Pedestrian Bridge Project - Wetlands / North Gardens
This was the club's main
'hands on' community based project for the design and construction of a
pedestrian bridge in the North Gardens.
The bridge is approximately
10m long and 1.8m wide and forms part of a walkway developed by the Ballarat
City Council through the wetlands in the North Gardens.
My thanks go to Allan
Barham, who undertook much of the organizing and liaison with the Ballarat City
staff, and to Daryl Elford and Rex Peterson for their valuable technical
knowledge and making equipment available for the project.
The work was carried out
over 3 working bees which were well supported by club members
Restoration of Old Miners Cottage
This community services
project has been put forward by Sheila Kentish as a project to help in the
development of young adults with special needs The benefits of the project
would be:
-
Enable participants to obtain Cert I in work
based education
-
To provide an improved venue for the
participants
-
Enable participants to help out and develop
their skills
-
Restoration of an old historic cottage
The project will involve
shifting the cottage further back onto the block, re-stumping, restoration of
the building and providing a fence.
Whilst no physical progress
has been made the project involves a lot of liaison and obtaining agreements
with the Council on heritage issues.
Thanks to Sheila for carrying out the main organizing on this. We can look forward to this project coming to
fruition in the coming rotary year.
Salvation Army Red Shield Appeal
This is a perennial for our
club and once again collections were made this year.
It has been somewhat of an
end to an era, with the central base for the collection over past years being
out of Danny's premises in Mair Street.
This was not possible this year and my thanks to Gary Harrowfield who
offered to base the collection from his premises in Howitt Street and assisted
with the organizing of the collection.
Clean Up Australia Day
Again this is another
perennial for the club covering cleaning up of a major part of Victoria
Park. Lindsay Florence has, and
remained, the main contact and coordinator for this effort and my thanks to
Lindsay for continuing with this
This remains a very
worthwhile community activity for the club's involvement, as it is most notable
that the amount of rubbish being collected has diminished considerably over the
years that our club has been involved.
Tree Planting
Finally some rain came last
winter and we were able to carry out some planting of native trees and grasses
along the Canadian Creek catchment at Mt Clear.
This effort was well attended despite the very rainy Sunday morning.
Pinarc (Accessible play ground)
Assistance has been provided
by our club to this project by Alan Barham, being our representative on a
community based committee. The first
stage of the playground was opened in the second half of 2003. Thanks to Alan for his contribution to this
effort.
Concluding
Firstly thanks to the club
members within the community service directorate for their support in
developing and organizing our program for the rotary year.
Most importantly community
service cannot be successful with the support of membership to participate in
various activities, working bees, collections etc. A special thanks to those members who helped
out in this regard.
Geoff Lawrence
Director