We snatch biggest cup in land

ONE of the sporting world’s biggest prizes has been landed for Loddon communities.

Mayor Dan Straub was at Flemington racecourse on Tuesday when the Victorian Racing Club announced Boort had been included in the 2023 tour of the famous Melbourne Cup.

The cup, created from 34 gold pieces hand-beaten for more than 200 hours and valued at $600,000, will spend two days at Boort in October.

From this weekend, the cup begins its international and national tour in the countdown to race that stops the nation on the first Tuesday in November.

Boort was selected as one of 24 country stops in Australia where communities will be part of a national sweep and the chance to win $50,000 for a local project.

The first call for the cup tour is Tokyo this weekend and there will be stops in Britain, Ireland, France, Hong Kong and New Zealand over 150 days.

Cr Straub said: “The past few years have been very difficult for the Loddon Shire community, and the town of Boort in particular, which suffered significant flooding in October 2022.

So, we are very much looking forward to coming together in recovery and welcoming the Cup when it attends our 135th annual Boort Agricultural Show.”

The cup has travelled more than 900,000km since the first pre-race tour in 2003.

Workshop,

BAROMETERS are broken for Bradley of Boort with his latest Treemendous Sign. Is this a sign of trusty indicator devices going on the blink across the Loddon?

WE HAVE been told from a very regal source that the compass of a neighbour has been heading in erroneous directions, heralding the debut appearance in OTF of a chap we will simply refer to as SoJ. The King tells us that SoJ, car packed complete with scones for nourishment after exercising voicebox from the bench, overshot the official northern destination for a recent football match. Luckily, he didn’t have to travel back south too far from the Major’s Hill to meet up with the team.

AT ONE football match on Saturday, an eager young bloke was persistent in telling us about some auto-electrical issues experienced after the recent heritage game between Calivil and Maiden Gully at Raywood. He revealed the bemusement of occasional bowling comrade who returned to his trusty farm ute in the non-members’ carpark to find wipers swishing when blinkers should have been flashing ... and for good measure, some kind soul also reversed the seat belts. Wouldn’t happen on the tractor out Bridgewater North way.

ONE really doesn’t have to guess that the language drawn a voluminous consumption of Funk and Wagnalls would have been even more colourful than the rainbow. And while on descriptive language, OTF had a brilliant response last week from a regular contributor of information for columns of the Loddon Herald. When reminded that attachment was missing from weekly email, quicker than flash came the response: “Oh mmmm. Yep”. Okay, we’ve sanitised the reply for reasons of being proper and polite.

TOASTMASTERS, the organisation for public speaking, offers ways to get around embarrassing moments. Here’s a few of its tips - Respond to the incident with self-deprecating humour. For example: “Oh, oh. I wonder what else I can do wrong today.” The benefit: You’re demonstrating genuine humility. And while humility may be good for the soul, it also builds respect from the people around you. Use the occasion to offer a compliment. For example: “You’re always so careful about things like this. You’d never make such an embarrassing mistake and I hope I won’t ever make it again, either.” The benefit: You’re offering two universally appreciated qualities - praise and warmth. Excuse yourself. For example: “I’m really sorry...I’ve been racing around for the past few hours, and I just don’t feel like myself today.” The benefit: You’re reminding others that you - and they - are human.

AND finally this week, kicking off the dew in junior football can be a slippery exercise for players and umpires ... hard to keep the footing!

MEN’S Health Week starts on Monday and Inglewood and District Health Service nurse unit manager Reece Carroll has had a head start attending weekly bootcamp sessions where he has lost 12kg in recent weeks. Reece, pictured with IDHS Strength trainer Karen Mc Crann-Peters, is encouraging Loddon men and youngsters to embrace this year’s healthy habits theme.

Summer fire season could start early: report

EMERGENCY services are monitoring winter conditions amid concern of a potential earlier start to the summer bushfire season.

Fire chiefs last week said reduced rainfall and above average temperatures over the next three months could result in drier than average soil by late winter.

Country Fire Authority Acting Chief Officer Garry Cook said: “Despite years of wetter than average weather, Victoria is still one of the most bushfire-prone areas in the world.”