Category: Community

THE WA Department of Communities has awarded Great Southern Employment Development Committee (GSEDC) support to deliver an innovative program aimed at assisting youth with video gaming addictions.

Get Your Game Off is a 45-minute interactive and educational information program for 10 to 18 year olds.

The objective of the fully-funded session is to help young people understand how and why video gaming can be addictive and its effects on relationships and school work.

Get Your Game Off sessions will be followed by free access to youth support group Zombie Gamers Anonymous, where gaming addicts can monitor each other’s progress and support one another.

“The issue of how destructive gaming can be is a sleeper in communities,” GSEDC Executive Officer Janelle Price said.

“It has not been diagnosed as a clinical disorder quite yet, but shows all the hallmarks of other destructive additive disorders.”

The program was instigated by a young gamer who recognised that gaming was having a negative impact on her life and her sleep.

Get Your Game Off sessions will be delivered in late August to mid- September and again in the fourth school term.

Primary and secondary schools can host Get Your Game Off sessions and after-school support group Zombie Gamers Anonymous by booking with GSEDC.

THIS year’s Sleep Out event in the Albany Town Square on August 10 will be used to raise vital funds to provide the most basic shelter for homeless people in the Great Southern.

The event is one of the major fundraisers during National Homelessness Week, and members from the Albany Youth Support Association, Albany Public Library and the City of Albany will be amongst others sleeping “rough” for a night.

Commencing at 5pm, community members are asked to experience what 1 in 200 Australians experience every night, by sleeping outdoors in tents, swags and sleeping bags.

This event will provide a fundraising opportunity for the purchase of additional ‘backpack beds’, to be distributed throughout Great Southern homelessness services.

Albany Youth Support Association has been providing youth homelessness services for more than 30 years.
“We have a unique responsibility in the Great Southern community in providing crisis accommodation support, early intervention and long-term transitions for young people moving out of homelessness,” AYSA CEO Rick England said.

“People often ask, is there homelessness in the Great Southern?

“With 60 per cent of rough sleepers outside major cities, 40 per cent of couch surfers in country towns and 55% per cent of people sleeping in severely overcrowded dwellings also in rural locations, the answer is yes.

“42% of the homeless population are under 25 years of age, and when we consider the long- term impact of this on the next generation, the cost to our society, it is very significant.

“As member of this community, I am interested in making homelessness history.”

This year’s Sleep Out event will include entertainment and community activities for all ages, including access to the library.

Monetary donations to Homelessness Week and funds for whole backpack beds can be processed via the Paperbark Merchants website at paperbarks. com.au.

THE Albany Public Library has won a $1000 grant from the Better Beginnings Social Return on Investment evaluation to buy more Story Time and Rhyme Time re- sources.

Youth services librarian Dora Adeline was grateful for the additional funding, as it allowed the library to receive new toys and musical instruments for toddlers and babies from the State Library of WA.

“We are very excited to receive our brand-new resources,” Ms Adeline said.

“These resources for Rhyme Time and Story Time are really important for early engagement in young children, particularly for brain development, social skills and developing literacy skills.

“75 per cent of brain development occurs in the first three years of a child’s life, so we are always encouraging families to read and sing together.”

The Albany Public Library Rhyme Time sessions are at 10.30am on Wednesday and Friday mornings, run for 20 minutes, and are suitable for boys and girls aged up to six years of age.

These sessions are completely free and do not require prior booking.

ALBANY residents have been encouraged to visit the National Anzac Centre with a free membership program and discounted admission fees.

The National Anzac Centre League of Local Legends will be free to join, but only available to community members that reside within the municipal boundary of the City of Albany or to City of Albany ratepayers.

Members of the program will receive a significant discount of 50 per cent on standard admission prices or can enter for free if they are accompanying a paying visitor.

If they do accompany a paying visitor, that paying visitor will also receive a 10 per cent discount.

Albany Heritage Park manager Matt Hammond said a core part of the program will be an increase in events and programming at Albany Heritage Park, with members being the first to be notified about special events and school holiday programs.

“The National Anzac Centre is fast becoming recognised as a cultural pilgrimage of national significance, and we want to provide the local community with every opportunity to experience this and be proud of Albany’s connection to the Anzac legend,” Mr Hammond said.

“The National Anzac Centre precinct and surrounding Albany Heritage Park should be a space for the local community to meet, recreate, socialise and enjoy, just like the role Kings Park plays for local communities in Perth.

“We hope the program will provide a foundation for increasing local engagement with what is fast becoming a national icon.”

Other benefits of the membership program include a 10 per cent discount at the Forts Store Boutique, special offers at Garrison Restaurant and free member events.

ALBANY’S Italian community continued its annual sausage- making tradition on the weekend.

People from all walks of life got up to their elbows in diced beef and pork, with some making the journey from Esperance, Gnowangerup, Tambellup and Denmark.

Long-time member of the Albany Italian Club Michael Martelotta said that around 40 people attended the event.

“Everything went really well,” he said.

“We had Italians wanting to make sausages the way their forefathers would have made them, and we had dinky-di Aussies wanting a master class in sausage making.”

Mr Martelotta said the day was all about the community and getting everyone to bond over sausages.

After two days and more than 500kg of meat later, the contributors made chorizo sausages for the resident Spaniards, northern and southern Italian style sausages and Puglia style sausages.

According to Mr Martelotta, there are different processes and ingredients for the humble sausage that usually depend on the region they’re from.

“Northern and southern types of sausage are filled and tied differently,” he said.

“Some can be tied as long as 20cm, and others can be shorter like regular sausages.”

Everyone who rolled up their sleeves to help walked away with their share in the goods, with many returning to buy any leftovers.

“We had people buying anywhere from three kilos of sausages to 15kg,” Mr Martelotta said.

“It’s a dying culture. We need to remember how to make things fresh and from scratch.”

The Albany Italian Club has three major events a year, with their annual Club Ball being held on August 26.

To keep up with any Albany Italian Club events, you can follow them on their Facebook page.

MANYPEAKS farmer Gary Howie said he was disturbed by the number of negative reactions to his plans to extract gravel from his property at Bon Accord Road in Lower King.

Mr Howie said he intended to build a house and establish a garden and orchard on the block but first had to remove the hard surface rock.

“In its present state, it’s near impossible with my ordinary farm machinery to work it,” he said.

“It will only be getting dug four to five hundred millimetres deep to get the rock out and the top soil will be going back.

Mr Howie said he would only be digging in two to three hectare sections at a time and then have the area back into pasture within a year.

He said the couple living next door to his proposed gravel pit had written a letter of support to council even though their house was just 200 metres from where bulldozers would be operating.

Many of the neighbouring property owners and the Lower King and Bayonet Head Progress Association have writ- ten letters of objection to Mr Howie’s proposal.

There are several sand or gravel pits operating in the neighbourhood at pre- sent, and Bon Accord Road residents say they are concerned about the proposal on environmental and safety grounds. Kat Bradford, who lives almost opposite Mr Howie’s block said she had a young family who had recently moved there because they wanted a rural lifestyle.

Ms Bradford said she was concerned about the effect dust would have on her family’s health.

She said her two children attended Great Southern Grammar, but it was not safe for them to ride their bikes to school.

Donald Main, who lives directly opposite Mr Howie’s block, said the noise from the quarry would be “indescribable” and dust and vibrations would be a major problem for him.

“Why would you introduce a quarry into an area which everyone acknowledges is becoming subdivided into dense residential land?”

He said the City of Albany was doing a poor job of policing existing quarry operators’ activities.

“They do an inspection once a year and they refuse to limit the number of trucks,” he said.

“In wet weather, I’ve actually been forced into a ditch.

“There used to be a lot of people who walk up here, kids on bicycles or on horses or with dogs – they’ve all disappeared.”
The City of Albany was contacted for comment on this.

Mr Howie said his land was zoned “agricultural” and he had entered into an agreement with Palmer Earthmoving to remove the rock on his property.

He said he was impressed with the way owner David Palmer had replaced the topsoil on his own property at a separate location to the proposed gravel-pit.

“He’s mined the whole farm and got the gravel out and the end result is magnificent,” Mr Howie said.

Mr Howie’s application for an extractive industry license was open for public comment for a six-week period ending yesterday. A City of Albany spokes- person said councillors would consider the matters raised in the submissions and deal with them as part of the official determination process.

Palmer Earthmoving has been approached for comment.

TRAVEL with Purpose Albany agent Nilla Spark will participate in next month’s Dry July cancer fundraiser after her diagnosis with breast cancer made her realise the importance of financial support for cancer sufferers in regional areas.

Dry July is an annual fundraiser in which people consume no alcohol for the month of July, to raise money for cancer patients and carers and their families.

Receiving the news of her developing cancer in October 2004, Ms Spark endured countless trips to Perth for radiotherapy and was separated from her family for long periods of time.

“My breast cancer diagnosis should have and could have stopped me from doing, being and achieving,” Ms Spark said.

“However, I knew I had to face my cancer challenge head on and do whatever it took to stay alive.”

Fortunately, Ms Spark was introduced to Solaris Cancer Care, a support organisation for adult cancer patients and their families.

The support of this foundation helped alleviate some of Ms Spark’s stresses caused by the distance she had to cover to and from metropolitan health facilities.

“These volunteers are selfless in giving their time to help with the emotional and physical effects of cancer,” she said.

Later in 2006, Nilla’s successful treatment led to her clear diagnosis.

Ms Spark is preparing to participate in Dry July this year to raise money for the Solaris Cancer Care Great Southern team.

“I implore everyone to sign up or donate to Dry July to keep services like Solaris Cancer Care going,” Ms Spark said.

You can support and donate to Ms Spark’s Dry July cause at dryjuly.com/users/nilla-spark.