Backburner
Approved football training for kids aged 18 months to 5 years
Now at Tweed Heads and Kingscliff
6684 0235 to join
Charity is still alive and well in Murwillumbah, where last week an elderly gentleman anonymously donated a painting to the Murwillumbah Hospital children’s ward. No luck with our efforts to identify and thank the donor but then, that’s what selfless giving is all about. n n n n
Tweed mayor Kevin Skinner is ‘making it all up’ when he talks about new dams and how they would stop floods, according to Greens councillor Katie Milne. The local daily gave the mayor a free kick in the PR stakes recently with a big splash on how our mayor thinks a new dam, such as the one he’s proposing for Byrrill Creek, would ‘protect our future’. But Cr Milne says ‘The dam would do nothing for flooding, in the 1974 flood a million megalitres went over the top of the Bray Park weir yet the Clarrie Hall Dam holds 16,000 megalitres which is a drop in the ocean… unless he wants to put dams on every arm of the Tweed River, it just won’t work. He’s surely been told that by [council] staff but he just doesn’t want to know. He’s not basing it on science, he’s just making it all up’.
jcmoore@littlekickers.com.au www.littlekickers.com.au
Where learning’s a ball
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Starts 12 February
Seems like our mayor, a former publican from western NSW, fears the Tweed will one day be in the grip of a huge drought and a new dam will save us all from it all, as well as save us from flooding by somehow controlling the flows from the dams into the already flooded waterways (figure that one out). Someone should tell our mayor he now lives in a subtropical region with plenty of annual rainfall and a drought such as the ones he experienced in Inverell or out west is rather unlikely here on the coast. Dams, he says, will protect us all from drought and flood – and presumably famine and pestilence as well.
Girls just wanna have fun, Betty Page style. It was deja vu time for anyone over 50 as the Miss Pinup Australia competition hit the catwalk at the recent Gold Coast Convention Centre’s Surf’n’Ink expo. Photo Jeff ‘Vargas’ Dawson
state election, the Banora Point and District Residents Association has changed the date of its ‘Meet the Candidates’ forum to Monday, March 14, at the Banora Point Community Centre, Woodlands Drive, Banora Point, beginning at 7pm. The association asks anyone who intends nominating as a candidate for the Tweed electorate to call secretary Pat Tate on 07 5524 2957. n n n n
A sequel to the world rally run in the Tweed and Kyogle shires in 2009 was played out in Byron Bay courthouse on Monday this week, with former No Rally Group chief Scott Sledge and his partner Danielle Voinot defending a malicious damage charge against them. Some anti-rally slogans were painted on Kyogle Road just before the event and the defendants’ car was seen in the vicinity. The magistrate has adjourned the matter till February 18 for final submissions. n n n n Due to the late closing date We know police resources are for nominations for the March stretched and expect this case
has added to that cost, as well as tying up officers in court for days at a time. Then again, given the state government has already wasted millions on the rally (how many we have never been told), the use of muchneeded police resources pursuing some protesters over a relatively minor offence pales into insignificance. n n n n
A reader tells us the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has come up with research backing ‘the gut instinct that has driven us all to campaign for national parks for the past few decades’. The new study says national parks play a pivotal role in saving Australian wildlife. The WWF and University of Queensland researchers rebut the ‘growing scepticism about the value of national parks for biodiversity’ showing that ‘national parks really deliver outcomes’. They say that of the alternative conservation activities examined in the study, none were significantly linked to stable or increasing
populations of threatened species except for national parks. The study suggests landclearing laws are also important. The three states with the highest levels of land clearing, Queensland, NSW and Tasmania, also had the most threatened species in decline. ‘The message is clear. If you want a sure bet to save endangered species, secure their habitat and put it in a national park, or stop habitat destruction through legislation. Anything else is risky,’ the study says, and we couldn’t agree more. n n n n
It sounds like the Monty Python sketch ‘How Not to be Seen’, in which the unsuccessful in this art are briskly detonated, but American author Frank M Ahearn is serious. His book How to Disappear teaches people how to drop out of the state radar, destroy DNA records and create digital IDs for disinformation. Some Tweed councillors might be tempted to visit his site at www.frankahearn.com.
Grail Quest
Introduction to Grail Quest (an 8-week course) which is the opening term of the two year parttime foundation course.
...a journey into the Spiritual Science of Rudolf Steiner...
GRAIL QUEST offers a modern form of adult education based on the work of Rudolf Steiner. Through a deepened understanding of the inner workings of the world and ourselves, inner development and soul transformation are brought about. This in turn leads to an enhanced capacity to transform the outer world. The course consists of lectures, discussions and workshops which are expanded through artistic experiences in music, painting, sculpture, story telling, speech, drama, craft and the new art of eurythmy. No previous artistic experience is necessary. The emphasis of the course is away from competition and is focused on individual growth. The course aims to teach through the heart, hand and mind and to bring our efforts to fruition through love of the deed. GRAIL QUEST is also the prerequisite for the Steiner Teacher Training programme.
24 February 3, 2011 The Tweed Shire Echo
Some of the themes explored in the course are: The Quest for Meaning. The Elements. The Temperaments. Sacred Geometry. The Origins of the Earth & Humanity. The Evolution of Consciousness. Christology. Mystery Schools & Mystery Centres. The Birth of Modern Consciousness in the Renaissance. The Search for the Holy Grail. Life Phases: an Exploration of Biography. 8 week Introductory Course: $600 Monday 4.30 – 7.30pm and Wednesday 4.30 – 7.30pm Plus 2 Saturdays 9.30 – 3:30pm Commencing 14th February Venue: Cape Byron Steiner School, McGettigans Lane, Ewingsdale Enquiries: Gerry Josephson 0406 788 050 Kristy Brake 0431 833 959
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www.tweedecho.com.au