Category: General News

THIS year’s graduating class from the University of Western Australia Albany Centre proudly stood before friends and family this week at the Albany Entertainment Centre to mark the completion of their undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD degrees.

Among the 2017 class were 15 undergraduates, seven postgraduates and three PhD students, of whom UWA Albany Centre manager Paula Phillips said had worked hard to reach their achievements.

“The UWA Albany community is extremely proud of the Albany graduates who have completed their degrees this year,” she said.

“The students’ hard work and perseverance has paid off and they can all be satisfied on reaching this achievement.”

“We are looking forward to future growth in the coming year as we offer more students the access to higher education in the Great Southern.”

The graduating class included The Weekender’s own Grace Jones, who achieved a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in English and Cultural Studies, and History.

A MANJIMUP company adept at abseiling has beaten four other firms to win a $470,000 contract to maintain the Valley of The Giants treetop walk over the next two years.

The Weekender can reveal that Precision Contracting Pty Ltd has won the right to watch over the elevated steel structure at the popular tourist attraction near the western edge of Denmark Shire.

Company director Darren Kitchen said awaiting news on which company had won the project was quite nerve-wracking.

“That was a hell of a three-month wait up against some of the big players in the game and the multinationals that have started up what we’re doing,” he said.

“We’ve been doing it for years, and it was such a relief to get the contract back.

“Everyone wants that project in their portfolio.”

Mr Kitchen said Precision had maintained the treetop walk since it opened in 1996, except for a brief period when undercut by another company.

He said the company had cut its prices to stave off competition for the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions contract.

“It’s something that we want to hang on to and maybe hand over to one of my boys down the track,” he confided.

Precision started in Manjimup in 1994, and now also has bases in Collie, Darwin and Newcastle.

In addition to Denmark’s treetop walk, the company maintains the spectacular Tahune Airwalk south of Hobart in Tasmania.

His abseilers were at the Valley of the Giants on Tuesday and Wednesday doing the treetop walk’s annual pre-Christmas inspection.

The department has confirmed the $470,000 price was “in line with” the cost of previous maintenance for the steel treetop walk structure.

Work includes tensioning guy-wires, welding on the walk structure, repairing and replacing structural fixings, treating and preventing corrosion, testing weld and metal thickness, cleaning areas not accessible by ground staff, and digging to expose and treat pylon basins and supports.

ALBANY senior medical practitioner Brendan Carson has made it his ambition to give regional patients the same health care as metropolitan citizens and create a closer connection between the Albany Health Campus and the wider community.

His new book, Heartline, was written with the goal of using the profits to purchase two or three portable cardiac monitors, which cost approximately $2400 each.

This would enable wards other than the high dependency unit to use the technology and allow more efficient care of patients.

Dr Carson practices general medicine and works in the medical, surgical and high dependency wards at the Albany Health Campus, and his experiences from his career form the basis of his new book.

“The book is basically a memoir of a few of the things that happened in my first few years of medicine,” he said.

“At the time, I was working in another state, and I worked a variety of jobs – public methadone clinic, emergency and psychiatric wards, one of the “street kids” clinics.

“I’m fascinated by people and their stories, and I’ve met a lot of amazing people, and a lot of this is just me listening to their stories.”

Dr Carson knows that not all health care technology and expertise is currently available in regional areas, but wants to continue to do more to increase the welfare of all regional patients.

“I want people in the bush to have the same health outcomes and the same chances as people in the city,” he said.

“Now, some of that is not doable yet.

“If you have a heart attack on Hay Street, you’re minutes away from one of the most well-resourced hospitals in Australia.

“If you have one while you’re harvesting, it’s a very different story.

“But there is some stuff we can do.

“We’ve done some of it – there’s an MRI down the corridor, telemedicine means we’ve got some serious expertise we can draw upon – and I want us to do more.

“People who live here should have every chance.”

Heartline is now on sale for $15 and is available for purchase at the Albany Health Campus, The Weekender office, Bay Merchants, the Albany Entertainment Centre and Paperbark Merchants.

SCIENCE university major Lauren Pullella will take her Albany studies to the next level after becoming the first recipient to be awarded the Arjen Ryder Memorial Scholarship.

The University of Western Australia (UWA) Albany Centre student will be supported by a $5000 scholarship to take her honours thesis for conservation biology into Malaysia and study the food availability and changing diets of the indigenous Orang Asli people.

This funding was provided to Ms Pullella in memory of Arjen Ryder, an Albany man with 30 years’ experience in the sustainable agricultural sector who died with his wife on the MH17 plane crash in Ukraine in 2014.

Ms Pullella’s month-long visit to Malaysia will explore why food ‘catch’ rates are low and where the Orang Asli food source is located, as the hunter-gatherer people are suffering from malnutrition due to their hunting practices.

The 22-year-old said that in collaboration with local community members, she will be deploying motion-sensor cameras in the jungles surrounding the Orang Asli villages to collect data on the presence and abundance of species hunted for food.

“The village I will be working with is slowly beginning to introduce more western agricultural and hunting practices into their lifestyle,” Ms Pullella said.

“The research will not only contribute to a greater understanding of the sustainability of the traditional Orang Asli diet, but will also help us to understand and potentially improve the sustainability of their hunting and agricultural regimes.

“I hope that one day, the sustainable agricultural model that we are using in this research will be adapted and applied locally in the South West.”

Ms Pullella, along with her supervisors, aims to visit Malaysia mid-next year, depending on climate conditions and government permission.

THE first-ever regional leg of the Australian National Busking Championships to be held west of Ballarat will roll out onto the footpaths of Albany’s CBD on April 7.

At a meeting called by Rotary member Ian Rayson at Albany’s city offices on Monday, local luminaries including Deputy Mayor Greg Stocks and author John Doust heard Rotarians had bought a licence to run a regional leg of the championships, which started six years ago in Cooma, New South Wales.

“I think it will fit very well into Albany,” Mr Rayson told the gathering.

“We need to ensure we attract a substantial influx of people to not only support the buskers but also create a market for the CBD businesses to capitalise on.”

The festival will fill the Albany CBD, largely York Street and Stirling Terrace, with a range of sights and sounds hitherto not seen or heard in the Great Southern.

Mr Rayson is looking for a naming rights sponsor, and buskers will be charged a fee to perform in CBD hotspots.

Visitors will be able to buy ‘busking dollars’ for $1 each to deposit into performers’ hats or violin cases.

The busker who collects the most busker dollars will win a people’s choice award and $1000.

Mr Rayson said proceeds from the busker dollars would go to a local musical organisation.

He said buskers would be able to pocket their earnings during the championships, as well as competing for $11,250 in prize money in open, high school, primary school and other niche categories.

The overall winner will receive $2000.

“Don’t worry, some of these buskers out there on the day make a lot of money,” he assured.

Five judges, including two from Cooma, will officiate on the day.

Open-air markets are also planned, and a busking grand final will be held from 4pm to 6pm.

Mr Rayson said the Town Square would be an ideal venue, weather permitting, but an alternative indoor venue might be sought in the event that Albany’s April weather goes awry.

He said the “bloody big” after-party and jam session that occurs in Cooma each year may well be replicated in Albany.

A prototype T-shirt has already been printed for volunteers on the day.

After hearing Mr Rayson’s presentation, Mr Stocks said, “the City’s in!”

“We’ll support it,” he added, before a city official said any support would be subject to formal approval.

Regional legs of the championships are already held at Ballarat in the Victorian goldfields, Narooma and Peak Hill in New South Wales, and Noosa and Stanthorpe in Queensland.

The Fremantle International Street Arts Festival finishes five days before the Albany championships.

Mr Rayson said he hoped performers from the Fremantle festival would make their way down the highway for the Albany championships.

THE void left by Perth International Arts Festival’s exit from the Great Southern has been quickly filled by the creation of the three-month long Albany Arts Festival Season which kicks off in February.

Co-curators Drew Dymond and Rod Vervest have poured a combined 33 years’ experience with PIAF into the new festival after the announcement in July that PIAF had pulled the plug on its Great Southern leg.

Mr Vervest was the Great Southern PIAF program manager for 15 years and is also the artistic director of Fairbridge Festival, while Mr Dymond worked with PIAF for 18 years before taking the reins of Albany Entertainment Centre in June.

“We have an absolute right to keep going,” Mr Vervest said of filling the gap left by PIAF.

“The festival will embrace a fair bit, it will be multi-genre, and it will be nicely bookended by PIAF and the Fairbridge Festival.”

“This new festival is a good opportunity to latch on to the other acts from PIAF and Fairbridge. I’ve already harvested acts from the Fairbridge.”

Mr Dymond said the Albany Arts Festival Season will be a great opportunity for the region and has the possibility to expand in the future, with more acts and a wider geographical throw.

“It’s a small start to a big thing,” he said.

“It will be attractive to tourists, because it will have broader access and better planning opportunities with a season,” Mr Vervest added.

Despite the co-curators agreeing that the unknown risk of ticket sales across the festival loomed large, they said dismissing the idea of an Albany festival all together would be more detrimental.

“The biggest risk is not doing it at all,” Mr Dymond said.

“We are mixing local and international artists, so there are always thoughts of did we choose the right acts, will they be appealing, and whether enough people know about it.”

“But, Albany has an appetite for music events and the arts,” Mr Vervest added.

“Albany deserves this.”

Ticket sales for the Albany Arts Festival Season go on sale today, and the full program will be inserted in next week’s Weekender.

Tickets vary in price, with some events being free of charge.

“We’ve deliberately made it accessible with the cost of tickets,” Mr Dymond said.

“We want to encourage people to give the festival a go.”

Both Mr Dymond and Mr Vervest were confident the event would be a success and urged people of the Great Southern to get behind it.

“We are taking a leap of faith and we need people to take it with us,” Mr Vervest said.

The line-up for the Albany Arts Festival Season will feature theatre, classical and contemporary music, film, visual art, spoken word and circus.

This will include the Casus Circus, French pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, British and French cinema, contemporary Great Southern visual artists, open-mic storytelling and many other performances from local and international talent.

AS THE Western Australian Police Force celebrates the centenary of involvement of women in the force this year, Albany Police Sergeant Merryn Bojcun has been acknowledged for her contribution to the service.

Sgt Bojcun was awarded a medal for her 40 years of service on Friday by Commissioner Chris Dawson and WA Police Minister Michelle Roberts at the WA Police Academy in Joondalup.

According to Sgt Bojcun, the police force that she joined in 1977 fresh out of university was drastically different to the network that is seen today.

“To join the police you had to have a background in nursing or teaching, or something along those lines,” she said.

“There were only 36 women in the WA Police when I joined. Since women weren’t allowed to get married or have children there weren’t a lot that enlisted.”

Sgt Bojcun said the manner in which Woman Police Constables, or WPC’s as they were known at the time, were treated was vastly different to the female officers of today.

“Female officers were almost like a token of the day,” she said.

“Much like how the station would apply for a canine section, they would also apply for a WPC to work in a particular role.

“I remember when I first joined I was working with an Aboriginal officer and there were very few at that time. He said to me that we were both the same.

“I didn’t understand what he meant until he said we were both part of minority groups within the police force.”

For WPC’s, their primary work centered around child welfare cases, female criminals and female sex crimes.

In reminiscing on why she joined the force all those years ago, Sgt Bojcun said it primarily had to do with the abuse suffered by women and children behind closed doors.

“I saw how vulnerable those people were in the abusive circumstances they were in, and saw the position that was available where I could protect them,” she said.

“In 1977 family violence wasn’t really a police matter as such. It was a private affair and was treated like a disturbance.

“We were there to keep the peace and walk away.”

Drastic changes in policy have changed how abusers and victims are treated by police and the justice system today; however, Sgt Bojcun said there is still “a long way to go”.

“Women and children still feel trapped in their relationship and family,” she said.

“To leave that family requires a huge amount of resources and support. A woman and her children may only have six weeks in a refuge but then what? It’s a hard choice.”

When asked the question if she was close to contemplating retirement after being recognised as the longest serving female police officer in the state, the answer was simple for Sgt Bojcun.

“I’m just as passionate in protecting victims of abuse as I was 40 years ago,” she said.

“There’s still so much work to be done and I want to be there to see it happen.

“I’ve got strong ties to the Albany community, and if I can be there when someone needs me, that’s what is important.”

LIKE a duck to water, Buddhist Monk Venerable Mudu took to the sweep’s oar early on Sunday morning during a visit to Albany’s glistening Middleton Beach.

He was there to bless the Albany Surf Life Saving Club’s surf boats and the early-rising crews ahead of the summer season.

While he might not have guided the surf boat through the small breakers when push came to shove, he was a full bottle on the connection required between sweep and crew.

“The crew has to listen to every command from the sweep,” he said as the water lapped at his feet and the real sweep took control.

“The crew have their back to the surf, so there has to be complete trust.”

He was also up to speed on the finer technical aspects of rowing in a surf boat, listening to the rowlocks click in unison as the stroke rate settled.

How enlightened can a monk be?

It turns out Mudu was talking from experience – he spent his fair share of summers at Secret Harbour Surf Life Saving Club, holding his own on one of the surf boat crews in his life before ordination into the Bodhinyana Monastery in Serpentine.

Mudu and his anagarika were in Albany with a busy schedule of guided meditations and visits as they continue to strengthen ties with the Albany Buddhist community.

With encouragement from his teacher, Ajahn Braham, Mudu said the community can look forward to regular visits next year as he contemplates the prospect of establishing a monastery on the South Coast.

THE Great Southern has received more than $900,000 in state funding from the State Natural Resource Management Program, with the Oyster Harbour Catchment Group receiving funding for four of their projects.

The Catchment Group works to improve the health of the Oyster Harbour region and rivers feeding into it.

Group Project Officer Claire Bartron said the approval of funding will ensure the continuation of the larger scale work of the group.

“We’re pretty much solely reliant on external funding on a federal and state level,” she said.

“There are large scale projects we want to achieve that would not be possible without government assistance.

“We received funding for one of our projects related to studying the Western Ringtail Possum that is labeled as critically endangered in our region.”

Ms Bartron said the funding the group received will help to study how the possums use urban routes through backyards and parks to return to bush land, and record the amount of possums found in urban areas that have been killed by cars.

“We have people like Sandra Gilfillan that have been actively recording possum activity in their backyards, and we were also spotlighting and recording the number of possums in the Porongurup as well,” she said.

“There’s a lot of work that goes into what we do.”

Ms Gilfillan is a wildlife ecologist with the catchment group, and has been part of the Albany Backyard Possum Sleuth Program since its inception in 2016.

“Ringtail possums have such fantastic personalities, and we’re so lucky as a city to have this kind of wildlife roaming around,” she said.

“At the moment we have 10 backyards in Albany set up with remote sensing cameras that record possum movement.”

Ringtail possums have a reputation of eating roses and running across roofs, which Ms Gilfillan said is easy enough to prevent.

“They’re beautiful creatures, and definitely not a pest in any stretch of the imagination,” she said.

“People can set up nesting boxes in their yard or on their roof and plant peppermint trees, and it will keep the possums happy.”

AN animal rescue and rehoming group has urged people to reconsider gifting kittens and puppies due to the high abandonment rate seen in the post-Christmas period.

Saving Animals From Euthanasia (SAFE) Albany Coordinator Camille Gray said there were already more abandoned pets in foster care than the group could handle, without the inrush after Christmas.

“We start getting young cats and dogs around three months after Christmas when they’ve grown out of the cute and fluffy stage,” she said.

“Kids grow bored of the animal or the family isn’t able to afford the upkeep of the pet and they get abandoned or handed into SAFE or RSPCA.

“It’s just better if they’re not gifted, and if you still want to gift a pet there’s plenty of abandoned animals that would love a home.”

The awareness of the looming gifting season was prompted after six week old kitten Clover was found abandoned in the Kalgan River by a Perth fisherman.

“She was covered in mud and shivering when she was handed in,” Ms Gray said.

“After her vet check, we found out that she was completely deaf, mostly blind and had balance issues that causes her to wobble a bit when she walks.”

Clover was recently adopted, but there are still more than 10 young cats in the care of SAFE as well as a handful of kittens.

“We get kittens in almost every day which are given to RSPCA to care for,” Ms Gray said.

“We just don’t have enough foster carers to look after the cats and kittens for extended periods of time; some of our foster homes have more than five cats at a time that probably won’t be re-homed.”

For more information on becoming a foster carer or adopting an animal, go to the SAFE Albany website.