We are pleased that we were successful in assisting various organisations to attract Australian Government funding of upwards of $13 million to the South East over the years.

Thank you to everyone who used the services of Seacc and I will endeavour to send you contact details of the new RDA organisations being set up in the near future.

John Dedman

Executive Officer

South East NSW Area Consultative Committee

‘The Club’

a great night out

On Saturday night I had the pleasure of seeing ‘The Club’ at Twyford

Hall. It is fantastic entertainment and anyone looking for a good night out should get themselves along to have a look at some great local talent.

David Williamson’s satirical play highlights the boardroom politics at a football institution where old traditions, like ex-player, ex- coach and scheming vice president Jock Riley, played brilliantly by John Fraser, die hard.

The play was written in 1976 but the hilarious dialogue perfectly captures the antics of egotistical football officials and players of the current era. You’d swear president Ted Parker had done a stint at Cronulla in recent months!

A famous football coach once said, “Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.

Do yourself a favour and go and check out ‘The Club’. It’s a flag-winning performance from coach Bill Deveril and the Spectrum Team.

Doug Reckord

Kalaru

Well done Spectrum

Can I congratulate the Spectrum Theatre Group on an outstanding presentation of ‘The Club’ at Tywford Hall.

The class of performance by the actors and the quality of the stage set, would be extremely difficult to match by any professional metropolitan theatre ompany.

Well done indeed!

John & Dale Tait

Merimbula

School support for Pambula Hospital

I write to you regarding the planned closure of the Pambula Hospital.

I am the assistant principal of Tallangatta Secondary College and our school has conducted a Year 7 school camp at Edrom Lodge for the past 20 years, a camp that will continue to be run in future years.

In that time we have been able to access the excellent services of the Pambula Hospital when emergencies have arrived. In our organisation we have been able to assure our parents that when we take their children to Eden, we have a fully functioning hospital that can be accessed readily from Edrom Lodge, Eden and Pambula where our itinerary focuses.

In our last trip to Eden in March we had an outbreak of gastro, which was treated immediately by the hospital, and minimised the flow on effects to the rest of the group through correct treatment and precautionary advice and actions when we returned to the camp.

On other occasions we have had broken bones and last year a serious sting that needed expert local treatment and advice.

On all occasions the assistance from the Pambula Hospital staff has been excellent. I do hope that financial expediency does not lead to the hospital being closed and moved to Bega as was highlighted in my reading of the issue.

We come from a small country town 350 kilometres from Melbourne and 42 kilometres from Albury/Wodonga and our local hospital has been bolstered through appropriate funding and is a central hub providing a huge range of services to our community.

I hope the authorities look carefully at some models of operation that do not lead to a closure of the Pambula Hospital.

Country communities need strong vibrant organisations such as schools and hospitals and shire councils so that we can provide the necessary services that are required.

Con P Madden,

Assistant principal

Tallangatta Secondary College

Zach says thanks

As you are already aware our three-year-old grandson Zach Armstrong was diagnosed with a rare genetic disease called Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva (FOP).

FOP causes his muscles, ligaments, tendons and connective tissues to turn to bone.

It is the only disease known to medicine where one organ turns into another and so he is becoming imprisoned in a mass of bone which will turn him into a human statue.

Zach is only one of eight in Australia with FOP and one of 700 known in the world.

There is no treatment and no cure at present.

We are raising funds for the research to find a cure for this devastating disease as there is very little government or pharmaceutical support into rare diseases. All monies raised come from the families of FOP sufferers.

We’d like to thank the communities of Merimbula, Bega and Eden for their generosity and support.

Through their efforts the recent fundraising raffle for the Zach Armstrong Fund Incorporated was an outstanding success. Also we’d like to say a special thanks to the Merimbula News Weekly for running Zach’s story and bringing this horrible disease to the public’s notice.

Zach, and his mum and dad, would like to express their sincere thanks for everyone’s support and generosity.

The raffle was drawn on Saturday, June 13, and congratulations to the winners.

1st: C.Ayers of Punchbowl (ticket 0962)

2nd: J.Whalley of Eden (ticket 9353)

3rd: J.Miller of Glenmore Park. (ticket 7030)

We are a registered non-profit charity with DGR status (tax deductibility) and if anyone wishes to make a donation to the Zach Armstrong Fund Inc our details are:

Zach Armstrong Fund INC

Commonwealth Bank

BSB: 062649

Acct: 10129558

Tim and Mary Eastman

Tura Beach

Plenty to be done

Sorry you were offended (S. Read MNW 17/6/09), but the old saying was that the truth hurts. Yes, I had six children, so I know that you are up against things with four.

However, when you mind them yourself, you get quality time with them.

Also I worked side by side with my husband - he was a baker and so I made up the big boilers of meat pie, cut up vegetables for pasties.

Many times after being up most of the night with a crying child, I wrapped bread at 4am to go out on various mail cars to farmers.

Also I took in dressmaking and alterations, to work at home with my family to help pay for our home. And no, we did not compete for a large and expensive place but kept it to a minimum of requirement for our family.

We also had an aged parent with us for the last 20 years of their life and cared for them 24/7. So I do have an understanding of what it is to battle.

Our work at CWA was to raise money for scholarships for underprivileged and rural children to help with their education and to help in many community projects locally.

There is always a need in the community: hospital and ambulance auxiliaries, fire victims and aged care, no one need say there is nothing to do.

Young people would have no time for vandalism or car rages if they just looked around at the need about them and helped.

So yes, pull your socks up and stop whingeing. You have much to be thankful for!

P Moulds

Tura Beach

Heartfelt thanks from a survivor

On the 15.6.09 I suffered a heart attack.

I would sincerely like to thank the girls at the Swift Health and Fitness Gym for their help.

Also a huge thank you to the Merimbula Ambulance Crew who were in Bega at the time (lucky for me) for literally saving my life.

And to the staff on the night and morning shift at Bega Hospital for the great care that was provided to me.

Lastly to the Southcoast Air Service for getting me to Canberra without any problems.

To all concerned a very big thankyou from myself and my husband David.

Heather Haskett

Merimbula

Need for public scrutiny

People with experience in other local government regions have said that legal action alleging defamation is the latest popular method employed to silence or legally intimidate those of opposing, differing or contrary views.

There are many local examples of people in authority using this method to prevent discussion of particular issues.

In its very extreme form, of course, it leads to a police state, which is why we need to be always vigilant to guard our democracy and its freedoms.

In support of accountability and transparency of process in local government particularly, your attention is drawn to a recent statement by Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard: “We serve the public. We are accountable to the public.

We can’t shield ourselves from public scrutiny - nor should we”.

R N Davie

Wallaga Lake

Global cooling?

It’s been a big couple of weeks for climate change scepticism in Australia. Professor Ian Plimer’s new book ‘Heaven And Earth’ has people talking about global cooling, and Senator Steven Fielding has decided that global warming isn’t real.

Fielding will vote against an Emission Trading Scheme, and Plimer says Fielding (who is an engineer) is the only politician who can make an informed decision on climate change.

It sounds like a good time to consider some unequivocal statements on climate change, or at least some points that the IPCC, The National Science Academy of Australia, and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology all agree on.

The Hadley Met Office in Britain tells us that the globe is warming. It has been warming for the last 100 years, and has been warming at a rate of about 0.2 degrees per decade since the 1970s.

The 11 hottest years ever recorded have all been in the last 13 years. The Hadley Met Office figures show unequivocal ongoing global warming, despite what Professor Plimer says about their results. You cannot explain that warming as being caused by the sun. There has been no significant increase in solar radiation since the 1970s, so something other than solar brightness must be warming the planet.

Atmospheric CO2 is rising at a rate of 2 parts per million per year, and there is no identifiable natural cause for that increase. Humans are responsible for 7 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions each year, and atmospheric CO2 is now 30 per cent higher than it has been for at least the last 600,000 years. Atmospheric CO2 has not increased at that rate for at least the last 600,000 years, so it defies logic to suggest that natural processes are at work.

Sea level is rising at an accelerating rate, currently 3mm per year. The oceans are warming and becoming more acidic as they absorb CO2. The total sea level rise for the twentieth century was 17cm, but is likely to be much higher for the 21st century.

Satellite data since 1978 show that annual average Arctic sea ice extent has shrunk by 2.7% per decade. Mountain glaciers and snow cover have declined on average in both hemispheres. The last time polar regions were significantly warmer than present for an extended period (about 125,000 years ago), reductions in polar ice volume led to a 6m sea level rise.

Global warming on that occasion was driven by well documented changes to the earth’s position during its orbit around the sun. You cannot explain current global warming on that basis.

I challenge Plimer, Fielding, or anyone else to refute these comments.

Matthew Nott

Bega

Another misdirection

The Pacific Nation of Tuvalu, formerly the British Ellice Islands, is experiencing incursions of the sea. The media portrays this as due to rising sea level as a result of Global Warming.

Tuvalu consists of nine atolls in a chain 580km long at 8 degrees S Latitude near the International Date Line. It has a total land area of 26 square kilometres and a Polynesian population of about 10,000, mostly located in the capital, Funafuti, on the largest atoll.

As sea level has risen only a few centimetres in the last 150 years, Tuvalu’s present problems are not due to rising sea level, but to subsidence of the volcanic sea mounts underlying the atolls, a situation made worse at Funafuti by construction activities.

In his 1830 ‘Principles of Geology’, Charles Lyell noted that coral atolls grow on top of sinking volcanoes. Charles Darwin added his observations in his 1942 book ‘The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs’. There is extensive literature on the subject. Similar adaptation occurs if there is a rise in sea level.

The thickness of the coral column tells the story. Since the end of the last ice age, some 14,000 years ago, sea level has risen about 130m. Drilling at Bikini and Enewerak Atolls in 1952 encountered a 1300m column of coral before reaching volcanic basalt. Some 130m of the column is accounted for by rising sea level, the remainder attests to coral growth as the sea mounts subsided.

Tuvalu has a bleak future from inundation as subsidence continues, irrespective of any effects of Global Warming.

Sep Paterson

Merimbula

Men don’t bear children

I have just come from a meeting between GSAHS, the Mayor some local Councillors, and members of the Save Pambula Hospital Action Group supported by one sympathetic local GP.

Much has already been said on this issue but this meeting on June 29 produced a different outcome.

One could be forgiven for thinking that Pambula is a rural village in Pakistan.

The leader of men, after due consideration of the facts he had been presented with, made a decision. “There will henceforth be no opportunity for any woman to give birth in this village.”

Acting out that proclamation henchmen appointed by the leader relocated all facilities providing that option to a distant place. They left behind immense resource wastage. They paid no heed to the emotional, physical, spiritual, and financial hardship women would now be forced to suffer.

The women cried out in dismay. No-one listened.

The women asked questions and suggested answers. Still no-one listened.

Today the women sought support from the village patriarchs.

The patriarchs said, “The leader has spoken. The henchmen have acted out his decision as fully as they could and can do nothing to modify it. We have spoken to the leader. He assured us his decision was for the best. We believe it wise to accept that view. We should all be pleased with the work of the henchmen. Now it is important to work hard to ensure that everything turns out well in the end.”

The women cried a little and didn’t know what to do next.

I walked away feeling ashamed.

Graham Pettigrove

Pambula Beach