmore allocated a portion of the property to the SES, with the remainder of the property being allocated in February 1990.
When the Shire of Kilmore and Water Board split in 1990, the water board then became owner of the property.
The Shire of Kilmore bought the land for $30,000 on behalf of the SES and provided the SES with a low-cost loan of $26,000 with the loan being paid off in 1999.
Mr Simpson said he wanted to thank members for the effort they went to during the process.
“Some of them put a lot of time into going through old paperwork, some of it going back 30-plus years,” he said.
“To [SES facilities and capital works manager] Justine Phelan, she and her team have been very helpful and thanks to the councillors that supported us.”
BlazeAid starts rebuild after fires
BlazeAid volunteers are already out helping farmers affected by bushfires across the country.
BlazeAid founder Kevin Butler is currently in South Australia with volunteers starting on recovery efforts there before heading to New South Wales later this week.
The group currently has 10 active camps, eight in New South Wales and one each in Victoria and South Australia with three more camps to be opened soon.
BlazeAid is a volunteer-based organisation that works with farmers and families in rural Australia after natural disasters such as fires.
Mr Butler, a farmer from Kilmore East, founded the organisation following the Black Saturday bushfires in 2009.
Mr Butler said on the BlazeAid Facebook page on Sunday that co-ordinators were needed to establish up to 30 additional base camps in the fire region across north-east Victoria and southern New South Wales.
“This will facilitate tens of millions of dollars of aid to numerous fire ravaged rural communities under BlazeAid’s proper governance codes,” he said.
BlazeAid co-ordinators also made a point of reminding people that the recovery from the fires will take months, if not longer.
“We have been touched by the sheer amount of kind people reaching out to us to help those in need. And while we hope that this level of generosity continues, we would like to remind people not to forget us when the media reports die down.
“It can take over 12 months for BlazeAid to help rebuild a community, so if you are keen to volunteer but timing is not ideal, please reach out to us when it suits as we will need just as many people on board months after the fires have gone, as we do now.”
Drama in one-two clash
By Jackson Russell
Yea has taken a first innings lead in day one its top-of-the-table Seymour District Cricket Association clash against Tallarook on Saturday.
Playing at Tallarook, the visitors won the toss and elected to bat but were unable to last even half of the day, bowled out for 75 from just 37.3 overs.
Tallarook was in a world of trouble early, with opener Mitchell Itter run out for a duck and Jac Smith-Williams departing in the same manner for just four runs shortly after.
Opener Adam Howard was bowled by Andrew Chisholm for nine runs with Tallarook just 3/31, triggering a middle-order collapse with the visitors losing 4/2.
Wicketkeeper Cameron Muir was the only Tallarook batsman to put any significant runs on the board, making 29 before becoming the third of Chisholm’s four scalps for the day as the visitors fell to 9/75.
Chisholm ended the innings with figures of 4/18 from 8.3 overs with two maidens while Corey Malcolm took 2/10 from eight overs with four maidens.
With half a day left, Yea was able to nab first innings honours and has enough time this Saturday to push for an outright win after making 7/82 from 36 overs.
Tallarook stuck early, with Nathan Beattie stumped by Muir off the bowling of captain Lachlan Watts, to have the hosts at 1/8.
Yea was able to get a solid second-wicket partnership going as Damon Malcolm (11) and Cameron Armstrong (35) put 32 runs on the board together before Leigh Irving dismissed Malcolm caught behind.
Yea also suffered a middle-order collapse, falling to 6/61 after Armstrong’s dismissal. Chris Piggott (11*) and Joshua Johnson (2*) will resume Yea’s innings on Saturday.
Kilmore in dangerous position
Kilmore are up against it after it was bowled out for 169 at home on day one against Broadford.
Opener Josh Buttler was dismissed early, bowled by Shaun O’Neill for nine runs with Kilmore 1/11.
Opener Kevin Craddock (25) and Marcus Davern (20) combined for a 34-run partnership before Davern was run out.
Craddock and Bailey Dennehy (41) put together a 45-run partnership before Craddock fell at 4/92, leading Kilmore to fall to 7/100 after Dennehy was caught by Braden Hickey off Taylor Shell’s bowling.
Shell tore through Kilmore’s batsmen, taking 4/19 from 12 overs with five maidens, while Jeremy Bradshaw took 3/32 from 14 overs with four maidens.
Kilmore’s lower order was able to get some runs on the board as captain Matt Rose (29*) guided his side through its final three partnerships.
Broadford was able to get a head start on its run chase, getting eight overs in before stumps and making 21 without loss.
Rose said his side would’ve like to have a few more runs on the board.
“It was a good pitch and the outfield was quick so we wanted over 200. Having said that, if we bowl and field well next week, we’re a big chance of taking the 10 wickets,” he said.
“Bailey batted really well, it was certainly his best innings for the year and he played some really nice shots.
“We lost three wickets in 10 minutes just before tea and that really changed the momentum of the game.
“There were half a dozen who’d like the ball they went out to again but Broadford also bowled and fielded well which we’ll also need to do this weekend if we’d like the points.”
Eastern Hill is looking likely for an outright win after bowling out Seymour for 71 at Kings Park on Saturday.
Eastern Hill was able to get the job done in just 40 overs.
The hosts followed up and made 1/54 before stumps was called after 28 overs.
Mernda chasing 175
Mernda looks to be within striking distance after day one of its Money Shield match against Eltham.
Despite early losses, Eltham was able to make 9/175 from its 80 overs.
Eltham lost 3/29 early with Cooper Perrin taking the first two wickets in quick succession.
Eltham was able to recover and put on a 68-run partnership between Matthew Chrimes (47) and Glen Turner (36) before Turner fell at 4/97, followed shortly after by Chrimes at 5/102.
Ben Rowe (41*) held up Eltham’s tail but his partners weren’t able to stick around long enough.
Along with Perrin’s 2/23 from nine overs with one maiden, Aaron Greenough and Mitchell Harris took two wickets each.
Greenough finished with figures of 2/44 from 27 overs with nine maidens while Harris took 2/32 from 12 overs with three maidens.
Whittlesea faces a tough task after Panton Hill set a target of 261 in their two-day Mash Shield fixture at home.
Rajitha Mendis struck early for the Eagles, taking the opening three wickets with two coming leg before wicket.
A century and a 125-run partnership between Glenn Motschall (117*) and William Ashton (76) put the visitors back in control.
After Ashton was run out at 4/148, Panton Hill captain Rick Ford joined Motschall in the middle for a 76-run partnership before he was bowled by Mendis.
Mendis rolled through Panton Hill’s tail on his way to 6/53 form 22 overs with five maidens as the visitors ended up at 9/260 at stumps.
Laurimar has an uphill battle as it chases 239 against Thomastown United on Saturday.
The Power started well, taking an early wicket to have Thomastown United 1/19, before James Lalios (43) and Dulanga Lakmal (98) put together a 58-run partnership – Lalios was dismissed by Luke Richardson.
Jason Lalios joined Lakmal and the pair put on a 106-run partnership before Lakmal was dismissed two runs short of a century by Steven Mitchell for his second of five wickets on the day.
Thomastown United’s middle-order and tail fell quickly, losing 6/17 to be bowled out for 238 from 77.3 overs.
With two overs left in the day, Laurimar was able to get seven runs on the board.
Captain Jake Zerella (5*) and Ray Kelsey (2*) will resume their innings on Saturday.
Wallan cricketers fall from top four
By Jackson Russell
Wallan suffered its second T20 loss of the season, going down by 25 runs to Rupertswood at home on Saturday.
The Magpies won the toss and sent Rupertswood, getting off to a good start with the ball as Mitchell Van De Duim dismissed opener David McDonald for a duck.
Rupertswood rallied and put on a 101-run second-wicket partnership between Paul McGarry (43) and Jordan Curran (52).
McGarry and Curran fell one after the other, bowled by Jai Weshal and Van De Duim, respectively, with Rupertswood 3/101.
Joel Muir (22) and captain Andrew Pizaro (18*) were able to get the visitors to 4/140 when Muir became Van De Duim’s third victim.
Rupertswood finished their innings at 4/156.
Wallan made a solid start to its run chase, with openers Kieran Atkin (35) and Ryan Cumberland (20) putting together a 28-run opening partnership.
Captain Brad Regan was bowled by Pizaro for five, followed by Atkin to have Wallan 3/69.
After a 19-run partnership between Lachie Shinn-Mahony (9) and Spencer Whittingham (14), wickets fell with consistency through Wallan’s middle order which fell to 7/103.
Wallan was unable to chase down Rupertswood’s total, finishing its innings at 9/131.
Wallan coach Chris Vecchie said the side let itself down in the field.
“It was a big game for us to try to hold our position in the top four. We bowled first and let ourselves down with the ground fielding and gave them a few extra runs,” he said.
“When it was our turn to bat, we were confident we could chase that down.
“We got off to a great start but when the first two wickets fell, we couldn’t put any decent partnerships together and as the run rate gets higher, more wickets fall.
“We gave them too many runs in the field and made it hard for us to chase it down. Once you get too far behind the run rate, it’s hard to catch up.”
Wallan sits sixth on the ladder with four wins, four losses and two draws and will take on seventh-placed Macedon in an away two-dayer starting on Saturday.
“We’re back to the two-day format and we’ve got four games left. We’ve dropped out of the four so every game’s a big game for us and we’re all looking forward to the challenge,” Vecchie said.