Peta Crowl was stuck living in a shed with her baby son when she decided she had to do something.
Ms Crowl with some of her delicious wares.
Before finding herself in the shed, she was the only female
beer plumber in Australia and had been running a successful business in
Port Macquarie.
But when life got complicated, she decided to leave her business and move to Melbourne.
‘‘I went from being a beer plumber, earning great money, $85 a hour to pretty much having nothing,’’ she said.
On one of those days when she was stuck at home she stumbled across Cupcake Wars on television.
She was fascinated and decided that she would try her hand at baking, even though she had never baked anything in her life.
For five years she baked cupcakes at home and did whatever she could to sell them.
‘I was baking at home, walking the streets, sitting on the side of
the freeway, walking into shops. Doing some really crazy stuff just to
try and get back into the business world,’’ she said.
‘‘I thought I needed to do something for myself because no one else was going to.’’
Ms Crowl eventually found full-time work at the Cheesecake Factory in
Epping, moving quickly from the front counter to the kitchen out the
back.
She became their head baker and spent the time learning as much as she could about running that sort of business.
She said the work was extremely tough but it helped her enormously.
‘‘While I was working there, my eyes were wide open, I was watching
everything, learning. I was just a sponge, absorbing everything. It
taught me to be quicker because you had to multi-task and being the
baker you might have 30 cakes in the oven; you’ve got a mix on that’s
got 30 in it and you’re preparing the next batch and you’re putting
cakes away as well that you’ve baked. So it was all multi-tasking and
you had to work very hard.’’
Ms Crowl’s dream was to open her own cupcake and cake shop and a year ago she did just that.
The journey has been a tough one and she freely admits that she’s made plenty of mistakes along the way.
She has found a mentor in Cynthia Lim from Blue Tongue Berries.
‘‘She knew I was looking and I was trying different things. And one
day she goes ‘here, what do you want help with?’ She wants me to strive
and succeed. It’s been really good,’’ Ms Crowl said.
She is also an advocate of women educating themselves and backing themselves.
‘‘Make sure you research, research, research and just go for it. If
you’ve got a dream, go for it. You can really do whatever you want if
you set your mind to it, I really believe that,’’ she said.
‘‘Go and do a small business course. I did one even though I had a lot of experience in accounting.
‘‘There’s lots of short courses to help you along the way. Find a good friend in the industry that will help you and you can go to for advice.’’
This article was first published in the Seymour Telegraph on March 6 2019
Fire destroyed two sheds on Monash Drive in Seymour last Thursday.
It’s believed the fire was started by a discarded cigarette that had been flicked into grass at the back of a property.
Emergency services were quickly on the scene and no one was harmed in the fire.
A shocked but calm Melissa Smith told The Telegraph that she and her
two daughters were next door visiting her mother, Dianne Ginn, when she
went out the back to smoke a cigarette.
When finished, she flicked the cigarette away and went back inside.
At first, no one in the house realised anything was amiss until Ms Smith thought she could hear a tap running.
Thinking it was her younger daughter playing with the taps in the
kitchen, she went to check and was horrified when she looked out the
back door to see the backyard on fire.
The grass in the backyard had caught alight and the fire quickly spread to her mother’s storage shed and to the one on Ms Smith’s property.
Ms Smith was shocked at how fast the fire caught hold and said she ‘‘couldn’t believe how quickly it went’’.
Ms Smith’s older daughter, Brittney, had just done a load of washing which was hanging on the backyard’s clothesline to dry.
The clothesline and the clothes were destroyed in the fire.
Once the family realised they couldn’t put the fire out with their hose, they ran up the street to escape the smoke.
Country Fire Authority operations officer Peter Bell said the fire
hadn’t reached the homes but smoke had got into Ms Ginn’s house.
Mr Bell confirmed the fire destroyed both sheds, a clothesline and a couple of trees.
‘‘There was a report of a smoke sighting at 2.06pm today which turned
out to be a couple of storage sheds in the backyards of houses, a
couple of tree and grass that caught on fire. The grass was fairly long
in the backyard where the fire started,’’ he said.
‘‘Both the sheds have been full of the person’s belongings which have been destroyed.’’
Police, Ambulance Victoria and the fire brigade all attended the
scene as well as AusNet Services in case the power needed to be cut.
The properties are owned by the Department of Health and Human
Services and representatives from the department quickly arrived to help
the family and assess the damage to the properties.
Mr Bell said the firefighters were hampered in their efforts by the locked and very full sheds.
‘‘It’s created a lot of hassles for the firefighters in the storage
sheds, pulling all the belongings out to douse the fire,’’ he said.
Ms Smith could only say ‘‘never do it, never flick your cigarette’’.
This article was first published in the Seymour Telegraph on March 6 2019.
Unscrupulous retailers are cold-calling residents in Seymour and telling them their phones will be disconnected within 24 hours because of the switch over to NBN.
While it’s not illegal for these retailers to call potential customers, Greg Maher from Seymour Technology believes the calls are exploiting vulnerable people in the community.
‘‘People are getting phone calls saying that they’ll be switched off
if they don’t act in the next 24 hours and that they need to sign up
with them [the retailer] then and there,’’ Mr Maher said.
‘‘It’s scare tactics they’re using so that they can get the job or the hook-up for them.’’
Calls are coming from an automated voice which prompts whoever has
answered the phone to push ‘one’ to talk to someone about NBN.
Other calls are coming from call centres who then tell the resident
that their phone will be disconnected within 24 hours if they don’t
switch to NBN immediately.
Mrs Ure, pictured here at her home, is concerned for vulnerable residents in Seymour who could be taken in by the persistent calls.
Longtime Seymour resident Faye Ure, who is 85, has received multiple calls from a robocaller.
At first she thought the voice was a real person but soon realised it was a robocall and hung up.
‘‘It was a programmed voice, it wasn’t anyone speaking. A good
Australian accent saying ‘we’re calling from the NBN, about your
national broadband’,’’ Mrs Ure said.
Mrs Ure is already on NBN as her son Andrew organised it for her and all notifications about her service go to her mobile phone.
While Mrs Ure simply hangs up on the calls, she’s concerned about other people who could be taken in.
‘‘If someone in town, an older person got called and when it says
press one they do that, what do you lose? That’s where I’m cautious,’’
she said.
Mr Maher has had a few people come in to the store who have been
conned into signing up for an NBN plan without really understanding what
they’re getting.
They then assume because Seymour Technology is the local authorised Telstra provider, the business will know what’s going on.
‘‘A couple of people have come in, they’ve already signed up and don’t know what they’ve gotten themselves into,’’ he said.
‘‘We can only look after the ones that we do. We had someone in
earlier this week and she was saying, ‘oh, the NBN is going to be
switched on today. What plan am I going to be on?’ I wasn’t part of that
conversation, I didn’t hear what you said you wanted to go on.’’
Mr Maher said that Telstra and the other major broadband providers
won’t cold-call residents and they had been sending out letters to
customers advising them of what was happening.
The calls are coming from either telemarketers looking to secure a
sale or scammers trying to steal personal and banking details.
He said that if people wanted to protect themselves from being ripped
off, they would be better off visiting a store who is an authorised NBN
provider.
‘‘Bottom line — go into a store, especially where you know the
people. Do it face to face and hopefully you’ll be more comfortable and
more understanding of what you’re actually getting yourself into rather
than over the phone,’’ Mr Maher said.
He also urged people to not wait too much longer to organise their
move to NBN as the old copper exchange will be switched off on April 12
and anyone who hasn’t moved over will have their phone cut off.
‘‘The last thing we really want is people coming in after the 12th
saying ‘ah, my phone’s been cut off’. Once it’s been cut off, it’s going
to be a quagmire because it goes into quarantine. Can we get that
number back for them? Probably after about two or three hours of work
and that’s not something we really want to have to do when it can be
averted.’’
Mr Maher and his staff are encouraging all Seymour residents to act sooner rather than later.
‘‘Make sure you’re sorted before the end of March. The contractors can only do so many in a day before they move onto the next area after April 12.’’
This article was first published in the Seymour Telegraph on February 27 2019.
Seymour and Shepparton are getting new train services.
Regional Development Minister Jaclyn Symes was in Nagambie
last week to announce that from April 1 there will be two new daily
train services on the Shepparton line, meaning extra trains for Nagambie
and the other stops between Seymour and Shepparton.
Regional Development Minister Jaclyn Symes, Regional Rail Revival director Mark Havryluk and V/Line chief executive officer James Pinder were in Nagambie for the announcement.
In the timetable change, the early morning service which currently terminates at Seymour will be extended to Shepparton.
This is due to the completion of track works and train stabling upgrades in Shepparton.
Ms Symes said the new service was the first part of delivering on the
Andrews Government promise to provide more train services along the
Shepparton line.
‘‘Local passengers have been calling out for more train services and
we’re delivering exactly that, giving people more choice when they
travel,’’ Ms Symes said.
Also in attendance was V/Line chief executive officer James Pinder who said the train was scheduled to arrive in Shepparton at around 8.45am, making it possible for commuters in smaller towns to catch the train to work in Shepparton instead of driving.
The train will make a return trip to Melbourne mid-morning,
significantly reducing the six-hour wait between trains that currently
exists for passengers on the Shepparton line.
Ms Symes also announced a new afternoon train service from Melbourne to Seymour will be added to the timetable from April 1.
The new service to Seymour will leave Melbourne at around 4pm.
Mr Pinder said the new train to Seymour will stop at all stations
along the route, giving workers who opt for an early start to their day
another option for getting home.
New timetables will be available from March 1, a month before the new services start.
Preliminary work has begun for stage two of the Shepparton Line upgrade to allow V/Locity trains on the line for the first time.
During the next few weeks, work crews will dig 22 test pits and drill
six bore-holes between Shepparton and Nagambie to conduct soil tests
and to gain a better understanding of the ground conditions in the area.
An assessment of the train line between Seymour and Shepparton has also been conducted by specialists in January and February.
They walked more than 80km of the train line to document the general
condition of the track and to check on the condition of the sleepers and
ballast.
The preliminary work being conducted will help inform the design and
construction of stage two which includes level crossing upgrades,
signalling and track upgrades and platform extensions.
‘‘With the next stage of works now progressing, passengers have even
more to look forward to, with more modern trains and more reliable
journeys on the way,’’ Ms Symes said.
It’s estimated the line upgrade and the addition of V/Locity trains
will cut 20 minutes from the trip between Melbourne and Shepparton.
The Shepparton Line upgrade is part of the Regional Rail Revival program which is upgrading every regional train line in Victoria.
This article was first published in the Seymour Telegraph on February 20 2019.
The remembrance garden at District 12 headquarters.
A plaque dedicated to the men and women who fought the 2009 Victorian Bushfires was unveiled during a ceremony last week.
A commemoration event for the 10-year anniversary of the
fires was held at the District 12 headquarters in Seymour last Thursday.
Former CFA regional director Alan Davies hosted the service, which
was attended by representatives from all the emergency services and the
Australian Defence Force.
Senior CFA staff were in attendance including chief executive officer Paul Smith, chief officer Steve Warrington and assistant chief officer Ross Sullivan.
Operation managers from four of the five CFA districts in the North
East were also in attendance including the regional commander Paul King.
CFA chief officer Steve Warrington
Chief officer Steve Warrington was the deputy chief officer at the
time of the 2009 bushfires and he was invited to speak at the event.
Mr Warrington spoke about what he remembers of the fires and days that preceded them.
He remembers days of continuous hot weather when more than 300 people
died, the extremely low humidity and storm force winds that grounded
the bulk of the aircraft used for firefighting
He spoke about having to make the terrible decision to not send aircraft to areas that desperately needed them.
Mr Warrington said the 10-year anniversary of the fires was time to
reflect on the 173 lives lost on the day but to also remember the many
more who have died since.
He also spoke about how he saw people come together and that ‘‘badges were forgotten’’.
On that day in 2009 he said it didn’t matter where someone had come
from, if they were CFA, MBF, SES, Parks Victoria, Police, SES.
What mattered was everyone working together to try to save as many lives as possible.
He had only praise for the crews who worked so hard to protect what they could.
He warned that no one can ‘‘rest on their laurels’’ and the sad
reality is there will be another incident like the 2009 Victorian
Bushfires.
But Mr Warrington pointed out that some good had come from the fires
with the development of the national Emergency Alert system and the
advances in technology that helped the CFA both fight fires and warn the
public.
Mr Warrington also urged anyone who was struggling to seek help and
told those in attendance that he himself had sought help in dealing with
trauma caused by the fires.
‘‘There’s no shame in asking for help,’’ he said.
With the conclusion of Mr Warrington’s speech, a smoking ceremony was conducted by Uncle Steve Walsh, a Taungurung man.
Mr Walsh explained that smoking ceremonies are traditionally used to
welcome people onto tribe land, to offer protection to those present and
as a cleansing of the spirit.
He invited all in attendance to step into the smoke.
Six wreaths were then laid by a representative of each of the emergency services and the Australian Defence Force.
CFA chief executive officer Paul Smith laid a wreath that incorporated the names of the 173 people who died in the fires.
The other wreaths were laid by representatives from the CFA,
Victorian Police, Ambulance Victoria, State Emergency Service and the
Australian Defence Force.
Once the wreaths were in place, a minute’s silence was observed.
To end the ceremony, six rose bushes were planted to form a remembrance garden.
The plaque in the remembrance garden.
Five of the roses represent each fire district in the North East with
the final one representing the communities who suffered in the fires.
Representatives from districts 12, 13, 22, 23 and 24 planted a rose
bush each and the final one for the community was planted by former CFA
chaplain Graeme Scorringe.
The roses were planted around three pillars of wood, representing the forests.
Also buried in the garden are thoughts and reflections of CFA
volunteers and staff as a gesture of feeding new growth and new
beginnings.
At the front is a plaque dedicated to those who fought the fires, thanking for their service.
Mr Warrington unveiled the plaque and said that while the community
should move forward, no one should ever forget what happened.
‘‘Our history should serve as a reminder to our future. To ensure that as emergency service practitioners, while we can never guarantee that it won’t happen again, all our endeavours are towards ensuring the impacts are reduced, that our communities are safe. And that all our people come home in the future.’’
This article was first published in the Seymour Telegraph on February 13 2019.
Residents in Mitchell Shire are protecting vulnerable community members from illness by achieving herd immunity.
Immunisation rates across the shire have hit 98 per cent for
five-year-olds, surpassing the recommended 95 per cent rate from both
Victorian and Federal governments..
Mitchell Shire Mayor Bill Chisholm was extremely proud of his
community and its efforts to protect those with vulnerable immune
systems.
‘‘Our health services in the Mitchell Shire are doing a brilliant job of working with residents to get the best results for everyone who lives in the municipality,’’ he said.
‘‘It is tremendous we have reached herd immunity, it is a brilliant, co-operative effort.
‘‘While we are doing a great job, we need to make sure we continue to
vaccinate and keep up-to-date with the latest information. This is the
best way we can continue to protect the most vulnerable people in our
shire.’’
Herd immunity is vital for those in the community who cannot be immunised against diseases such as measles, whooping cough , rotavirus , meningococcal and the flu.
Babies under six months old, who are yet to have their first round of
needles, and the elderly are the most at risk of becoming ill and rely
on herd immunity to avoid what can be life-threatening diseases.
People who have damaged or suppressed immune systems are also at risk as they often cannot be immunised.
Australia-wide, immunisation rates for one-year-olds sat at 94 per
cent, 90.63 per cent for two-year-olds and 94.62 per cent for
five-year-olds as recorded by the Federal Department of Health at the
end of 2018.
Victoria fared only slightly better with 94.21 per cent of
one-year-olds and 91 per cent of two-year-olds fully vaccinated, meaning
the state average was below the recommended rate.
However, 95.48 per cent of five-year-olds were fully immunised,
meaning herd immunity had been achieved in Victoria for that age group.
There have been multiple outbreaks of measles in Victoria, the most
recent one across the Australia Day long weekend in Mildura with a baby
being taken to the Mildura Base Hospital and diagnosed with the disease.
Measles is a highly infectious disease and can be fatal for babies.
Victoria’s acting chief health officer Brett Sutton said measles often first presented with cold-like symptoms.
‘‘The characteristic measles rash usually begins three to seven days
after the first symptoms, generally starting on the face and then
spreading to the rest of the body,’’ he said.
‘‘Anyone developing symptoms is advised to ring ahead to their
general practitioner or hospital first and tell them that they may have
measles so that appropriate steps can be taken to avoid contact with
other patients.’’
Measles outbreaks are rare in Australia because of country-wide use
of the measles vaccine but recently there has been multiple outbreaks,
usually linked to someone who was visiting from overseas or an
unvaccinated person returning from an overseas trip.
A Victorian Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson praised the Mitchell Shire community for its efforts.
‘‘Immunisations are safe, effective and save lives. Mitchell Shire
has done a wonderful job promoting the importance of vaccination,’’ they
said.
‘‘Immunising your child not only protects you and your family, but other children in the community.’’
This article was first published in the Seymour Telegraph on February 6 2019.
In 2015 Callum Ellis was up early on the day the ATAR scores were released.
Not getting the ATAR he wanted hasn’t stopped Callum Ellis from achieving his dreams.
He was brimming with excitement, certain he was about to reach his
dreams of doing a Bachelor of Arts (International Studies) at RMIT
University which had an ATAR entry score of 94 at the time.
In an endeavour to achieve his best possible score he had quit his
job and the football team, and cut down on his socialising to focus
solely on his studies.
It was going to be the moment of truth and he’d find out if his efforts had been worth it.
For Callum, it wasn’t.
He achieved an ATAR score of 56.75 — 38 points below the score he needed to get into his dream course.
Not surprisingly, he was devastated and felt that he’d failed.
‘‘It was silly, I had my hopes pinned onto the idea that I was going
to get into this course and this was going to be my future, my pathway.
But it was a very unrealistic expectation in the end,’’ Callum said.
After recovering from the disappointment, he decided he might as well
play to what he thought were his strengths and study something that was
related to his strongest subject in VCE — physics.
Callum started an Associate Degree in Engineering Technology and hated every minute of it.
‘‘It was a lot of electrical engineering that I already knew about
and didn’t want to relearn — and I didn’t want to spend thousands of
dollars on stuff that I already knew,’’ Callum said.
He quit the course within a month and decided that a year working
would be a better idea while he again reassessed what he wanted to do.
Callum got a job at the Seymour BP petrol station and worked there on the weekends.
Seeking to challenge himself and to work on what he felt what his
worst aspect — his memory — Callum decided to do a Diploma of Languages
at RMIT.
His language of choice was Chinese, one of the hardest languages to
learn, and he decided to do it in intensive mode which meant that
students only had one year to complete their studies.
‘‘The course had a drop-out rate of about 80 per cent, 75 per cent. I
think we started off with about 15 students in this course and finished
up with four by the end of the year — and one of those failed at the
end. I ended up topping the class,’’ Callum said.
‘‘I was really determined; I was really determined to prove to prove
myself because I’d had people joking around and mucking around because
I’d got the bad ATAR. But I was very determined to prove to myself that I
was actually able to do something.’’
However, the best news was yet to come.
Because of his high grades in the diploma, he was eligible to apply
for the Bachelor of Arts (International Studies) and he was overjoyed
when he found out that he had been accepted.
Callum said in hindsight his decision to cut so much out of his
personal life and prioritise school was a mistake because in the end it
had the opposite effect of what it was supposed to.
‘‘I quit everything and decided to try and focus on studies — but I
got so burnt out that I couldn’t be bothered with my studies any more. I
was like, ‘I’m too tired to do this, I’ll study later’. It was really,
really boring and horrible,’’ he said.
‘‘Looking back on it, it was such a bad decision. You can’t expect a
normal functioning human to be able to simply study then sleep. You want
to enjoy yourself and not have a bad time or be bored. It’s just
natural instinct. So to just simply study and then sleep, it can really
burn you out. And I learned that pretty quickly.’’
This was the message Callum gave to this year’s senior students at
Seymour College when he spoke at an assembly on Thursday last week.
He spoke about his disappointment at not achieving the ATAR score he
wanted and believing he would never get into the degree he wanted.
However his experience has taught him there are many pathways to get
where you want to go, and that ATAR scores aren’t the be-all and
end-all.
Callum finished his talk by saying he hoped others would realise that it was never too late to chase your dreams.
‘‘I’m hoping that you can take something out of my story and realise that if you don’t achieve exactly what you were hoping for and you’re devastated, it’s never too late.’’
This article was first published in the Seymour Telegraph on February 6 2019.
Two Seymour residents were awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in this year’s Australia Day Awards.
John Jennings received his OAM for services to the community while
John Phoenix was recognised for his service to veterans and their
families.
John Jennings (left) and John Phoenix (right).
Both men have dedicated themselves to the Seymour community.
One thing they share is a humility towards being singled out for their contributions.
They both believe they are individuals who are members of groups trying to make things better for Seymour.
Mr Jennings has been a resident of Seymour since 1980 when he and his
wife Ginny relocated to the region so that he could take up the role of
principal at Seymour Primary School.
He was quick to say that while the award has his name on it, he believes it belongs to everyone in the groups he has been involved with over the years.
‘‘Well, certainly it was a thrill and an honour and all of that but
in turn I think what it does is recognises not so much me but the groups
I’ve been in, the different groups over the years and certainly Ginny
has been my backup all the time. So I think it goes to a lot of
people,’’ Mr Jennings said.
He is best known in the community for his work at the Seymour
Historical Society were he spent 21 years as either the president or the
secretary.
Mr Jennings and his wife are life members of the Seymour Historical
Society and last year he became a life member of the Light Horse Park in
honour of the work he has done for that group.
He has been involved in numerous groups and was chairman of the Friends of the Bridge since its inauguration until last year.
If an event was organised in Seymour in the last 36 years, there was a
reasonable chance that Mr Jennings was involved at some point.
He has also written 15 books, eight of them about Seymour and the surrounding towns, compiling the local histories of each area.
Mr Jennings said that volunteering is in his blood.
He grew up watching his parents volunteer in Rye where the family was based.
‘‘I just think it’s always been a part of me. Mum and dad were good
volunteers. My brothers and sister were always involved in things,’’ he
said.
‘‘The first time I remember doing anything, I was about 10 years old
and I was the scorer for the footy club, sitting up on the roof,
changing the signs and I loved that. I did that for quite a few years
and then I became the reporter for the footy club when I was still at
high school. I wrote the articles for the local newspaper for a couple
of years.’’
His volunteering slowed a little while he was at teachers’ college
but it picked up once he was appointed to his first teaching position in
Framlingham, near Warrnambool, where he became secretary of the local
Scouts group.
Mr Jennings believes that his life has only been enriched by volunteering.
‘‘You get more out of it than you put in because you get to make
friends who are of a like mind as you and some of those friends last
forever,’’ he said.
‘‘You also learn a lot as you’re volunteering. People who volunteer
down at the information centre, for example, must learn a lot about the
town that they didn’t realise before.’’
John Phoenix is an Vietnam veteran who served in the Australian Army from 1965 to 1991.
He has volunteered for projects in Seymour since moving to the town after leaving the army.
He was quick to say that he didn’t deserve the award but that he was
simply part of a group and that the group should have been recognised,
not him.
‘‘I’m a firm believer in, if you do a group project, the project should get the award,’’ he said.
‘‘I’d like to thank the people that I’ve worked with on different projects.’’
Mr Phoenix started volunteering when he was still in the army and
restored a tank which he then donated back to the School of Armours
Museum.
When he left the army he felt compelled to do something to pay back the support he felt he received while he was in the army.
‘‘I just feel you’ve got to pay back something to someone. And to Seymour,’’ he said.
He has been involved in a multitude of projects since permanently
settling here in 1981, the first was the adding of plaques to the
cenotaph.
Since then he has been involved in some large projects. The most recently completed one is the upgrade to the Hospital Memorial.
He quietly improved the hospital gates before the major restoration
began and found a tradesman who could remake the lights that had
originally hung above the gates but had disappeared.
Mr Phoenix was the driving force behind the Vietnam Veterans Walk and
Wall and is the vice chairman of the committee that maintains the
memorial.
His focus now is the Seymour Memorial Swimming Pool upgrade, which is
a three-stage project to turn the pool into a memorial for all the
conflicts Australian soldiers have been involved in since the Boer War
up to and including Afghanistan.
He has been in touch with the artists who have created the stunning
portraits on grain silos around Victoria and is hoping to engage them to
create a mural for the pool.
While doing this, he has also started fundraising for the refurbishment of the two guns on Anzac Ave.
Mr Phoenix saved his loudest praise for Seymour locals and businesses who have stunned him repeatedly with their generosity.
When he needed to start fundraising for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial he started near his business on Emily St.
‘‘I walked up Emily St and down Emily St and by that afternoon I had
$10000 to start the walk going. They’ve always supported us,’’ he said.
‘‘When we did the memorial at the hospital, a lot of the tradies gave free labour. That was just the way it was.’’
His other abiding passion is cars and he is responsible for starting the Seymour Car Club in 2011.
He is still the club’s president.
The car club is a strong supporter of the Seymour Rotary Club and always volunteers its time for any events they have.
Mr Jennings and Mr Phoenix will attend ceremonies at Government House in either April or May to receive their OAMs from the Governor of Victoria.
This article was first published in the Seymour Telegraph on February 5 2019.
A fault in an underground power line left thousands of residents without power last week.
The outage, which lasted for nearly 24 hours, affected a
huge section of Strathbogie Shire with Nagambie the worst affected area.
In Nagambie alone 1253 properties were affected and another 636
properties in Avenel, 46 in Seymour and 24 in Longwood were all without
power for a lengthy period of time.
An AusNet Services spokeswoman said the power went off at 8pm Wednesday, January 23, but residents reported losing power from 6pm.
The fault occurred at the point where the line goes under Hume Fwy
which made it extremely difficult for AusNet Services to isolate it.
The spokeswoman said AusNet Services testers worked through the night
to find the fault, and isolated it in the early hours of Thursday,
January 24.
Once discovered, the crew had to dig down to confirm the location,
then a repair crew was sent to the site and worked through the day to
fix the fault.
The spokeswoman said the outage had nothing to do with the heat but was a case of extremely unfortunate timing.
AusNet Services hooked up a generator in Nagambie but it only supplied power to 400 properties.
While waiting for the repairs to be completed, Strathbogie Shire
Council set up an airconditioned relief centre at Longwood Recreation
Reserve run by the Benalla SES on the advice of the Incident Control
Centre.
When approached for comment, Strathbogie Shire Mayor Amanda McClaren confirmed that no-one attended the relief centre.
About 4.30pm a post appeared on the AusNet Service Facebook page
stating ‘‘The cable impacting the Nagambie and Avenel areas has been
repaired and we are currently carrying out testing. We are on track to
restore the power by 5pm. Being an underground cable, there can be
complications but at this stage we anticipate power will be back on by
5pm. Please note, those customers in Nagambie on supply from generators,
we will need to switch the power off when we start to restore full
supply.’’
Residents started to report on the Avenel and Nagambie Community
Facebook pages between 5.30pm and 6pm that the power had come back on.
After the initial relief of having the power back on, some residents
took to Facebook to ask about compensation for the perishable food lost
because of the outage.
Most were dismayed to learn that AusNet Services won’t compensate
them for their losses as it’s stated on the AusNet website that
‘‘Compensation does not extend to cover consequential loss (profits,
food not related to refrigerator damage)’’.
However, those affected may be entitled to a ‘Guaranteed Services
Level’ payment of $120 because the outage went on for more than 20 hours
and it was unplanned.
In a statement, Cr McClaren advised residents to dispose of any perishable food rather than risk food poisoning.
The shire provided skip bins in Avenel and Nagambie so that residents and businesses could get rid of any spoiled food.
Cr McClaren said the council commended ‘‘the community on their
resilience and patience during what was a very trying and unforeseen set
of circumstances’’.
The Greyhound Adoption Program’s three-day adoption bonanza got off to great start with the announcement of a grant from the Victorian Government.
Agriculture Minister Jaclyn Symes and family with their newest member of the family.
Agriculture Minister Jaclyn Symes visited the Seymour centre with her family on Friday to announce the $50,000 grant.
‘‘This grant will help the Seymour adoption centre enhance their
work, and concentrate on delivering their great program,’’ Ms Symes
said.
The money will be used to make improvements to the centre which currently houses about 80 to 100 greyhounds at any given time.
Greyhound Racing Victoria deputy chair Peita Duncan was in attendance
with her adopted greyhound, Blue, and thanked the minister for the
grant which will allow the centre to continue finding homes for
greyhounds and retired racing greyhounds.
‘‘It’s just fantastic that the government continues to support the GAP program; $50,000 will go a long way to improving our wonderful facility here,’’ Ms Duncan said.
‘‘Our aim is to see more greyhounds move to their new homes quicker and we want to do everything we can to find the right home for the right greyhound.’’
Member for Euroa Steph Ryan didn’t attend the event but is a supporter of the centre and was pleased to hear about the grant.
‘‘The Greyhound Adoption Centre in Seymour does fantastic work to
give greyhounds a happy life beyond racing. This funding will mean the
wonderful work Jenny and her team does can continue,’’ Ms Ryan said.
‘‘GAP is well worth a visit for anyone thinking about getting a dog.’’
The centre decided to repeat the adoption event after the success of
last year’s event which saw a recording-breaking 103 dogs find new
homes.
Ms Duncan said this year they decided to waive the $75 adoption fee
in the hope this would lead to a breaking of last year’s record.
The plan worked, with 70 of 115 dogs adopted on the first day of the adoption event.
Almost all of the dogs were adopted by Saturday afternoon, leading the centre to cancel the planned third day on Sunday.
Ms Symes with her media advisor Tom Whitty and their new dogs.
Ms Symes and her family were among those who took home a new four-legged friend with the family adopting Clancy.
Ms Symes grew up with greyhounds and her grandfather, Roy Symes,
trained racing greyhounds and had his greatest success in the late
1980s.
‘‘As someone with a proud family history in racing greyhounds, I am
even more delighted to join the pet adopter club today providing a
loving home to a retired greyhound,’’ Ms Symes said.
Ms Symes and her family weren’t the only ones looking for a new family member; Ms Symes’ media advisor Tom Whitty adopted Nessy.
For more information about adopting a greyhound visit gap.grv.org.au
This article was first published in the Seymour Telegraph on January 23 2019.
