John Beks - Chairman
Our speaker this evening is a lady I have known all of her life. Andrea Vallance, my one and only and favourite daughter. Andy is a secondary school teacher by profession for 30 years and has been married to Bruce, my favourite son-in-law who is also with her here tonight. Dairy farming has taken priority in most of her working life, now on the larger than average farm at Nullawarre milking some 650 cows. 2 years ago you may recall that she spoke at our meeting about her role as coordinator of TAP the Timboon agriculture project, a school engagement model developed by Timboon P12 school and West Vic dairy. This innovative program was designed to increase applied learning opportunities to encourage a higher uptake of maths and science subjects by senior students and to promote agriculture and allied industries as an engaging Career choice.
Andrea and Bruce are also involved in a number of dairy related committees and on a regular basis are invited to address or join industry groups. As if not already busy enough she makes time to be an active member of the Nullawarre emergency response team or CERT. This group provides basic emergency care until an ambulance arrives, having been trained in basic life support by Ambulance Victoria.
Andrea gave a very engaging presentation explaining why she got involved and why some other members of the Nullawarre CERT got involved in volunteering in this way for their community. The CERT are first responders and usually get to the incident before other emergency services. They are highly trained and often save the lives of many people and always assist more than just the patients at incidents they reposed to. They work with all other emergency response teams and are often assisting people they know from their every day lives.
Please see photos below from her pamphlet for more details.
