Echuca moama magazine (issue 4) 2016 autumn winter (low res)

AUTUMN/WINTER 2016

Gravity guts and glory Life as a BASE jumper Legal eagle to scrubs and scalpel Ashes to ashes dust to dust

AUTUMN/WINTER 2016

4

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7 EchucaMoama

Welcome to E M. EC H U C A M OA MA M AGA Z I N E I S N OW I N I TS T H I R D Y E A R O F P U B L I C AT I O N FO L LOWI N G I TS L AU N C H I N S E P T E M B E R 2 01 4 .

In that time it has not only become a benchmark for regional publishing, it has also become an international award winner — taking out the best magazine honours at the 2015 PANPA (Pacific Area Newspaper Publishers’ Association) awards.

WORDS Andrew Mole, editor editor@riverineherald.com.au

It was a remarkable achievement, showing the magazine and the EchucaMoama region continue to punch above their weight on the national and international stage.

Ivy Wise Natalie Durrant Erin Lyons Lana Murphy

The ongoing success of echucamoama has also played a significant role in the creation and launch earlier this year of Bella magazine, a bi-monthly women’s feature/lifestyle magazine, also distributed free with the Riverine Herald.

Tyla Harrington Ben Carter Rusty Woodger

PHOTOGRAPHY Sitthixay Ditthavong Daniel Dupuis (@dupiiiis) Ben Carter Erin Lyons

DESIGN

Brendan Cain Alysha Bathman Warren Goater

Bella Considine Steph Bell

ADVERTIS I NG Haydn O’Neale, general manager E: haydn.oneale@riverineherald.com.au Emma Mortimer Carly Richardson Vanessa Brewis

Stuart Addicott Kerry Vevers

PUBLISHER Riverine Herald 270 Hare St Echuca, VIC 3564 P: (03) 5482 1111 W: www.riverineherald.com.au facebook.com/EchucaMoamaMagazine

In this issue photographer Sitthixay Ditthavong makes his echucamoama debut. Sitt has had such a major impact on the pictorial standard of the Riverine Herald since he arrived late last year and his work through this magazine is just as good.

We also look at the spine-chilling world of local BASE jumper Bo McCullum, who spends half his year in town earning enough money to spend the other six months leaping from very tall things.

And echucamoama also caught up with the man we all eventually have to deal with — the local undertaker.

The story of how the funeral business runs today, and how you get into it, makes for interesting reading.

We believe the mix of stories, from a cactus expert to a country-based mum and the amount of country she has to cover — every day.

As always we hope you enjoy your magazine as much as we did producing it for you and we thank all the local advertisers for their support of EchucaMoama in general and echucamoama magazine in particular.

Happy reading,

Andrew Mole Editor

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10 EchucaMoama

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contents 14

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Gravity, guts and glory We join local thrill seeker Bo McCullum as he goes about the world hurling himself from ever higher places in the Russian roulette sport known as BASE jumping.

38

Refugee medico Manny Cao survived some of suburban Australia’s toughest — and most dangerous — warzones to become a pivotal part of Echuca Regional Health and the services it provides.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust No matter where you start, inevitably you will end up in the hands of Sean Green and his counterparts. The Echuca-Moama funeral director takes us through his life — which is all about death.

47

Don’t dis my ability mate Taskforce has been a ground breaking strategy which has achieved success far beyond its hopes. Today it is giving as much to the support staff as the disabled it was set up to help.

WANT MORE EM MAG? Find us on facebook: facebook.com/EchucaMoamaMagazine

From legal eagle to scrubs and scalpels

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70

He’s just nuts about cacti

76

Only mad dogs and cricketers go out in the midday sun

Brad Jones knows cricket inside out — and he has to. For part of the summer he is an A-grade coach but when stumps are drawn for the day he is responsible for the pitch at Echuca South as well.

Birds and the bees Being an apiarist has to be a highrisk lifestyle and Max Curnow tells echucamoama while he might get a buzz out of the business he has, from time to time, copped more than his share of pain.

A moment with our ministries The church — traditionally the Catholic and Protestant — played a major role in regional society in the old days. But now that is all changing as different messages and different demands alter forever the religious profile of the twin towns.

Campaspe’s cactus king decided to live a dream after being seduced by settings in wild west movies he only ever saw on TV and at the cinema.

Now John Wayne would look at home in his gardens.

80

The man who would be a newspaper photographer Sitthixay Ditthavong has been a revelation since he arrived in EchucaMoama late last year. He has been seen wading into the Murray to get the best photo, racing down streets chasing triathletes and sprawled on bowling greens for a new take on an old game.

11 EchucaMoama

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The vet, the pet and their passionate partnership

110

Rose Parsons isn’t a vet just because she loves animals. She is determined that every pet she meets and treats is returned to its owner in the best possible condition for a long, happy and healthy life.

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Her serene splashness rules the pool Shirley Milgate is somewhat of a local legend at the local swimming pool and many people say they owe their swimming ability to being put through the classes she has been running at the aquatic centre.

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I rode the road

Sweet smell of success When Scentral Flavours and Fragrances was named a winner at the 2015 GMCU Allianz Campaspe Murray business awards the owners were delighted but most people in the sell-out crowd at Moama Bowling Club were looking at each other and asking who they were.

Pop down to the Paramount The movies seems like the easiest of nights out. But behind the scenes there is a lot happening at the Paramount, and there has been a lot of change in a very short time. The story is so good you could turn it into a movie of its own.

124

Being a country mum means you are required to be many things — including a long-haul driver.

From school to sport, parties to the paediatrician, there’s no such thing as popping down the street — not when your driveway is measured in the kilometres.

Home, sweet temporary home Adrian and Mel van der Sluys lead split lives — between Melbourne and Echuca-Moama — but they want to bring their building business home where they have, well, already built their own home.

130 130

The sustainable herbalist (and gardener) She’s not an addict but herb grower, herb club member, herb dryer, herb cooker and herb eater does admit beyond her garden she is a little short of time for too much else.

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Our coffee culture is pretty damn chic Popping down the street for a coffee and cake is no longer as simple as it sounds. There is so much choice, so many varieties and so many cups to work your way through that life may just not be long enough.

140

The not-so-lonely long distance runner When it comes to amateur athletics in the twin towns Laurie Edmondstone is something of a modest legend.

Because if you want some coaching, no matter how good (or otherwise) you are Laurie always has a few pointers to help make you better.

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EchucaMoama

THE IRRESISTIBLE PULL OF

EchucaMoama

Carving up the Murray at 200 km/h is nothing.

Not to Bo McCullum, who spends part of his year working here and the rest hurling himself from alpine cliffs and bridges hundreds of metres above the ground. ERIN LYONS meets the fanatical BASE jumper whose new life has no margin for error. >>

15

gravity, guts and glory

“I HAVE A LONG WAY TO GO AND A LOT TO LEARN BEFORE I LIVE MY DREAM OF WING SUIT BASE JUMPING.” BO McCULLUM 16 EchucaMoama

>> BASE jumping.

If there is a sport for the truly certifiable, here it is.

It is the Russian roulette of the adventure junkie.

The rush is not how well you jump; it is if you stay alive.

Fearless or downright foolish, it remains the preserve of a small population which, as you would expect, shrinks on a fairly regular basis.

the mountains, close to the cliff walls, trees and scree, you can really see the movement achieved in their suits.”

BASE jumpers can literally tear through the air, parallel to the earth, propelled by the fusion of gravity and technology, another of the great appeals to the devotees.

“Flying alongside or above the natural earth so closely is like nothing you could ever imagine,” Bo said.

The movement’s own website acknowledges 97 fatalities — but that does not include those who jumped, and died, alone and are yet to be found.

Bo’s first hit of BASE was in the US almost three years ago when he and a mate made three jumps from the 145 m Perrine Bridge in Twin Falls, Idaho.

Echuca-Moama’s Bo McCullum is in the land of the BASE jumping living and he isn’t planning to hang up his parachute anytime soon.

But he was hooked.

BASE jumping is a form of paragliding, or wing gliding, from a fixed structure.

BASE is actually an acronym for the objects from which you can hurl yourself into potential oblivion — buildings, antenna, span and, of course, earth.

Unless you are free falling hundreds of feet at terminal velocity after happily flinging yourself from a cliff edge in the Swiss Alps you won’t get it.

“I was instantly addicted and decided I should do a proper course,” he said.

“In May 2014 I spent about three days with one of the most respected BASE jumpers in the sport.

“He taught me all the basics and I did another nine jumps off that same bridge to learn.”

Just two months later Bo found himself at Monte Brento, Italy, renowned for its 800 m overhung cliff, and its popular exit points for jumpers.

But Bo McCullum loves it.

For you and me just looking down would be terrifying; for Bo it was the perfect playground to learn the ropes.

And the increasingly outrageous videos this breed post after each increasingly outrageous jump are swamped with millions of hits from armchair enthusiasts.

Although Bo is now happy to admit that first jump from Monte Brento “scared the s##t” out of me”.

When Bo isn’t knee deep in the Murray River, working for Brett Sands Watersports, he can be found mid-air somewhere on the other side of the world — only seconds from disaster.

Bo is dedicated to the rush, and spends months every year roaming the globe and launching himself into space.

Adrenaline junkie?

Absolutely.

Scared?

Only sometimes.

Since he was a child Bo has dreamt of flight — and enjoying the adventure which comes with it.

He tried skydiving first, at that time BASE jumping had never really appealed.

“Why hike, or climb, to get as little as 25 seconds of free fall, when you can sit in a plane for 15 minutes and get more than 60 seconds?,” he said.

“I later worked out I was extremely uneducated. After a couple of years skydiving and following the progression of wing suit BASE jumpers I finally got it.

“When you watch videos of wingsuit jumpers flying through

“But it only scared me to the extent that it motivated me to do some training skydives in a ‘tracking suit’ when I got home, so I could fly further from the wall,” he said.

“I got a little taste of big wall flying and knew what I had to do to prepare for my trip the following year.”

Bo explained a tracking suit has no wings but inflates and allows BASE jumpers to fly away from objects and glide through the air.

“Like most sports there is a progression and I’m a foetus when it comes to BASE jumping,” he said.

“I have a long way to go and a lot to learn before I live my dream of wing suit BASE jumping, but I’ve definitely started my journey.”

It’s obvious the adrenaline factor plays a large part in the reason Bo loves the unusual sport, however he admits being a part of the BASE jumping family also has its perks.

Plus, it also takes him to some spectacular parts of the world.

And not only that, he gets to see them in a way most of us never will — from above and as a blur as they pass by.

“The BASE community is really small and most of the people

17 EchucaMoama

“IT ONLY SCARED ME TO THE EXTENT THAT IT MOTIVATED ME TO DO SOME TRAINING … SO I COULD FLY FURTHER FROM THE WALL.” BO McCULLUM

you meet are always willing to help you learn … especially the best guys in the world,” Bo said.

“They don’t act like rock stars as in most other sports, they’re super down to earth and are more than willing to give advice and have a beer with you at the end of the day.”

Bo has nothing but praise for a man named Chris ‘Douggs’ McDougall, one of the best Australian BASE jumpers who now lives in Switzerland.

“He took me under his wing during my last trip,” Bo said.

“Helping me with flying technique and he let me tag along to a bridge in Croatia on his next ‘first jump course’ so I could learn new skills alongside his new students.

“I was blown away; he wouldn’t let me give him a cent.”

To the wider, rational world, BASE jumping is so far out there it does not register.

And while it certainly has its risks, Bo said it was all about taking small steps.“It is dangerous and I don’t recommend anyone to try it unless they ensure they progress slowly, make good decisions and apply their knowledge of the sport.

“Most people who die are pushing the absolute limits and are prepared to die for the sport they love, or they are trying things beyond their ability.

“If there is one thing Douggs taught me it’s to fly at 80 per cent of your ability so you always have 20 per cent left to get yourself out of trouble,” Bo laughed.

“And with more than 3500 BASE jumps under his belt, I’d take his advice.”

Bo has clocked 84 jumps, 58 from cliffs and the rest from bridges across the US, Italy, Switzerland and Croatia.

However his most memorable jump was his first in Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland — a place he had dreamed of visiting.

“To jump there was a dream come true,” he said.

BASE jumping is legal in most countries, including Australia, and while most jumpers prefer to take a friend Bo said there are a few lone wolves.

“It all comes down to personal preference,” he said.

“I at least tell someone where I am and what I’m doing.”

And what would Bo say to someone wanting to make that first jump?

“Follow your dreams, whatever they are,” he said.

“It’s rare to see people actually living life; most people are just existing.” n

Why choose Lake Lakeview master plan

Rush is on to secure a dream home at Lakeview Moama Strong demand has seen Villawood Properties fast-track the release of Stage 4 of its Lakeview Estate in Moama.

Prospective purchasers wanting to secure a dream home and the lifestyle to accompany it now have their choice of 15 lots ranging in size from 752m2 to 1336m2 with the release of Stage 4.

The rush to secure a dream home at this community should come as no surprise as Lakeview Estate features all the lifestyle attractions that are synonymous with a Villawood Properties community.

In some more exciting news, Lakeview Estate will be linked to the Echuca Moama Cycling and Walking recreation trail, offering even more options for families to enjoy the healthy lifestyle at this prestigious community.

Lakeview’s recognition as a prestige estate has been highlighted even further by the fact that several leading local builders are constructing display homes across three stage releases, the first in the Moama region for a number of years.

“Lakeview offers a range of lot sizes and housing types to suit all tastes and lifestyles and Stage 4 is a perfect encapsulation, offering as it does the best selection of lot sizes in any Moama estate,” said Villawood Properties Development Manager Julian Perez.

“Beyond that, it is proposed to have quality open spaces, parkland, water features and public sculptures which set Villawood Properties communities apart.

“Further Lakeview is an NBN estate, meaning connected households. It is also situated just 500 metres from the Murray River and 1.2 kilometres to the Moama CBD. Our aim at Villawood Properties is to put people into their dream homes.

“This involves a quality home of course, but it also involves creating vibrant open spaces that engender a sense of community and providing the highest levels of amenity.”

Things are certainly moving along at an impressive pace at Lakeview Moama. Stage 2 is titled while expectations are that Stage 3 will be titled in July 2016.

Visit the website today for more information

lakeview.villawoodproperties.com.au

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view in Moama?

Watersun Homes The Watersun Display home, a beautiful 31sq “Spencer” design family home on Lot 53 Lakeview is well under construction.

Watersun General Manager of Sales and Marketing Joseph Garnier said, “When the Lakeview construction is complete, this will represent Watersun’s first display home in the Moama/Echuca region, showcasing to our potential customers the quality and affordability of our product offerings.

All the while serviced by our local Watersun sales consultant, Sean Burns. I look forward to announcing the official opening date in the near future“.

Paul Gray Builders Paul Gray Builders are about to embark on an exciting new venture, a Spec home in Lakeview Estate Moama. Born in Echuca, Paul moved to Bendigo as a young builder to open Paul Gray Builders in Bendigo. He has always had a passion to move back to the Echuca Moama area and having now built several homes in the Lakeview Estate is thrilled to now be building a beautiful spec home on Lot 59 in Lakeview Drive.

Paul Gray Builders offers a wide range of House and Land Packages on all of the lots for sale in Lakeview Estate, you can view them at lakeviewmoama.com.au or paulgraybuilders.com.au

HAPPY CUSTOMERS Matt, Jodi, Jack and Ryan Lees We are a family of four who moved to Moama from Melbourne 11 years ago and have been renting since we arrived. We were looking to live in an area that was family friendly, encompassing parks, bike and walking tracks and was close to transport, schools, sporting and shopping amenities. We chose Lakeview because it offered all of that and more.

With a variety of block sizes, it is close to public transport, the Moama Sporting grounds, Botanic Gardens and Adventure Playground and walking/bike tracks that will take you into town, the local clubs, wineries and of course, the Murray River.

We are looking forward to building our home with Metricon, which will be a single storey, open-plan home, including an outdoor living area that will be perfect for the beautiful year round climate the region has to offer.

We also excited about the future development of the Estates Lake, barbecue, picnic and playground area that will be sure to be utilised by residents and their families and friends. Encompassing the country lifestyle feel with access to great amenities, Lakeview is the ideal place to live.

Selling Agent

Charles L. King & Co

(03) 5482 2111 172 Hare Street, Echuca

TESTIMONIAL: Dale Long.

We chose Lakeview because of the location, Moama is growing quickly and this estate was in an ideal position close to shops/business and family. We currently live in Echuca however do a number of trips to Moama to go to the various shops like the Moama Butchers and businesses like Madison’s Spa, Rich River and the Moama Bowling Club.

We also chose Lakeview because of the community of Lakeview and the further development plans they had for the area.

Instantly we saw a quiet beautiful estate that’s safe and very family orientated. Perfect for us to build our first home!

Our favourite part of the Estate: the Lake!

Driving into the estate you see this amazing lake.

It catches your eye and sets it apart from other estates in the area.

We haven’t settled yet on a builder, so many great local builders and businesses around town however we have a design in mind!

Living in Lakeview means a better way of life for us — its close to the river, it is close to bike and walking tracks, close to family.

Lakeview gives us the opportunity to build our dream home with a shed, an entertaining area and a pool as well if we want too and still maintain that country town feel.

20

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,

EchucaMoama

IF TAXES DON’T GET YOU, SEAN MUST

Sean Green is the guy no-one ever really wants to meet. Certainly not professionally. IVY WISE talks to the Tobin Brothers Echuca funeral director about his career — and what made him get into it There are only two certainties in life.

Which is why Sean Green will never be out of a job.

Because for Sean, death is his living.

And like the rest of us, yes, he pays his taxes.

But as funeral director for Tobin Brothers Echuca he deals with the dead every day.

And that begs the question everyone thinks, but few would be game to ask.

Has death always intrigued him?

Or growing up, did he simply see a lot of death in his family?

Well it’s neither, as it turns out.

Sean became a mortician almost by mistake.

He was actually teaching prep students in Melbourne for 10 years.

“I needed a change and went and saw a careers counsellor and funeral directing came up and I didn’t think much of it,” he said.

“I was telling my brother about it and he said ‘I’m doing some training at Tobin Brothers and I’ll get you a number’ and it just sort of happened from there.

“I never had any interest in it before that. It came right out of left field.”

In fact, until he began his orientation, Sean had never laid eyes on a body, of the deceased variety.

“There were five of us in the group — one of them was an >>

21

EchucaMoama

“I WAS FORTUNATE TO FIND WHEN I GOT HERE THERE WERE MORE QUALIFIED STAFF SO I MANAGED TO LEAVE THAT (EMBALMING) BEHIND.” SEAN GREEN 22 EchucaMoama

>> ex-police officer, one was an embalmer, one had worked with Tobin Brothers before and was returning, a very young lady, about 19, and she didn’t handle it too well, and me, so that mix let me slide under the radar,” he said.

But for someone who came into the industry by a rather circuitous route, Sean has lost count of how many deceased he has now dealt with.

But it would have to be in the thousands.

As if it wasn’t a big, and radical enough, change of career at age 36, Sean’s wife had just left her job because she was pregnant.

“So we basically halved the family income,” he said.

“I love teaching but I wouldn’t go back to it. I enjoy doing what I’m doing.”

With no formal qualifications needed to become a funeral director, Sean was trained in-house by Tobin Brothers.

Starting as a funeral director’s assistant, he drove hearses

for a while before taking over the management of the whole funeral.

“Once you know how things operate and the internal structures, then I started conducting funerals,” he said.

Within two years he was director.

“Once you’re familiar with what’s going on, there’s always a broad structure. It generally goes pretty well. You just have to make sure you get your homework done,” Sean said.

He also did a bit of training in embalming before arriving in Echuca.

“I was fortunate to find when I got here there were more qualified staff so I managed to leave that behind,” he said.

Surprisingly, Tobin Brothers is never short of embalmers, receiving at least one application a day.

When he first arrived in Echuca, Sean said Tobins was doing about 70 per cent burials and 30 per cent cremations, but that has equalled out over time. >>

23

EchucaMoama

“WE SEE OURSELVES AS PRETTY OPEN AND REASONABLE BUT YOU FORGET SOME PEOPLE WON’T WALK PAST HERE BECAUSE IT’S ASSOCIATED WITH DEATH.” SEAN GREEN 24 EchucaMoama

>> In comparison, Rochester has not changed, with 99 per cent of funerals being burials.

“The statistics show that the closer crematoriums are to town, the higher percentage of cremations take place,” he said.

Asked if dealing with death got easier over time, Sean was clearly torn.

“Yes and no. There are always some situations that tug at the heartstrings — particularly children,” he said.

“As a father, if there’s young kids around who’ve lost a younger brother or sister themselves or lost a parent, that’s always going to be tough.”

But children are always tragic and he’s already seen too many of them.

“Kids are always tough and always difficult for the families coming through,” he said.

“But it’s not about us. There’s the emotional side and the practical side of things. We’re not counsellors.

“We’re there more for the practical side of things — the funeral and to maintain that dignity and respect for the family and to make sure we’ve got as many structures around them and to give them as much time and support as they need.”

And every funeral and family is different.

“You can never train for those sorts of experiences,” he said.

“You can be sitting around a table with five children and a death has occurred but they’ll be in five different places.

“Some just can’t deal with it, some don’t turn up, some are feeling relief because their loved one is out of pain — and

others are devastated.

“You’ve just got to work out the best direction and hopefully get everyone on board as you’re going through.”

Because Sean always wants funerals to go well, he feels the pressure associated with a family’s expectations.

“I’m sure we have not always met the family’s expectations.

We’re only human,” he said.

“Sometimes they just don’t go according to plan.

“The power outage (recently) wasn’t ideal and when those things go on, you try and always focus on the positive and work around things instead of just focus on the problem presenting itself.”

Communication and preparation are key to ensuring funerals go as much to plan as possible.

“In arranging the funeral, the first time you’re meeting with the family can take up to two hours, or a bit longer, and hopefully by the end you’ve asked the majority of the questions and then you’re following up as you go through,” he said.

Funerals have not only changed over the years, but just in the time Sean has been in Echuca.

“Nowadays people are, generally speaking, more focused on celebrating lives rather than mourning someone’s passing,” he said.

“There’s a move away from churches and more to do with chapel services and civil celebrants.”

However, although death is inevitable, it still remains a

frightening topic for many people who find it hard to discuss.

“I can still remember one lady who organised a funeral plan and talked about how much courage it took for her to be able to knock on the door,” Sean said.

“The other side of that is that we get school groups. St Joe’s often brings down Year 9s or 10s and we have a chat with them and answer some questions as part of what they’re doing, which is good.

“You’re sort of changing expectations of how things are done but I think that’s generally happening now with people celebrating lives and taking a different spin on funerals generally.”

He recommended talking to loved ones as soon as possible about what they wanted for their funeral before it was too late.

“If it’s important to you, yes,” he said.

“Some people are happy for other people to make decisions but if you’re the person who is going to have to make those decisions … you don’t want to be wondering what they would have wanted?

Sean said despite what people might think, being a funeral director was an extremely rewarding career.

“If it was all negative, you wouldn’t last too long,” he said.

“You do get some difficult days, but you also get to see some families at their best, you get to see families really supporting each other and there’s obvious love there and there’s not too many professions where you get to witness that and I feel very lucky in that regard,” he said.

“That would be the most rewarding aspect of the job.”

And the worst part?

“Kids, obviously, or funerals that remind you of your own family,” he said.

“The other side of that is the practical side — it’s 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 3 am phone calls on the weekends.

Christmas day, whenever, there’ll be staff ready to help other families in the community.”

It’s the hours that can take their toll on his family, including his three daughters, aged 14, 12 and 10.

“I don’t think they see it as the coolest profession,” he said.

“I think there are some days they wish I did something else.

You end up missing birthday parties … it’s the time away, they miss out on certain things when you’re on call.

“I haven’t met anyone who came in with a funeral plan and regretted any side of it, but I meet plenty of people who say ‘I “Sometimes they go down to Melbourne and I have to stay wish we had have thought about it but I never wanted to do it’. home. There’s parties over at Shepp and I can’t go, so I’m sure >>

25 EchucaMoama

“We see ourselves as pretty open and reasonable but you forget some people won’t walk past here because it’s associated with death.

It’s almost as if you’re jinxing yourself.”

26 EchucaMoama

“AS A FATHER, IF THERE’S YOUNG KIDS AROUND WHO’VE LOST A YOUNGER BROTHER OR SISTER THEMSELVES OR LOST A PARENT, THAT’S ALWAYS GOING TO BE TOUGH.” SEAN GREEN

>> there are times they wish I wasn’t a funeral director.”

Although he can’t recall the busiest week he has ever experienced, he remembers holding five funerals in one day (a few years ago).

“We had an extra hearse and staff up from Melbourne helping out,” he said.

After a busy day at the office, a grateful Sean always makes sure to hug his wife and daughters.

“You get your rewarding days when you go home satisfied knowing (you’ve made a difference),” he said.

“Families often tell me ‘thanks for what you did, but I hope I don’t see you for a while’. I take it the right way.

“It’s nice when they’ve had a loss like they’ve had and still feel the need to thank you for it. It’s quite humbling.”

He also loves the little personal touches that make each funeral individual.

“Funeral directors can only do so much, and ask so many questions, but the families are the ones who are going to get that little bit extra,” he said.

“The example I give to families when I talk to them is I had some grandkids who handed out grandpa’s favourite lollies as people came in. If I suggested that, it would just sound weird.

It needs to come from the families.

“I remember my Nan’s funeral. I was fine with everything until her quilts came out because they were the ones as kids you’d get wrapped up in.

“So it’s those personal touches only families know about, and it’s our job to see if we can get that thread and see how it goes.

“You never know. The biggest problem is trying not to assume.

Last year we had a lady in her 80s or 90s who ended up having a Harley hearse and she hadn’t been on a motorbike

for more than 60 or 70 years.

“But it was something the family knew about and was obviously talked about in fond terms and they had the Harley hearse as she departed.

“I was proud of the fact that we picked up on something in that time and that was a highlight for them.

“If I had assumed 90-year-old ladies don’t get on Harley’s, then we might have missed it. It’s the little moments like those.”

There have been many weird and wonderful things Mr Green has seen used at funerals, from chainsaws and gunshots, to trucks and panel vans as hearses.

“Things that don’t mean much to us but mean the world to the family,” he said.

“It’s a real privilege to be part of that.”

Despite this, dealing with death every day takes its toll.

“I think home (and family) is the most important thing and I’m punching above my weight there,” he laughed.

“There’s also a company psychologist and peer support networks, so you get used to debriefing with each other.

“I’ve done it for 10 years so you get used to it, but every now and then you catch yourself at certain times and you do need to have a chat sometimes. Sometimes I just go next door and just need to have a beer.”

Outside work, Sean loves his footy and cricket.

“Once the uniform comes off, you try and forget about it,” he said.

“But if people at parties find out you’re a funeral director, you can either start a conversation that goes forever — or it ends really, really quickly.”

Amen to that. n

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Don’t dis my ability mate

Members of the Task Force team, from left, Brad Mason, Josh Cheep and Cameron Farrar take a time out from pruning foliage at Perricoota Vines Retreat to pose for the camera.

31 EchucaMoama

Task Force is not just creating valuable and viable roles for disabled members of the Echuca-Moama community. RUSTY WOODGER discovered it is changing the lives of the support staff who work with them.

IT IS obscenely early, the sun still struggling to get above the horizon and start to throw some light on another day in Echuca-Moama.

Most of us are still sleeping; the really early risers are still slumped over kitchen tables, waiting for the first jolt of caffeine to get them going.

But one enthusiastic group of workers is already gathering at their building on Francis St for a busy day of cleaning cars and businesses around the twin-towns.

So what?

It’s the obvious question because it all sounds pretty par for the course.

However, if you take a second glance you will notice something special about this team.

Each one has a disability.

But they all work.

And they all get paid.

Welcome to Task Force Echuca, an Australian Disability Enterprise providing job opportunities to 48 people with varying intellectual and physical disabilities.

Josh Cheep has been employed by Task Force since he left school in December 2011.

“I absolutely love it,” he says.

“Everyone helps me and I have made some wonderful friends and I learn a lot of new skills — and we get paid as well.”

The pay, according to Task Force boss Phillip ‘Flip’ Evans, is assessed by a method approved by the Fair Work Commission.

The supported employees must work at least eight hours a week to take something home.

“We all love volunteers, but for every one of our 48 crew who turn up on a regular basis and get a pay cheque every fortnight — that ticks a lot of boxes.

“Because that shows more reward for what they are actually doing.” >>

32 EchucaMoama

Support worker Brad Mason, left, and Josh Cheep pair up to tackle the vines.

“EVERYONE HELPS ME AND I HAVE MADE SOME WONDERFUL FRIENDS AND I LEARN A LOT OF NEW SKILLS — AND WE GET PAID AS WELL.” JOSH CHEEP

>> Task Force has two bases in Echuca — one in Francis St and the other in Mundarra Rd. It has signed up more than 20 contracts with organisations in Echuca-Moama, with work ranging from commercial office cleaning and table work (assembly and packaging) to car washing and lawn mowing.

“It’s not mundane,” Flip says.

“Most people go to work and what they do is all in the same field.

“But for someone who is a supported employee, they might go to Perricoota Vines and do the gardens, then they might come back and do some table work at Mundarra Rd. “And then they might lend a hand washing some cars.”

BRAD Mason has a rock-solid grasp of how much the community appreciates Task Force.

The Moama man sold his business in town after nine years and, motivated to join the industry by his sister, who has Down syndrome, he began volunteering with Murray Human Services.

He is now a full-time support worker.

“A lot of the time our work is in the mornings, so no-one really >> knows you are out and about,” Brad says.

Ricky Phyland dries a windscreen at the Task Force car wash.

33

EchucaMoama

34 EchucaMoama

At the car wash baby — Flip Evans (left), Ricky Phyland, Shane Cocks and Mark Hutchinson.

“PEOPLE ARE STARTING TO UNDERSTAND WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENS IN OUR COMMUNITY AND HOW VALUABLE THESE PEOPLE ARE.” BRAD MASON >> “It is the walkers in the morning saying, ‘thanks for doing this’.

It is done before everyone is up. It’s all clean.”

He says the job has its hurdles, but seeing people such as Josh

“The social inclusion stemming from being employed is huge,” Flip says.

“All the more contracts we are doing, the cars we are washing,

grow into hard-working and respected individuals makes it all

the more we are getting out in our Task Force shirts — people

worth it.

are starting to understand what actually happens in our

“It is a very big challenge but the outcomes are like Josh,” Brad says.

“They are one-percenters which get you up the next day and are pretty awesome, and that is what you are there for.

“You are there for the guys to have that breakthrough moment of learning something new.

“Seeing Josh now is just awesome. He has grown. And that’s what we aim for.”

SOCIAL inclusion is a major goal of Task Force’s work.

The business is bucking a trend in a society where jobs for people with a disability are few and far between.

According to the latest data, Australia ranks 21st out of 29 OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries when it comes to employment rates

community and how valuable these people are.

“Things have changed from the old disability sector. We are out and amongst it now.”

While the group is intrinsically linked to the disability sector, Brad wants it to be better known for its quality of work.

“We are not just a warm and fuzzy kind of business. We are a business and we do a professional job,” he says.

“We all take a lot of pride in our work. If you wipe a table, it has to be done properly. The client expects that. If we go out there saying we will do it, we have to do it.

“And that’s the changing mentality in the community as well.

Some people might say, ‘oh, they are people with a disability, we will let it go’. No. No-one learns from that. Let’s make sure we raise the bar and are good at what we do.”

of people with a disability.

TASK FORCE is just the latest role for Flip Evans.

And between 1993 and 2012, the labour force participation

In 2009, he set up the One and All Inclusion Project, which

rate for working-aged people with a disability dropped from

helps young people with disabilities to take part in a various

54.9 per cent to 52.8 per cent.

range of community sporting programs.

35

“YOU ARE THERE FOR THE GUYS TO HAVE THAT BREAKTHROUGH MOMENT OF LEARNING SOMETHING NEW.” BRAD MASON Seven years on and the Project remains as busy as ever, and was even named Community Group of the Year at the Victorian Regional Achievement and Community Awards in October.

“Where I am now has all sort of evolved from One and All to be honest,” Flip says.

At the beginning of 2015, while with Murray Human Services, the head role with Task Force opened up.

“The business manager moved on and our CEO asked me if I wanted to jump in and have a go,” he says.

“I am never shy to have a crack, so it has been a quick learning curve.”

Flip now oversees three Task Force businesses — in Echuca, Kerang and Swan Hill.

“I don’t see myself as any boss,” he says. “I class myself as one of the team members to get the job done.

“Earlier this week I was in a shed in Swan Hill making pellets and cutting wood with a couple of employees.

“And our employees were teaching me. That’s gold. For them to have the confidence to say that, and back their words up with their work, that’s great.”

These changes, Flip says, are some of the best parts of the job.

He cites Jordan Betts as one of the best examples of how Task Force can change a person.

“Jordy transitioned from Echuca Specialist School and his first few days at the car wash would be him dancing around the pole,” Flip says.

“Initially he was the guy in the group who was still in school mode”.

“But you see Jordy now and he is structured. He comes with his lunchbox. He is dressed immaculately in his work gear and he knows his role in the car wash.

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EchucaMoama

Refugee Manny Cao survived the asphalt jungle of Melbourne’s western suburbs, where murder and jail was an almost inevitable outcome, and RUSTY WOODGER writes he instead became a successful surgeon who is now a key part of Echuca Regional Health and the services it provides. >>

EchucaMoama

scrubs and scalpels

39

FROM LEGAL EAGLE TO

“MY FATHER STERNLY REFUSED AND SAID EITHER WE WOULD ALL DIE OR ALL MAKE IT, BUT HE WAS NOT LEAVING HIS WIFE OR CHILD BEHIND.” MANNY CAO 40 EchucaMoama

>> MELBOURNE High School student Manny Cao topped Victoria in legal studies as a Year 12 subject.

When he was only in Year 11.

So he became a doctor.

Because, he recalled, he felt it more easily enabled a universal career.

“Human suffering and illness remains global, studies pertaining to law and commerce tend to be more localised,” Manny said.

And unlike most doctors, not just at Echuca Regional Health but in Australia, Manny knows a hell of a lot more about human suffering and the dangerous game of being on the run.

The surgeon’s face is often the last thing patients at Echuca hospital see before anaesthesia closes their eyes.

They had seen a surgeon who knows what he is doing and into whose care they have given their very lives.

But away from the scrubs, far away from the operating table or any hospital ward, none of them know the real Manny — or the incredible journey which has brought him here.

Because the 33-year-old general surgeon’s life might have ended, like too many do, as a boat person who failed to make the trip alive from Vietnam to Malaysia.

His father, an officer in the South Vietnamese army, had already been imprisoned in a communist ‘re-education’ camp for four years, forced into backbreaking labour in undeveloped rural areas on a near-starvation diet.

Even after his release he realised his freedom would be shortlived and had to go on the run.

“My father fled to rural central Vietnam to avoid certain death, where he met my mother,” Manny said.

Four months later, they married, and Manny was born the following year, but they were never secure and within two years his father decided they had to leave Vietnam.

It is a decision the surgeon says was brave.

“My mother and father sold everything, including all their wedding jewellery, to board the boat and left with nothing but the clothes on their back,” Manny says.

“As we were about to board, one of my aunties pleaded with my mother to leave me behind and suggested I could come later when things were settled in the free land.

“My father sternly refused and said either we would all die or all make it, but he was not leaving his wife or child behind.”

Six frightening days in a dinghy saw them finally reach Malaysia and, eventually, Australia.

Where Manny would be raised in the brutal streets of Melbourne’s western suburbs.

“Looking back, I should have either ended up in jail or as a KFC or McDonald’s manager by now,” Manny laughed.

“I was the only one on my street who achieved something more than Port Phillip Prison.”

Three of the boys on his street were jailed for drug deals and the infamous Salt nightclub murders in 2002.

“My parents though, being typical Asians, kept me off the streets,” Manny said.

“So for me Monday night was piano lessons; Tuesday was maths tutoring; Wednesday was English; more maths on Thursday night; Fridays we went shopping and Saturday was a change — it was science tutoring,” he said.

“And, if I was really lucky, I would get to play PlayStation on a Sunday night.”

MANNY’s family arrived in Australia in 1984.

They started out in temporary migrant accommodation in Maribyrnong — the same location as the current detention centre — before moving to a small flat in Footscray.

“My father is proud he only ever required one ‘dole’ pay cheque and found employment in a carpet manufacturing company two weeks after arrival,” Manny says.

But the transition to a new landscape, language and culture was not without its challenges.

“One day my father was looking for something to eat in Footscray, which was then run by the ‘wogs’ who represented the previous diaspora,” Manny says.

“After deciding pizza and souvlaki were not suited to his palate, he was happy to see a $2 hot dog stall.

“He never ate dog, but at least he thought this was something vaguely similar to back home. However, much to his surprise, he threw the meat away as ‘we didn’t eat that part of dog in Vietnam’.”

AFTER making the decision to do medicine, Manny spent six years at the University of Melbourne.

He admits he was never a high achiever, but said he remained “consistent”.

After rotating through the Royal Melbourne Hospital during his clinical years he always thought he would end up there as a doctor.

“Unfortunately, sometimes things in life don’t go to plan for a reason,” Manny said.

He was never selected by the hospital for an internship post and was instead offered a spot with Western Health. >>

41 EchucaMoama

The young Manny Cao as a protester and showing his style in a car going nowhere — unlike his career.

42 EchucaMoama

“I BELIEVE I AM THE HAPPIEST REFUGEE EVER AS I AM ABLE TO WAKE UP EVERY MORNING AND DO SOMETHING I TRULY ENJOY.” MANNY CAO

>> Although the role was close to his family home, Manny was disappointed.

He was determined to brush it aside and work hard to find another way back into the Royal Melbourne Hospital.

But as it turned out, Western Health became pivotal to his surgical career.

“My first rotation during the internship was a colorectal term,” he says.

“There I met several consultants who now not only continue to be my colleagues, but also have emerged as great friends

As time progressed, he became the “golden child” of the network, rotating through the Alfred Hospital Trauma Service and Shepparton Hospital as he was exposed to every general surgical specialty.

It is something he believes has held him in good stead while working with patients in Echuca-Moama.

“The vast exposure of these specialties are now reflected in my ability to confidently work in a regional area where subspecialties do not really exist and patient presentations are diverse in nature requiring surgeons with equally diverse skill sets,” Manny said.

and mentors in life.”

Everything was looking up for Manny by the end of 2012.

Manny decided on a surgical career early on.

He was about to sit his final Fellowship Examinations — something he thought was a given.

“I enjoyed the acute decision-making processes involved and the ability to definitively cure or control disease,” he says.

“General surgery was something I understood innately and I would be able to flick through the volumes of textbooks without any difficulties in comprehending the content.”

Manny’s surgical training began at Western Health in

Even his consultants were confident, going as far as mapping out a colorectal fellowship for him with a guaranteed position at the hospital upon completion of further training abroad.

“But the propagation of such arrogance became my undoing,” he admitted.

2007 — the year after his internship.

He sat the exams — and failed.

He spent three months as a resident before being promoted to registrar — a mere 15 months after graduating from medical

It was the catalyst for a downward spiral of depression which saw Manny’s weight crash from 80 kg to 63 kg in six weeks.

school — in a “rare, extremely opportunistic occurrence”.

At work, he regularly found himself in tears in the toilets.

He embraced the opportunity.

Twenty-four hour shifts were being phased out, but not

And his weekends were fuelled by alcohol and “endless, careless partying”.

before Manny endured them.

It was not until he caught his mother in tears at the sight of

“I WAS THE ONLY ONE ON MY STREET WHO ACHIEVED SOMETHING MORE THAN PORT PHILLIP PRISON.” MANNY CAO

Within six weeks, he had the opportunity to re-sit the failed examination.

It was the doorway to Manny Cao circa 2016.

It was during an elective bowel procedure in Bendigo.

His heart gave out during the routine procedure and he died there and then despite efforts to revive him.

“The nights that ensued during the following weeks were bad

He passed the test and landed a Fellowship position in Bendigo only days later.

for me as I questioned not only my professional standing,

MANNY’s work life is now split between Echuca, Bendigo and Castlemaine.

experience,” Manny says.

“I am lucky, as I believe I have found my life’s calling at the age of 33,” he says.

but also my personal emotions to deal with such a daunting “The image of a man who trusted me with his life to whom I can no longer say ‘thank you’ or ‘I’m sorry’ continues to haunt me.

“I believe I am the happiest refugee ever as I am able to wake up every morning and do something I truly enjoy.”

“Particularly as I recall the words, ‘Manny, I trust you’, as his

He has come a long way since the little boy boarding an unseaworthy dinghy with his parents in search of freedom more than 30 years ago.

Although his colleagues have provided immense support, it

last to me before he went to sleep.” has not softened the blow or, as Manny puts it, of “being the pilot of the plane that went down”.

But behind his fancy suits and sports cars, life as a young surgeon remains challenging and confronting.

“As a surgeon, you can immerse in the glory of your previous

“One moment you are riding high, the next you are at your ultimate low,” he says.

those away just to have my one deceased patient alive,” he

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Late last year, Manny lost his first patient on the operating

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TYLA HARRINGTON stayed well back from the smoker when she came to interviewing apiarist Max Curnow, who’s an authority on being stung a couple — or 87 times >>

EchucaMoama

birds and the bees

47

LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT THE

48 EchucaMoama

“I’VE PICKED UP SWARMS OF BEES PLENTY OF TIMES BEFORE BUT THIS TIME THEY TURNED ON ME AND JUST KEPT STINGING ME.” MAX CURNOW >> Max Curnow stopped being a beekeeper when he was 20 — but only because he realised he couldn’t chase birds and bees at the same time.

following me home and were still following me when I went into my dark shed.

honey again.

“Once you squash a bee the next lot will smell where that one has stung you and think it’s a great spot because their mate has marked their territory.

And swarms of bees.

“My wife and son ended up pulling 87 stingers out.”

But once he was married he quickly found himself covered in

Mostly because apiary is a hobby he loves.

But Max wasn’t so worried about the stings.

Even if it does sting him every now and again.

He was more concerned about his swarm of bees and was getting ready to go back to get them when his wife stopped him.

Or 87 times over.

“We had just come back from the Girgarre market and my young bloke was out in the yard,” Max recalled.

“He told me the bees were swarming which meant a new queen had hatched in the hive,” he said.

“When that happens the two queens get together and decide this house is not big enough for both of them.

“Anyway the swarm went over to my neighbours. There were about 12 000 bees and I was just in shorts and thongs. It was the first time I had ever seen a swarm gather in two lots.

“I’ve picked up swarms of bees plenty of times before but this time they turned on me and just kept stinging me.

“I could do nothing but brush them off. They ended up

“She grabbed my arm and said ‘You’re shaking’, and I said ‘Shaking be buggered, I’m having a shower and I’m going back to get those bastards’,” he said.

“By the time I got back they were already gone so it was a lot of bee stings for nothing and it was one heck of a day.”

That was six years ago and one of the worst times Max has been attacked since he first started chasing bees at 16.

The 63-year-old, a very laid-back sort of guy, doesn’t care too much for protection when it comes to bees.

He wears shorts, a top and his “bee veil” — forget the gloves or being covered head to toe.

Which is a little concerning considering his Tongala

49

EchucaMoama

50 EchucaMoama

“THERE WERE ABOUT 12 000 BEES AND I WAS JUST IN SHORTS AND THONGS.” MAX CURNOW

>> townhouse is currently home to six hives, with about 20 000 bees in each one.

“I spray a gum leaf smoke on them. It’s pretty cheap and seems to keep them calmer,” Max said.

Max said his favourite part about being a beekeeper was that no-one disturbs him.

“And no-one comes near me,” he added with a laugh.

“I do enjoy being a beekeeper but I don’t enjoy the stings.”

“The idea is that you do a few puffs in the hive, walk away, and then come back and do a few more.

Watching Max in his element, with the bees, is something else.

“The bees think the hive is on fire so they eat as much honey as they can because they think they might have to leave and they want to go prepared.

There is no fear in his eyes; or hesitation when he picks them up — handfuls at a time.

“And when they are so full of honey they can’t arch their back so they can’t sting you.

“I still get a few stings but it’s good.”

Max tries to get out to his bees at least once a day, if he is well enough.

He said some weeks he won’t get stung but others he’ll cop 40 bites.

“I walk past them all the time and that’s fine,” he said.

“It’s when you stand around the hive for a while, or in front of it, that you interrupt their flight path and that’s when they get angry.

“Forty stings in a week is nothing though. I’ve had a lot worse.”

A smile even spreads across his face.

And when bees land on him he lets them be, as it were, or slowly shoos them on.

Then there’s collecting a swarm.

Max is straight up a ladder, shaking the branch and before you know it, the swarm has neatly fallen into a box.

Did I say he’s still in shorts, T-shirt and wearing no gloves?

“You can’t be scared because they can sense it,” Max conceded.

“It’s just something I do — I don’t think about it too much.”

Quite clearly Max does like bees, but strangely enough he is not a fan of honey.

Although his wife is.

51 EchucaMoama

“The missus gets cranky if we run out because sometimes we give too much away,” he said.

“She was also a bit upset when I had one of the hives near the clothes-line — but that’s been moved now.

“I do like bees.

“Queen bees live for at least seven years.

“They are supposed to lay about 1000 to 2000 eggs a day but when they get older they don’t lay as many.

“She’s fed about 80 times her bodyweight a day in royal jelly.

“We’ve got three different types of bees and about eight different types of queens I can buy.

“To get a new queen is about $30 for a good certified bee.”

Max doesn’t plan on saying goodbye to the bees anytime soon.

For him it’s relaxing to have them buzzing around his home.

Forget the stings, heat, and sometimes long days.

Because Max has a (big) second family in his backyard — one that makes sweet, thick honey that leaves you wanting more.

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Auxiliary lieutenant Sonia Edwards

54 EchucaMoama

THANK GOD FOR THE SALVOS It’s a funny thing, the relationship between the wider community and the Salvos.

Because unlike most religions; they are a tangible fixture immediately recognised by all and sundry.

Sonia is the accidental leader of the local Salvos.

Not the least because they wear a uniform but also because there are few major events where the Salvos don’t have a presence.

funeral of her mother-in-law.

Happy occasions such as sporting events, shows, large community gatherings, where one or more Salvos will almost always be found rattling their tin for donations.

She has been part of the church for 40 years, joining after the “It’s a sad way to come into the church but I recall the officers of the time being so good, so supportive and running such a good memorial service,” Sonia said.

“It was their willingness to accept anyone no matter who they

were or what they might have done.

But they are also expected to have a higher profile at disasters, “I knew this was the church for me.” helping the devastated.

And in back alleys, working one on one with drug and alcohol victims.

As well as providing extensive relief services to families who can’t afford to feed themselves, lives shattered by addictions, by economic disaster or simply because they cannot cope.

Sonia Edwards is the first to admit the Salvos in EchucaMoama are punching above their weight.

Their citadel in Sturt St only pulls a small weekly congregation — maybe 22 or 23.

Despite the old army maxim of never volunteer for anything, after the Echuca citadel was left without a leader from 2013, being supported from Bendigo, Sonia put up her hand for the job.

She is now doing some intensive training to support her role, and has the citadel running Sunday services, prayer and bible study groups and would like to expand that.

“We have a fellowship group on a Tuesday morning — our main focus is a Christian one, to be people who care for others.”

In any given week more than that will roll up to Sturt St seeking food, petrol vouchers, help with utilities and more.

At Christmas Sonia and her small congregation provided toys

And Sonia said it is all funded through the Red Shield Appeal, the Second Chance Store at 119 Ogilvie Avenue and other donations.

Bunnings, the Riverine Herald, Woolworths and Ray White,

“We have a team of five volunteers working on welfare, so yes, we are punching above our weight — our thrift store has a manager and 39 volunteers covering its 5.5 days a week,” she said.

for 150 children and food for Christmas meals.

She said they also work closely with Moama Bowling Club, who are the cornerstone of their programs.

“We also cover Cohuna and Mathoura — if you asked me to explain the Salvos in a few words I would describe us as a ‘sleeves-up religion’,” Sonia said. v

EchucaMoama

People speak to their God in different ways, and on different days, but they all have one thing in common — ministers who lead them. ANDREW MOLE met with six local church leaders to gain an insight into the state of play, from the great churches of history to the modern evangelists who are staking a big claim in the religion business.

55

A moment with our ministries

56 EchucaMoama

BREATHING NEW LIFE INTO AN OLDER CHURCH Jono Schroder is one of the few church leaders in town without a home to call his own.

His New Life church (part of the Baptist Union of Victoria) currently rents space in the Murray Shire Community Centre to hold its Sunday services.

From where he is helping his church make something of a comeback.

There had been a Baptist presence in the twin towns for a century but its aging congregation was also small — and shrinking.

Today Jono is delighted that its congregation is slowly growing, and instead of being the aging gathering it once was there is now an even split between young, middle aged and retirees/senior citizens.

Jono Schroder

“It’s a good congregation and our church is a good arrangement — at a stretch we can seat 100,” Jono said.

“New Life is not about pushing the physical church, our focus broken then they can also become whole again,” he said. which brings out the true version of ourselves and which can be accepted.

“My priority is that we care, not about who we are, it’s just good enough for me that people care, knowing God cares.”

Under Jono New Life has an active involvement in the local community — from working with Teen Challenge and its drug programs in Kyabram to delivering its care packs to Echuca hospital.

The pack is obviously meeting a need as the hospital is hoping the service can be increased.

Community Against Drugs and St Luke’s.

“People often won’t connect with a church banner but we can try and win that back with a consistent, long-term campaign,” he said.

“The old authority of the church might be a thing of the past, but it still makes us better people to go and make a difference.

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As a religion with no church Jono said his home is the ministry centre where his wife Yvonne is not just his life partner but someone on whom he relies — a lot — in his dayto-day commitments.

“We do try to have boundaries as it is also our home, but they often blur,” Jono said.

“But with Yvonne and our three daughters one thing I am very religious about is my day off — you need that break.”

But Jono is at his most emotional when he talks about his people.

New Life also partners community organisations such as

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“The bible is central to our church and while we have a traditional approach to it I believe we have a contemporary way in its presentation,” he said.

“You are there in the real moments, when people die, when new babies are welcomed,” he said.

“I have cried and prayed with families facing crises, such as an illness, and I have married a stack of people in our church family.

“It is an honour and a privilege to be invited into that holy space.” v

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“I put myself in that category, of a sense of vulnerability,

57

He does feel he has an ability to help people’s lives for the better.

is on being healthy, that all things grow, and if things are

“We just have to be more subtle, more smart.”

Jono did not plan on becoming a minister or pastoral leader but after 10 years in the role he admits it has become a more comfortable fit.

58 EchucaMoama

Aaron Wallace

YES, THE YOUNG CAN RULE. OK. Aaron Wallace might be the senior pastor at Riverland Church but it is clear he would have no problem connecting with the younger members of his congregation.

The enthusiastic spiritual leader is the youngest person at the helm of any church in Echuca-Moama and could be easily mistaken for a 20-something looking for some kind of guidance.

Until you meet him.

Because it is immediately obvious Aaron not only knows what he is doing, he also has a pretty good idea of where he is going.

The morning service also includes a program for children.

And the music is far from traditional — although some of the older religious songs are still incorporated.

But the emphasis is distinctly modern.

Which fits with Aaron.

His church is the cornerstone of his vision for its followers.

Riverland has been in Echuca-Moama for more than 30 years, originally near Campaspe Esplanade and for the past 12 years in its current Sturt St site.

“We’re not just a Sunday show, we are a family, and we all catch up all the time,” Aaron said.

Where Aaron and his growing church are performing some minor miracles in transforming their two-storey building into a viable church.

“We already have a good pastoral care program and a genuine emphasis on community engagement, on how we can serve our community — not just the church and its members but the whole community,” he said.

Not just one for Sundays, he said, but as a centre for use every day.

“We have run a project to get our building up to scratch, and that has cost us around $85,000,” Aaron said.

“With a congregation of 115, and growing all the time, I believe we are bringing a more modern approach to religion,” he said.

“In my travels I have found a lot of churches say ‘this is what it is’ but I want people to be able to take their faith and apply it to their lives.

“To bring the reality of the bible and of our beliefs to people.”

Riverside currently stages two services on Sundays, one at 10 am which runs around 90 minutes and a second for an hour at 6 pm.

“Right now I am a one-man band, last week I was the electrician, tomorrow I will probably be the gardener and the cleaner.

“We have a youth program for 12- to 18-year-olds on a Friday night, and a bus to collect kids for Sunday school.

“There are established small groups which get together and talk about things in their lives and next year we hope to have a women’s ministry established to help support the domestic violence which is such a major issue today.

“I think we have practical messages at a time when there is a need for practical solutions; we want to build a culture of excellence, we would love to contribute to better lives through serving.” v

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60 EchucaMoama

FROM THE HOLY SEE TO THE MIGHTY MURRAY Father Des Welladsen has a few bigger problems on his hands than the other religious leaders in the twin towns.

Because unlike most of them he has more land and infrastructure than he really knows what to do with.

to be still punching above their weight.

His church has 20 ministries — all led by lay people — and he

For example, he has a grand old mansion on the northern side of the not insignificant slice of real estate he controls in one of the priciest parts of town.

For a century it was home to the Augustinian order which served the pastoral needs of the town’s Catholics — but that order has moved on now.

So their old home has been leased out for the past six years.

But not before the church sank 260 000 very hard to find dollars fixing up its interior.

said the church’s pastoral council is strong and very pastorally geared.

He said there is also an effective support group, which helps people in times of crisis or loss, such as a bereavement and funeral.

Backed up by a team with a focus on the hospital.

“We also have a big team working with aged care, helping people participate in the liturgy and Eucharist as well as running an active social program.

Father Des knows he could probably sink the same amount into making good its crumbling exterior.

“And all these services are non-denominational,” Father Des

Although to what end he is not sure.

“What I do see is that a lot of people who come to things in the

In its heyday St Mary’s would have been a dominant player in the religious profile of Echuca, in particular, and Moama to a lesser degree.

Today, like most of the traditional churches, its numbers are falling off — Father Des reckons his three weekend services now draw a total of about 350.

“The congregation we have is getting older, we are really looking to get the young married couples, and their families, involved,” he said.

“We have introduced a 5 pm service every third Sunday of the month and that has been getting a good response.

“There is a large group of our faith which has become disconnected from the building; but are still Catholics.”

Numbers might be falling but Father Des and his flock seem

said. parish hope to reach others in the community,” he said.

“It has a social ripple effect.

“People see their spirituality as the foundation to everything they do, and in the past few years, to show relevance to the faith of younger people we have taken a greater role in social justice, such as with refugees, and the Pope has been making dramatic changes.

“Families with the church joined us in hosting refugees, and in turn we see that spinning off to the wider Echuca community.”

Father Des and St Mary’s face a lot of challenges beyond the immediate management and numbers issues, in his own words he “has a bit to do” but he clearly has a bodyguard of his faith prepared to fight the good fight. v

“THE CONGREGATION WE HAVE IS GETTING OLDER, WE ARE REALLY LOOKING TO GET THE YOUNG MARRIED COUPLES, AND THEIR FAMILIES, INVOLVED.” DES WELLADSEN

Des Welladsen and Christine Sebire

61 EchucaMoama

62

PLANNING A RESCUE MISSION OF FAITH

EchucaMoama

George Hemmings is something of a discreet firebrand.

He has been at the helm of his own church for less than a year — and expects to be here for 10 — but he is attacking everything at Echuca’s Anglican headquarters with an almost evangelical enthusiasm.

From keeping the grass in its Hare St frontage well cut to being the odd job man in every other job as required.

As a one-man band he works a pretty full week — from the pulpit on a Sunday to, at the time of this interview — assisting with the installation of a new sign at the main gate.

“I am very excited to be here, I think we are doing well and a lot of exciting things are happening,” George said.

use a section of the bible and try to show how it applies to everyday life,” he said.

While the bricks and mortar of the church are, George conceded, the window dressing of faith he cannot disguise his passion for a building which has stood in the heart of Echuca for more than 100 years.

Its classical symmetry, its stained glass and its soaring ceiling, letting his words and the hymns of the congregation float towards the heavens.

George has also wasted no time in making changes to make his church more appealing to more, and hopefully younger, people.

Clearly he is excited — by the job, by the job ahead of him and by having his own church to run.

That has included a Merry Christmas Service, targeting families.

His congregation is, he said, now not only stable but perhaps growing slightly.

And there was the new second service at 10.30 am (the traditional gets underway at 9 am); again targeting the people he needs for his church to have a future.

But the numbers are still small, and still skewed towards the older demographic but George remains confident if he and his fellow Anglicans keep reaching out and engaging, while remaining faithful to who they are as Anglicans, the church will not only survive but flourish.

“Look at our op shop,” he said, waving his arm across the front of the property. “It does well, and is run by a great team of dedicated volunteers. Most of the money raised goes back into the church, helping provide a community hub and provide for those who need.

“On the positive side we have a lot to offer a broad range of people and much of the work we do resonates with the community.”

But when you get down to basics George has no hesitation explaining the core of his belief, and the belief of his faith, is a strong commitment to the bible and the way it helps shape everything.

The starting point, George confirmed, was always the bible, “from how God’s word should shape our lives”.

“When I prepare a sermon and preach I

He doesn’t hide the fact numbers had got to a point where the church was on shaky ground, but he is determined it will reconnect with Echuca.

Other faiths in town are starting to pull big numbers, so why not the Anglican church?

And George still has nine years of his expected tenure to help drive that change. v

63 EchucaMoama

“WHEN I PREPARE A SERMON AND PREACH I USE A SECTION OF THE BIBLE AND TRY TO SHOW HOW IT APPLIES TO EVERYDAY LIFE.” GEORGE HEMMINGS

Damien Warren

64 EchucaMoama

EPICENTRE — SHARP, SNAPPY AND SUCCESSFUL Even when it’s empty, the Epicentre church on Service St has an almost tangible feel of energy about it.

Nothing is quite in its place but clearly whatever happened the day, and night, before had the place hopping and bopping.

Its pastor Damien Warren is fairly bursting out of his skin with energy and there is no doubting he was born to preach.

He doesn’t need to be interviewed, with his enthusiasm and his blatant dedication to his God, his church and his community he actually needs to be interrupted.

Damien already has more than 250 people in his congregation, and climbing, and has a distinct focus on the young people of the community.

“That goal is a challenge because in many ways Echuca-Moama is a transient place with so many of our young people heading off each year for education and employment,” Damien said.

“Students go to Bendigo, Ballarat and Melbourne for tertiary education, and many have to go where the work is,” he said. >>

65

EchucaMoama

“I WOULD WANT TO LEAVE HERE KNOWING THAT I REPRESENTED JESUS AND HIS CHURCH WELL, AND THAT THE PEOPLE WITH WHOM I HAD PRAYED AND WORKED WERE EXCELLENT IN SPIRIT.” DAMIEN WARREN 66 EchucaMoama

>> Epicentre has a strong public profile for its work with major events such as the Christmas Spectacular and Girls Brunch.

But Damien still has a vision — to build a bigger congregation and get everyone in it closer to God. “When people can see a church is going somewhere they are more willing to come along for the ride,” Damien said.

“They can see how strongly we are reaching out to the whole community, not just through our big events but through our op shop, our pastoral care, partnerships with other organisations and churches,” he said.

“We have qualified counsellors to work with anyone who needs their help; we have support groups for women, men, mothers, kids and youth groups.

“Epicentre is all about simply caring for, and loving, people.

People are welcome to wander in off the street any day, just

for a chat or help if they need it.”

Epicentre’s current structure has 33 people in its leadership team; it has teams who work on events from the Spectacular to just providing food and drink to people who drop into Service St. As much as it was the church, Damien said it was also a community centre.

“The church is the people, not the building — not just its leaders but everyone in it, they are all the church.

“If I was to be asked what I would want my legacy to be when, or if, I leave this church and am called somewhere else it would be simple — I would want to leave here knowing that I represented Jesus and his church well, and that the people with whom I had prayed and worked were excellent in spirit.v

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HE’S REALLY NOT NUTS;

70 EchucaMoama

HE’S JUST NUTS ABOUT CACTI >>

71

EchucaMoama

Anton Gusak

72 EchucaMoama

>>

LANA MURPHY catches up with Campaspe’s cactus king, a man who was seduced by the spiky plants he had only seen in western movies — until he went west.

Anton Gusak has never been one for following the crowd.

It is a garden with a house attached.

Such as when he migrated from Bosnia to Australia in 1960 — and decided he would call a tiny town two hours north of Melbourne home.

When they started building in 1998 Anton’s garden came first.

“Elmore, it sounded like a nice place,” he laughed.

Or when everyone else his age was looking forward to retirement — and he decided to start a new career.

“I grew tomatoes for processing in Echuca, we ran a milk bar too,” he said.

Tradesmen would have to duck and weave between cacti and succulents, trees and plants while building the home.

But that did not worry Anton, as long as his plants were okay.

Woe betide any tradie who made one wrong step as they weaved their way across a minefield of traps and travails.

The 77-year-old cactus enthusiast has no qualms conceding his interest has now become his life.

“Then in my 50s, I learned a new trade and became a cutter in the printing industry.

“I’m obsessed, I admit it,” he said.

“I’ve always enjoyed a challenge.”

“It’s a hobby but it’s become a way of life, a full-time job, I’ll call myself a collector.

So it came as no surprise to wife Betty when Anton got stuck on a new idea — growing cacti, despite only ever seeing them on the silver screen.

“I love western movies,” Anton chuckled. “There was always a cactus and I was always drawn to it.”

But it was a trip to the US which truly kicked off what has since become a prickly passion.

The west coast trip in 1986 is probably something Betty Gusak now regrets, considering three quarters of the couple’s 3035 sq m Rochester property is full of spiky plants.

“If I’m not playing bowls, I’m caring for cacti, I couldn’t even tell you how many hours go into it a day.

“How many hours am I awake for?”

He takes his trade extremely seriously.

In it plants are strategically placed to yield the best possible cacti — there is a hothouse, a shade house and some are open in the air.

He is one of very few people who welcomes the hot spells >> Rochester endures every summer.

73 EchucaMoama

“IT’S A HOBBY BUT IT’S BECOME A WAY OF LIFE, A FULL-TIME JOB, I’LL CALL MYSELF A COLLECTOR.”

74 EchucaMoama

“I REMEMBER EVEN AS A SMALL CHILD I WOULD TRY TO GROW BETTER VEGETABLES THAN MY PARENTS.” ANTON GUSAK >> “Oh yes, I need the heat, that’s the climate they thrive in,” he said excitedly.

With more than 5000 individual plants competing for space throughout the yard it’s a big investment.

And there’s always risk of messy consequences if he makes a mistake.

“Plants are like children,” Anton said.

“They need care, attention and love.

require different climates, altitudes and various climatic conditions,” he said.

“Some only flower for a short period and others require more attention.”

He is on a mission to collect every species of cactus, in excess of 2000 — but his short-term goal is to go back to the Spring Show and not just defend his titles but pick up a few more.

With his name engraved on the champion trophy he is not inclined to give it back.

“And look away for a minute and who knows what condition they’ll be in.

“I’m very competitive,” he admitted with a sly grin.

“I think I picked the least demanding plant though — so I’ll take that as a small victory.”

“I grew up on a rural, self-supportive property in Bosnia — we lived off what we produced.

If there were ever a man who could tell you at a glance the difference between a cactus from Patagonia and one from Canada, it would be Anton.

It is too bad he is not getting paid for his intricate knowledge, because he is very good at it — actually the best in the country.

“I remember even as a small child I would try to grow better vegetables than my parents.

“Food, flowers, plants — it was all the same, I just wanted the best.”

But maintaining his championship could mean more hours away from his secondary obsession — bowls.

In November 2015, Anton walked away from the country’s most prestigious cacti competition with the champion banner, “As long as I’m busy — you’ve got to keep that mind ticking,” he along with 15 other titles (and five first places). laughed.

It was the first time the passionate planter had won overall at the Cactus and Succulent Society of Australia’s Spring Show.

It’s clear, even as a child, Anton was always meant to make things grow.

It was not an easy feat making the trip to Melbourne and back for the show.

It’s not just his competitive streak, but his caring nature which makes his yields so successful.

“I had 46 entries,” he said.

“We hired a transit van and layered it with polyester boxes, cleaning the plants and making sure they were safe and secure.”

But it took a lot of culling to choose his 46 finalists before the show’s judges got a crack at them.

“Each plant comes from a different region or country, they

“My aunty used to grow apples and walnuts at her orchard,” Anton recalled.

“When I was young she gave me 10 walnuts, I planted them near the fence and hoped at least one would take.

“I returned to that orchard when I was about 45,” he recalled, his face softening. “And there was a tree there, bearing walnuts; it’s such a sweet memory.” n

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76

Only mad dogs and cricketers

EchucaMoama

GO OUT IN THE MIDDAY SUN BEN CARTER talks to a cricketer with a split personality — for part of the week he is an A-grade coach and for another sizeable chunk is curator of the pitch at Echuca South PICTURE this. The middle of an Echuca-Moama week. With a blazing hot sun.

Were there any mercury still in a modern thermometer it would be exploding from the top of that little glass tube.

Yet despite such a climatic quandary, Brad Jones is, like your proverbial mad dogs and Englishmen, out there in the midday sun.

Because of, as it turns out, that most quintessential of English colonial legacies.

Cricket.

Why else would you spend the middle of your weekday afternoon lugging a large lump of metal up and down a strip of faded, even browning, green?

Yes, cricket.

Our man Brad loves it. Breathes it. Lives it.

The period between one summer and the next is there for planning, recruiting, fretting about how badly football might damage his personal sward of green.

And dreaming.

Of next season, of the team, and that richly satisfying thwack of willow upon ball, or the shout as all and sundry leap into the air appealing for, nay, demanding, the umpire’s finger be raised.

Just two summers into his spell at Echuca South’s Swans, Brad has already become both coach and pitch curator.

Each a requiring a special skill and, even more essential, a sense of patience.

Which is why, at the halfway mark of the Goulburn Murray cricket season we could find Brad nurturing his beloved wicket.

A long, blue water hose snakes across the oval under the (very) sunny skies, the roller stands idle but ever ready to rumble into life once more.

Before 2014, Brad was a fixture at Northern United association level and for Bunnaloo.

However, due to a lack of A-grade competition — and being offered the coaching gig at Echuca’s Southern Oval — Brad headed south to take over the Swans.

But Brad’s only been curating the pitch this summer, along with team-mate Jayden Rosin.

“They didn’t have one organised,” Brad said of the club.

“So I said ‘I’ll do it’.”

And it’s something that before October he’d never even done before.

In other words, this proven player and coach is a rookie roller.

“I do gardening and landscaping for a living,” Brad said.

“Jayden used to build golf courses.”

Making what at first seems an unlikely pairing in the order, of things, a remarkably effective partnership.

Although the self-deprecating coach/curator reckons preparing a cricket pitch isn’t necessarily the hardest job in the world.

Although it is time-consuming — about a minimum 10 hours a week.

“We soak it Sundays and Mondays for a couple of hours,” he said.

“On Tuesday night we fill any foot holes and then roll it. Then a roll on and off for an hour Wednesday, an hour Thursday, and mow either Wednesday or Thursday.”

The creases are marked out on a Friday for Saturday games, but on a Thursday if juniors end up using the venue first.

“Saturday might be a quick roll and mark it out again if it needs,” Brad said of the match-day requirements.

And he has to balance both the guidelines from the Campaspe Shire on use of the venue and the requirements of the laws of the game of cricket itself.

How can Brad tell if he’s produced a belter of a surface — either for bat or ball?

“You know when you’ve got a good pitch, because no-one says >> anything,” he said with a laugh.

77 EchucaMoama

“I DO GARDENING AND LANDSCAPING FOR A LIVING … JAYDEN USED TO BUILD GOLF COURSES.” BRAD JONES

“PEOPLE MIGHT SAY IT’S JUST FOR BATSMEN, BUT BOWLERS HAVE JUST GOT TO BE PATIENT.” BRAD JONES 78 EchucaMoama

>>

The same conditions apply to both teams, too. So no chance of Brad doctoring the deck, as it were.

“You made it, you play on it,” he said.

Nevertheless, good performances on his home turf are always doubly pleasing to the coach-cum-curator.

“Our A-grade has played three times for three tons (by individual batsmen),” Brad declares, a self-satisfied smile lighting up his face.

“People might say it’s just for batsmen, but bowlers have just got to be patient.”

That was near the start of December.

But the 2015–16 season did begin with a few tweaks needed to get things pitch-perfect.

“We were playing around with water levels and rolling time,” Brad added.

That said, Brad makes no bones that he would love his job to actually be “a lot harder” than it is.

While the Swans’ 22 yards of green (20.117 m lacks that traditional charm) has never been the proverbial ‘road’ on which to bat, according to Brad, the grass cover has come along in a more even fashion in recent years.

The only thing aside from bad weather that can ruin a pitch?

“Plenty of vandalism,” Brad said.

Already this season he’s had to contend with some childish halfwit/s thinking it would be a fun idea to turn on the roller and let it, well, roll on and on — and through a fence at the northern end of the ground.

Fortunately a couple of minor welding repairs later, and the roller was ready to rock and roll once more.

Local morons notwithstanding, Brad and Jayden make a good

79 EchucaMoama

team on and off the pitch.

“We’ve known each other for a long time,” Brad said.

“With two people, one can roll and the other can look after the main pitch. You just get more done.”

And unless a superstar, top-notch topsoiler from the top of the cricketing crop comes along to take on the role full time, Brad would be more than happy to stay put out in the middle.

“I’m not that keen to let other people touch it,” Brad said of his precious 22-yard plot.

Echuca South’s cricket pitch is untouchable, it would seem, except for a chosen few. Or two.

And if the team bats and bowls well on it over the course of this season — and beyond — then the Swans themselves might just become untouchable, too. n

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80 EchucaMoama

Sitthixay Ditthavong

— THE MAN WHO WOULD BE A NEWSPAPER PHOTOGRAPHER In English, Sitthixay Ditthavong translates as spectacular photographer, and when ANDREW MOLE asked what attracted him to EchucaMoama the Laotian-born snapper with the global resume said it was for his first taste of real newspaper photography.

1.

81 EchucaMoama

2.

1.

November 2, 2010. Thousands of people form a procession through the streets of Ubud, carrying the remains of the IXth Raja of Peliatan, Ida Dwagung Peliatan, who died on 20 August at the age of 71. As dusk fell, his remains were placed inside the bull sarcophagus and purified in a royal cremation ceremony.

October 29, 2010. A group of men wait on a Balinese beach for fishermen friends who were expected to return from sea several hours earlier.

82 EchucaMoama

>> SITTHIXAY Ditthavong is torn.

the world, a refugee, a guy who speaks English, Lao, Thai and

Between his first real gig as a newspaper photographer — which includes for this magazine — and the temptation of a return to the world of the agency photographer.

Mandarin, and gets by in a smattering of other Asian dialects,

The world of the romantic, the dramatic and the downright dangerous.

Most recently that would have been with Agence France Presse, based out of Bangkok in Thailand.

But there was a catch.

He would take photos, be in the whirlwind of Asian politics, sport, human interest.

But every image he captured would simply go into a computer and, by and large, he would never see it again.

Never know if a newspaper or website had picked it up.

Even worse, if they saw the image the same way he did or if they cut it up to fit a layout.

Echuca-Moama might not be home to revolution, coups d’etat or even machinegun toting police roaming the streets.

But at the Riverine Herald Sitt (as he is known in the office, and increasingly around town) is in charge of everything.

He chooses the pictures he wants to use, he argues with the editor about how they will be used, and he can walk into any newsagency or supermarket and see his pictures staring right back at him.

For a guy who has been a photographer, a diplomat roaming

Sitt might actually seem out of place along the Murray.

He’s not.

In just a few months he has started his own revolution, helping the reshaping of the Riv and its readership with his dazzling photography.

The people he photographs, from senior citizens on the bowling green to those fleeing a house fire, his professionalism, his enthusiasm and his affability have made an immediate mark.

Golf at Rich River is a long way from the time he covered the Ryder Cup; local shire councillors don’t hold a candle to US presidents and the crowd at a Moama Magpies game is just a little smaller than opening day for the Chicago Bears.

“But I have been loving it,” Sitt said with his usual grin.

“This is grass roots stuff; you often deal with the same people over and over here,” he said.

“When you are flying around the world on jobs you can do what you like because chances are you will never be there again, you will never see those people again.

“But if I do a shocking job at the local croquet, or Christmas celebration; or, heaven forbid, at Southern 80; no-one forgets.

“Then next time they see you they tell you all about everything you did wrong.

“And the next time, and the next time.

>>

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84 EchucaMoama March 20, 2012. A Kachin Independence Army (KIA) soldier guards students attending a graduation ceremony at an English school in Mai Ja Yang, Kachin. The school was forced to suspend classes twice in 2012 due to nearby shelling from the Burmese Army.

Residents at a camp for internally displaced persons in Kachin speak of the frustration of living life in limbo — never knowing if they will ever see their homes again due to threat of the attacks by the Burmese Army.

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>> “It’s actually more important to get a small cheque presentation right than a picture of Obama, because in the end he didn’t care what I did, these people do.

“That makes you look at your job in a whole new way.”

Photography may be what Sitt is all about, but before he got there he spent several years in the Australian Department

they are in the same danger.

They are, Sitt recalls, incredibly difficult to wear and in a country where it is frequently 100 degrees in the shade, they quickly raise your own body temperature from the uncomfortable to the unbearable.

“I hardly wore mine, I wasn’t being shot at, and I imagine it

of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) as a diplomat posted to

is still in the bottom of the wardrobe in the bedroom I had

some remarkable locations.

while I was working there,” Sitt said.

Including war-torn Afghanistan.

Everywhere he went Sitt not only gathered the minutiae, grist

There he was issued with his own suit of body armour — the same one you see on the TV news worn by soldiers dodging bullets and rockets and reporters wanting to look as though

for the Canberra mill, which helped form our foreign policy, he took photos.

Until he finally convinced himself he could make a go of it. >>

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86 EchucaMoama Under near constant attack from a Burmese Army intent on destroying their culture, young Kachin recruits in Laiza take the first steps towards enlisting in the Kachin Independence Army.

“THE THING ABOUT WORKING ON A REGIONAL, WHICH HAS REALLY SURPRISED ME, IS HOW HARD EVERYBODY GOES, EVERY DAY, ALL WEEK.” SITTHIXAY DITTHAVONG

Which quickly taught him three things.

online, is amazing, and the dedication of the small team here

1. When he was assigned to cover the Kachin separatist rebels in Burma he realised he should have hung onto that body armour.

is like nothing I have seen.

2. Being a stringer for major agencies might sound dramatic but the work is erratic and the paycheques even more so.

“And apparently that’s the way it is in all small towns — I have been so impressed at what everyone here achieves, from papers in Echuca-Moama, Rochester and Heathcote to the many magazines and features, and all the digital.”

3. As far as timing went, his plans to become a photojournalist roaming the planet could not have come at a worse time as every major media organisation in the world was shedding staff, not employing.

But Sitt has set a new benchmark since arriving.

Except for the Riverine Herald.

If there was more time he would make them better, he said,

“And that’s how I got here, I wanted to work for a newspaper and everyone else seemed to be firing, not hiring,” Sitt said.

He goes day and night and of all the spectacular images he has been producing he has only been heard to say he was really happy with one or two of them. but instead of more time there are more jobs.

So it’s back on his skates and out the door.

“I even applied for a job on the paper at Mt Isa and never even heard back from them,” he said.

The only thing everyone at the paper now worries about is

“The thing about working on a regional, which has really surprised me, is how hard everybody goes, every day, all week.

good he is and steals him.

That’s when he will be able to photograph some genuine

“The number of words, and photos, for the paper and for

despair. n

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President Barack Obama speaks at a campaign event in 2012 at the Bridgeport Art Centre in Chicago.

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90 EchucaMoama

Rose Parsons

THE VET, THE PET AND THEIR

passionate partnership

TYLA HARRINGTON takes a tour of a local veterinary practice and finds out the job is as much of a calling as it is a career and Rose Parsons has one role in life — to return every pet she treats to its owner with a new lease of life.

ROSE Parsons doesn’t do general surgery.

Obviously she can’t do it perfectly either.

But not for lack of trying, and not for lack of dedication and determination that every pet on her operating table goes back to its owner with a new lease of life.

Which, in the end, is in fact the perfect result.

There are no short corners for Team Parsons, regardless of the time, effort and equipment necessary.

“I’ve worked in practices where a lot of things have gone wrong because they aren’t doing all the things they could, indeed

should, be doing — and I can’t stand it,” Rose said.

“Yeah, they do it for a cheaper price but here people spend a little bit more and can feel safer when their pet is being operated on.

“What we do is worth it.

“We try and do everything we can to make sure that’s the case.”

For a start at Rose’s Vet Practice they use a Bairhugger to warm animals when they are in surgery and their temperatures drop.

Few use it, but Rose doesn’t cut without it — ever.

91 EchucaMoama

“IF I’M DOING A SURGERY — EVEN IF IT IS SIMPLE — I AM CONCENTRATING AND FOCUSED SO THERE IS NO ROOM FOR ERROR.” ROSE PARSONS “It basically means animals can wake up more easily,” she said.

“I think it’s something every vet should have but unfortunately not every vet does.

“Eighty per cent of the problems associated with anaesthetic are that the temperature drops, which is why we use the Bairhugger to keep animals warm.

“And it makes a huge difference.”

All you have to do is take a turn through her practice to know Rose knows what she is doing.

or doing a spay. It’s always something different,” she said.

“I love surgeries as well.”

When she’s doing them, Rose said she was always thinking.

Always concentrating and always working with the next step in mind.

“We’re not having a cheery conversation,” she said.

“My uncle was a pilot and he used to say the people that crash are the ones that are really new or are super experienced and think they know it all.

When she opened the Pakenham St practice 12 years ago she had a veterinary architect design its internals.

“Even though he was a pilot for 50 years, he never flew in a big

There’s separate cat and dog wards, an office, consult room, pathology, pharmacy and surgeries.

“I think it’s like that in the vet world too.

But even that isn’t enough to stop Rose wanting more.

“If I’m doing a surgery — even if it is simple — I am

“I do wish it was bigger, but it works,” she said.

“Twelve years ago it was just a rundown practice.

“We needed it to flow.

“We were one of the first practices to have separate wards for cats and dogs. Now it’s pretty common.”

For Rose the magic of her mission is the variety.

No two days are the same.

And she loves that.

“One day I’ll be vaccinating a puppy, then I’ll be fixing a sick cat

storm.

concentrating and focused so there is no room for error.”

But not all surgeries are simple, and for something that seems so common, Rose said one of the more complicated is spaying.

“With a female you have to pull up the ovaries and there are blood vessels associated with it and if you pull too hard you can burst them, which is not much fun,” she said.

“Unlike with humans, as a vet you don’t have multiple surgeons working on an animal.

“You have to do it by yourself.

“People underestimate how difficult it is and think it’s just a >>

For a healthier you

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Rose Parsons (third from right) and her surgical team in action.

93 EchucaMoama

>> routine procedure. While it is, it’s still not a simple surgery.”

decide to get a pet,” Rose added.

But Team Parsons is exactly that — without her three vet nurses and another vet to support her — she could not function the way she does.

“Pets are quite expensive when you add up all the costs. It can be easy for a family to say ‘yes, let’s get a pet’, but much harder to say no because of financial pressures.

Plus there’s Bronte the cat, which monitors the halls and keeps an eye on her visiting companions.

“Those who do not have the money to afford a pet should get a rock instead.”

She’s been there since the get-go.

Away from the vet clinic, Rose runs a family of her own.

But even with the help of Bronte and her colleagues Rose said her job does have its challenges.

She’s a mother of two and admits it hasn’t always been easy juggling a practice with parenthood.

“We have to say to people to fix your dog you have to pay for it,” she said.

But with the skilled staff behind her she has made it work.

“It is a horrible feeling and stressful but it’s what we have to do.

“Of course my children come first and with the people we employ at the practice it makes it possible,” Rose said.

“A lot of people have the perception that we are in it for money and I can tell you that’s not accurate.

“It’s great working with people who really want to do this job and are good at what they do.”

“On average vets get $70 000 a year. From a professional point of view that is not a lot.

“Sometimes you have to put animals down, that we might have been able to save, because of money.

Throughout her career some of Dr Parsons more different clients have included chinchillas — a type of rodent — and once even a liger.

She has never been scared of an animal but admits she’s not the biggest fan of tarantulas or huntsman spiders.

“We were the first in town to not do accounts at the practice and that was because I had no money.

And what does she herself call pets?

“I don’t enjoy having to ask people ‘How much money do you have?’

Two dogs, a French mastiff named Huxley and a border collie named Mishka, and two cats (Floyd and Ellie).

“But because we are a business we have to.

“That bit never gets easier and you do feel awful for it. But if you don’t get the money there is no vet clinic.”

And she’s right.

Being a vet is Rose’s business, but it’s also her life.

She’s a vet because she loves being one.

You can see just how much as soon as she puts her scrubs on.

She’s constantly checking the heart rate, asking questions of her vet nurses, who promptly respond.

She has a job to do, and she’s doing it right.

But sometimes clients do make it difficult she admitted.

Especially when they don’t recognise how much pets really cost.

“One of the main messages I would like to get across is that people have to realise the financial pressures before they

“So I have two of everything except partners,” she said with a laugh.

“I don’t have a favourite animal. I love them all and like them for their personalities.

“When I was younger I wasn’t allowed to have a dog so I would walk the dogs in the district.

“I didn’t get paid, I just felt lucky to be able to do it.

“I also love horses and enjoy working with them but it’s such a specialist field and I don’t have the gear to do it properly.”

But that’s enough of Rose’s worktime.

There’s a dog that needs looking at, a cat that’s sad and needs diagnosing and what’s that slithering past?

“I don’t have any intention to stop being a vet any time soon that’s for sure, I love it,” she said.

And scooped up a potential patient and disappeared behind a door. n

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96 EchucaMoama

Her Serene rules the pool If you have been taught to swim in the Echuca-Moama area, or further afield anywhere there is a pool in Campaspe Shire, BEN CARTER writes there is a good chance Shirley Milgate had a hand in your progress — one way or another SHIRLEY Milgate might be seated well away from Echuca’s main pool to be interviewed, but she clearly has an almost mystical awareness of the water, and everything going on in it.

Which is almost understandable, for almost two decades Shirley has had the time to ponder how to best prepare legions of Echuca-Moama’s young for their first encounters with water.

Many of which have been at Echuca’s War Memorial Aquatic Centre (EWMAC).

Most recently (for the past three years) Shirley has been the town’s Learn To Swim Leader, armed with her national coaching accreditation.

Having started her career in Melbourne as a teacher, she’s since worked with multiple swimming clubs as she turned swimming into a personal crusade.

The heart of that being her single-minded determination to champion people with a disability.

“I’ve had 18 years working with Special Olympics Victoria,” Shirley declared with pride.

A dedication rewarded with the role as head coach of the Australian Special Olympics aquatic team.

For those unfamiliar, the Special Olympics is generally referred to as the sporting contests that recognise those with

an intellectual disability, while the Paralympics caters mostly for physical disabilities.

Shirley began life as a water baby — swimming since she was four, her first competitions at five and now passing on an unparalleled lifetime of experience — and passion — to generation after generation of young locals.

During her racing days she has, she said, been fortunate to have been mentored by the likes of Australian legend Ursula Carlisle (who also helped Shane Gould to podium freestyle finishes in the 1972 Munich Olympics) and Harry Gallagher (Australian Olympic coach during Dawn Fraser’s golden era of freestyle dominance in the 1960s).

Fast-forward to 2015 and Shirley’s winning role is coordinating school swimming programs to help train the next generation of the swim safe (and possibly a few Olympians as well).

“It’s learn to swim classes, morning and nights,” she said of her busy schedule.

“I’m in the water one night a week and coaching two nights a week with the Special Olympics group.

“These days most of the week is spent out of the water but I have a great team of teachers to work with, all very professional, all powerfully motivated.”

In fact, make that 16 teachers.

>>

97

EchucaMoama

98 EchucaMoama

“I’M IN THE WATER ONE NIGHT A WEEK AND COACHING TWO NIGHTS A WEEK WITH THE SPECIAL OLYMPICS GROUP.” SHIRLEY MILGATE >> And Shirley refers to them as teachers, not just swim instructors.

Her personal passion for the roles extends to personal support, too.

In this day and age, she said it’s not enough to facilitate some learning. It’s also about variety.

It’s simple to explain — Shirley cares.

The Echuca pool teaching staff cover the national AustSwim program, as well as formal lessons specifically-tailored to preschoolers and infants, as well as members of the community with a disability.

That number of teachers is essential given EWMAC’s catchment area, in population terms — and that demand doesn’t include the holiday programs.

Or taking water safety sessions to other outdoor pools throughout Campaspe Shire. And monthly community living and respite sessions for older residents of the twin towns.

So in a nutshell that’s what Shirley does.

But in a way it is also just the window dressing.

Outside her local role she has been to four World Games, two as Australian coach and two as a technical delegate of Special Olympics International.

Her most recent trip was last July to Los Angeles.

Shirley’s management flair has also seen her appointed to a position on the Special Olympics International resource team and overseeing Special Olympics Victoria’s aquatic team.

Cares about each and every athlete that comes her way through the water.

“I support my athletes — volunteering to take them down to competitions as well,” she said.

“It’s full on.”

It was hard for Shirley to pick a particular age range that’s been easier or harder to teach swimming skills to, though.

“Every child learns at different levels,” she said.

“Part of our role is to make activities fun while learning.”

Shirley has done a lot of learning herself, starting with a psychiatric assistance group for teenagers from tough backgrounds in Healesville, north of Melbourne.

So what are the personal, or professional, rewards she sees in it all?

“It’s not just the results,” she said.

“Seeing all swimmers achieve, whether in the Special Olympics program or our own programs, seeing them safe in the water, is what it’s really about.”

For example, there are the prep students scared to enter the

99

“I SUPPORT MY ATHLETES — VOLUNTEERING TO TAKE THEM DOWN TO COMPETITIONS AS WELL. IT’S FULL ON.”

EchucaMoama

SHIRLEY MILGATE

water in week one of a set of school clinics who progress to being confident about exactly the same thing barely seven days later.

A rewarding achievement all round, for teacher and student together.

And Shirley has never stopped learning, even as she passes on her knowledge to others.

“New ideas are always coming on how to do things,” she said.

“It’s having more access to education, people can do more courses and more professional development.”

Swimming as a sport hasn’t lost any of its attraction through the years. If anything, it has broadened in scope.

“I think what’s happening more now is an emphasis on safety,” she said.

“We’re really pleased to see that being promoted more, particularly here on the river.”

The Victorian government has recently recommended all primary school students be required to learn to swim — to survive as much as to succeed in the sporting arena.

“We’re all different but the main skill is to be able to be safe in the water,” Shirley said of the state-wide campaign.

“For our main focus, water safety with kids is going to be rivers and inland waterways and dams, looking at the environment and making it safe for families to participate.”

Obviously, actual survival skills vary with age — and ability.

For toddlers, safe entry and jumping into the water before making it to an edge would constitute good survival mode.

Primary-age children could start backstroke as a way of avoiding the tragedy of drowning, either in a backyard, on the Murray River itself or during a visit to the coast.

Shirley has also found for students with autism, schedule boards have worked wonders as a teachingreinforcement aid.

Indeed, anyone with a learning or behavioural issue.

>>

100 EchucaMoama

“MOST OF THE WEEK IS SPENT OUT OF THE WATER BUT I HAVE A GREAT TEAM OF TEACHERS TO WORK WITH, ALL VERY PROFESSIONAL, ALL POWERFULLY MOTIVATED.” SHIRLEY MILGATE >> Michael Wild’s remarkable transformation has been a case in point.

Diagnosed with autism, Michael took up swimming just three years ago and has since completed more than 1000 laps of Echuca’s pool.

“A lane? No!” she said with a laugh.

There will have to be some sort of recognition but right now Shirley has no interest in discussing the next stage of her life — she’s too damn busy with what’s right in front of her.

One area increasingly concerning Shirley has been the way mobile technology devices have distracted parents.

It’s what has kept her going all these years, it’s what has driven her from the beginning, when she first put her own toe in the water.

“It’s important parents are within reach of children no matter what water environment they’re in,” Shirley said.

“Yes, it’s my motivation, to be working with, and learning from, great teachers,” Shirley said.

That even applies to something as simple as a bucket or a bath. “It’s certainly not the money, like any job. I think you’ve got to have a passion for what you do to be happy.”

As the Kidsafe Victoria television commercial puts it — it takes barely 20 seconds for a child to drown.

Shirley’s passion still rings true.

And they die silently.

As does her obvious pride in her fellow teachers and their swim teams.

That’s the combined message of safety and sporting success Shirley will continue to hammer home while she is still poolside.

So whenever she does decide she has done enough laps, would she expect Campaspe Shire to maybe name a lane of Echuca’s pool in her honour?

She might be the one at the helm but Shirley prefers to see herself simply as one cog in a very big machine — to help inform, instruct and inspire.

And always steering the story back towards the success of others much more than her own. n

Celebrating 40 years as Echuca-Moama’s leading office supply and technical IT support partners…

Peat’s Office Equipment partners Rodney Pearl and Brenton Wagner are successfully continuing the tradition Ken Peat started 40 years ago providing the Echuca-Moama district with local, professional sales, service and support.

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Life is Good

at Allen Court Retirement Village Moama’s ‘hidden secret’ offers residents the independence of owning their own home, while having the freedom to enjoy their retirement.

Travel or take up a new hobby or simply take advantage of what Allen Court has to offer.

As well as a very active social club, Allen Court has an indoor and outdoor bowling green, hydrotherapy pool and spa, table tennis, billiards and entertainment area with barbecue, set in beautifully landscaped gardens.

Allen Court is a 64–strata title village catering to over 55’s.

The self-care units have a new, personal 24-hour emergency call system and provide independence and privacy with the knowledge of feeling safe and secure in a controlled neighbourhood.

Become a part of a caring, supportive and stress-free community, while enjoying the peace and tranquility and the freedom retirement offers.

Become a part of a caring, supportive and stress-free community, while enjoying the peace and tranquility and the freedom retirement offers.

A member of the Menarock Aged Care Services Group

61 Regent Street, Moama, NSW 2731 Phone: (03) 5480 9147 or (03) 5482 1311 Mobile: 0428 008 192 Email: allencourt@bigpond.com www.allencourt.com.au

Locals taking care of locals Murrayvale Aged Care is a modern, purposebuilt aged care facility.

We have 50 bedrooms, divided into 16 single and 17 double rooms. Each bedroom has a fully appointed ensuite, built in robes, ducted heating, evaporative cooling, telephone and television outlets and emergency call system. All bedrooms are serviced daily with linen provided.

Our home is fully secured for our residents’ safety while still enabling access to our private courtyard gardens, meeting areas and a secured dementia walk garden with bus stop and water fountain. Residents are encouraged as far as possible to maintain their independence, social and personal interests.

Choice of medical practitioner or specialist is encouraged. Medication, nutrition, dietary and personal care needs are carefully supervised.

Murrayvale Aged Care welcomes input from each resident, as it is their home.

Our long term staff are dedicated professionals who are fully qualified to meet the residents’ personal and clinical care needs, many of whom have been there since the facility opened

in 1982. They are trained to deliver the best service with qualified Personal Carers and a Registered Nurse, 24 hours a day, every day, with a special understanding of the needs of the aged. An integral part of our care is to develop individual care plans which provide a holistic team approach. The care plans are regularly reviewed to meet the needs of each resident assisting in the care of the resident’s mental, spiritual and physical wellbeing, giving our carers a sense of achievement and satisfaction.

Additional features • Division 1 Registered Nurse 24 hours • Medication supervision • Comfortable lounge room area • Dedicated secure dementia wing

Our trained Chefs provide delicious varied menus with fresh selections each day. A qualified Dietitian also ensures that the specific nutritional needs of our residents are met, including religious and cultural requirements.

• Secure dementia walk

Activities, recreation and therapeutic programs including exercises, crafts, movies, readings, special events and outings are catered to the residents’ personal interests.

• Two separate garden courtyards

Murrayvale Aged Care offers visiting Hairdresser, Podiatrist, Physiotherapist, Pharmacist and arrangements for newspaper deliveries upon request.

Menarock Aged Care Services

• Sitting room with open fireplace • Ceiling fans • Large activity rooms

• Barbeque garden area • Hairdressing salon • Dedicated facility bus.

Australian owned and operated.

63 Regent Street, Moama t. 03 5482 1311 f. 03 5480 9336 e. don.murrayvale@menarock.com.au manager.murrayvale@menarock.com.au

Sweet smell 104 EchucaMoama

OF SUCCESS

When Scentral Flavours and Fragrances was named a winner at the 2015 GMCU Allianz Campaspe Murray business awards a lot of people at the gala presentation were looking at each other and asking who they were. GLEN ELLARD went to find out. >>

105 EchucaMoama

Matt and Michelle in front of their small spray dryer.

Be pleasantly surprised‌

The Outback Function Centre at Billabong Ranch

Weddings, Christmas Parties, Birthdays, Fundraisers.

A venue for all occasions. Seating up to 200 people.

On-site chefs with menus ranging from alternate settings to melt-in-yourmouth slow-roasted meats and crisp freshly prepared salad buffets.

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Campfire evenings and country-style hospitality.

On-site accommodation available 10 min country drive from Echuca Follow the signs from Pakenham Street.

Phone (03) 5483 5122

www.billabongranch.com.au

107 EchucaMoama

“IT COMES DOWN TO HUMAN INTERACTIONS AND THE ACTUAL DOSAGES AND ALL THOSE SORTS OF THINGS.” MATT DAVIDSON >> YOU might think you know nothing about Scentral Flavours and Fragrances.

So the enthusiastic entrepreneurs arrived, set up shop and are taking the world by storm.

Out there in Moama’s light industrial park.

If you dropped in for a tour you might be a little disappointed

Maybe never even heard of them.

with what you see, or even smell.

Your nose, however, and your tongue, might beg to differ.

This is hardly the stuff of Willy Wonka and the magical

Because when nature can’t keep up with the demands of big business, that’s where Scentral steps in.

And does what?

Does the most essential thing for a raft of products — it literally recreates nature.

chocolate factory.

It is a state-of-the-art operation using cutting-edge technology to produce products everyone wants to get their hands on.

“It’s just endless, it’s limited only by your imagination,” Matt said.

Then outstrips it, and creates its own versions of what nature does best.

Because they are not only the new kids on the block, this

Scentral makes flavours for confectionaries, dairy goods, bakeries, beverages and so on, and so on, and so amazingly on.

multinationals.

team of two is up against an industry dominated by So they have been stunned by the company’s growth.

It also cooks up fragrances for everything from cleaning products to hand creams.

Barely a year after opening staff numbers had grown from the

Such as the lemon that goes in detergents or laundry powders, or adds that ‘natural’ ambience to candles, soaps and cosmetics.

They had been hoping to grow enough to employ just one

All done onsite in little old Moama.

Where Michelle and Matt Davidson decided to set up camp after knowing what they wanted most was somewhere that would give them the ideal balance between work, family and lifestyle.

And as hard as they looked, nothing seemed to top EchucaMoama.

initial two (yes, Mr and Mrs Davidson) to seven. extra body.

“After 12 months we hoped to employ one other person, so we’ve got pretty good growth early on,” Matt explains.

“Maybe we were conservative, maybe we weren’t quite being realistic, maybe we didn’t back ourselves enough, but we’ve been quite surprised by how quickly it has grown.”

He attributed the growth to a strong focus on customer service. >>

“PEOPLE ARE FINDING US THROUGH WORD OF MOUTH, THAT SENDS A POSITIVE MESSAGE THEY ARE HAPPY WITH WHAT WE ARE DOING.” MATT DAVIDSON >> 108

“We keep hearing how good it is, no lead times, that sort of thing,” he says.

EchucaMoama

“And best of all, people are finding us through word of mouth, that sends a positive message they are happy with what we are doing.”

The people finding Scentral include some of the most established and high-profile brands filling supermarket shelves.

And Matt admitted he still gets a kick out of seeing them there.

“But then I think ‘why aren’t we in that one?’,” he said.

“Then I realise I will have to go to work on that on Monday.

“That’s the reason you do business, it’s a challenge.”

So how does it work?

What actually happens when a customer gets on the phone and orders a particular flavour — butterscotch for example — to add to a new line of Danish pastries being manufactured?

“So generally if we have someone coming to us saying they want a butterscotch flavour, our first question would be to ask whether they want natural or synthetic,” explained Michelle, who with her Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Commerce has a finger in every pie.

“Then we’d pick something from our library if we already had a similar product,” she said.

“But then other customers will come to us and say ‘we particularly like this person’s butterscotch’, and they might send us a sample, and then it’s matching that particular product.”

Matching flavours comes with the aid of a gas chromatograph mass spectrometer “that reverse engineers a product,” according to Matt.

Identifying the raw ingredients it contains from a huge database stored in the machine’s database.

“That has thousands and thousands of raw materials stored in it, and then it crosses them off all the raw materials, one by one,” Matt explained.

However, a machine, regardless of how sophisticated and how much it has been specifically set up for the food additive industry, “will only do so much”, he says.

“That will only get you so far, then it comes down to human interactions and the actual dosages and all those sorts of things,” he said.

The ultimate taste tests go to Michelle, who he conceded had the more educated palate.

“Yes, that’s my role,” she said with a laugh.

The move to Echuca-Moama, however, was no laughing matter.

Living and working in Melbourne, the couple started holidaying in Echuca and quickly fell in love with the area.

And they decided this was where the future lay.

“We’ve always loved the region, Matt says.

The 34-year-olds started holidaying in the region about 12 years ago and “we had a cabin for a while, but then we got sick of that so we bought a property,” Michelle adds.

At the time they had only one son, and he helped seal the deal with his reaction.

“We would drive up here on a Friday afternoon and he would clap as we drove into the driveway on Friday night, then when we left on Sunday afternoon he would cry,” Matt said.

So when they wanted to start up their own business and get a better work-life balance, they immediately started looking around Echuca Moama for options.

“We decided we were going to start our own business, and once you’ve started a new business, you’re not going to up and move once you have started it. We’ve got to do it all in one,” Michelle said.

“You’ve got to decide where you want to live, and this was where we wanted to live, so it all worked together.”

She said it was “a hectic time”, and while Echuca is a long way from the main manufacturers and customers in Sydney and Melbourne, it all has worked out.

And with the outstanding growth to date they already have plans to expand.

A spray-dryer is the next big-ticket item Matt and Michelle want to add to their business, because they have to send products away to be dried — adding time and cost.

Worse still, Michelle said, “often we can’t get it done in the timeframe we need to get it done”.

“We’re missing out on market share because there are companies that would see us as a bigger player if we had our own dryer,” Matt adds.

“There’s not that many out there dedicated to food flavours, so if we had one we’d be able to easily fill it to capacity. There’s contract work out there for it.”

And that was one of the other benefits of being in EchucaMoama.

Matt says there were plenty of qualified people with food industry experience who could be recruited to work at the plant.

The region also has several food manufacturers, and Matt hoped Scentral would be able to work with some of them.

“While they generally only deal with the bigger multinationals they might have a smaller project on the go the bigger companies won’t look at,” he said.

“And they might think ‘here’s a small, professional, locallybased company and let’s give them a go’,” he added.

“Hopefully we can win them over by getting one product in with a manufacturer and showing how good our service is.

“If you could even get into one small, little range in one of the plants, and then go from there, that would be the ultimate that we’re working towards.”

It sounds like good business sense, and has that smell of success. n

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110 EchucaMoama

POP DOWN TO THE PARAMOUNT — IT IS AN

amazing story

Tom Laughlin is the brains trust behind the hidden gadgetry which keeps the crowds happy at the Paramount.

111 EchucaMoama

If video killed the radio star, imagine what digital has done to the film industry. Yet ANDREW MOLE has discovered there is still a lot of magic behind the scenes at the local movie house.

PICTURE this if you can.

A 15 kg bag of popcorn.

Getting used every day. Day in, day out.

Until the school holidays, that is.

When consumption skyrockets.

To a whopping 60 kg a day. Day in, day out.

Who the hell eats that much popcorn?

After all, 15 kg is a bucket load of popping, but 60 kg?

Come on.

their cinema of choice balancing those jumbo buckets of popcorn, a large drink and as many soft lollies as could be squashed into a $3 or $5 cup.

Which, if you ever confiscated one and tipped it out, would amaze you with just how much that actually is — particularly if you forget the hard bananas and go for the soft varieties.

It’s all part of the movie experience. In my day it was Jaffas rattling down the wooden floors of movie houses in Adelaide and Geelong.

Now it’s all carpet and plush seats; flash foyers, multi-screen

But it’s true — those are the figures from the candy shop and/

complexes — but alas, no longer wooden floors and the dress

or box office (although there hasn’t been a box office at any

circle, which could be had for a shilling, instead of sixpence in

movie theatre for decades) at the Paramount on High St.

the stalls.

And when all those ravenous, pre-pubescent tykes are let

And from which heights, while in my own pre-pubescent era,

loose the team behind the counter at the Paramount is kept

I and my cronies could actually drop Jaffas on the heads of

hopping with popcorn popping.

mates — or better still, any unsuspecting adults.

Legions of little guys and girls can be seen staggering into

Then, a few years later, I could retreat into the circle’s dark

>>

113 EchucaMoama

>> recesses with my girlfriend du jour — and my packet of Jaffas (not your cheap plastic bag variety either, these came in a classy box).

As I became more cosmopolitan this progressed to scorched almonds — also in a sophisticated cardboard box.

More than enough to make any young woman swoon (at which point, as this magazine has a G rating, this part of the story ends).

Meanwhile, back in the Paramount, there is an equally remarkable, albeit more functional, story unfolding behind the scenes.

“It was a system based on platters of film feeding the projector, and someone had to be on hand all the time.

“Technically speaking we could now run the movie from anywhere so long as we had a link with the computer.”

Lovely theory.

Just ask the team in charge of loading 101 Dalmatians for a packed house of ankle biters and their assorted guardians, many of them doting grandmothers.

Instead they were treated to a frightening dose of the gory thriller Hannibal — and the only person who knew how to override the system had gone to lunch.

You and I might normally get to the movies somewhere between 6.30 pm and 9 pm.

Thank God cellular phone technology has kept pace with

But the Paramount crew can swing into action from as early as 7 am — starting with some steam cleaning of the steps.

Hardly the result you would be expecting from a $500 000

It’s not glamorous, but someone’s got to do it.

Paramount marketing manager Fiona Walker is the first to admit the movie industry has undergone some remarkable changes, even since the new Paramount (as opposed to the Old Paramount Theatre next door to the Riverine Herald), opened in March, 2001.

And Fiona said the biggest of those has been the switch from film to digital.

“That took a lot of the old silver screen romance out of the industry, well behind the scenes anyway,” Fiona said.

“The days when cans of film were carted from theatre to theatre, when we had to spend hours preparing each movie, splicing several spools of 35 mm film together so the movie was good to go, are gone,” she said.

digital movies and a panicked call soon had things put to right. investment in the digital technology to keep the Paramount a viable player in the very risky movie business.

So the projectionist went from watching for those little flashes in the top right corner of the film (cigarette burns is the trade vernacular), which signalled a change of reel, to pushing a few buttons and standing back.

No more cans of film being carted up the stairs, even rushed from projection room to projection room if the same show was running in more than one theatre.

Now it is a hard drive arriving in the mail, with 200 gigabytes of encrypted files.

Married to a date- and time-stamped encryption device which is plugged into the projector head and which translates the >>

hard drive contents.

“I THINK IN 2015 WE HAD MORE THAN 12 500 ADMITS FOR LIVE THEATRE, WHICH IS BASICALLY THE WHOLE POPULATION OF ECHUCA.” >>

FIONA WALKER

Incorporated into it are any trailers, advertisements and the feature itself.

114 EchucaMoama

“We went from 2.5 hours and more to just get the main feature ready to 15 minutes to plug in all the digital bits and it’s lights, camera, action,” Fiona said.

“Now all that fabulous machinery is just memories, and a pile of unwanted metalwork in one of our back storage rooms,” she said.

But movies are just part of the Paramount story.

In an average year Fiona said the theatre also helped stage anywhere between 17 and 23 live shows.

Which is a problem in itself.

3000 admits in two weeks, Last Cab To Darwin about 2800,” she said.

“But our programming is locked in months out, working in partnership with the Wallis group. As an independent (the cinema is run by Southern Star Enterprises in partnership with Campaspe Shire) we need to get all the help we can get to have the best shows here.

“If one unexpectedly takes off here we might be able to squeeze another week or two out of it, but that would be the limit.

“Today’s distributors have so many more options, from DVDs to live streaming to internet sales so their ability to multimarket a movie is much greater.”

“Live theatre needs cinema one, our biggest, so we have to run the business like a jigsaw puzzle, fitting movies around those productions,” she said.

But the Paramount remains committed to small budget independents, arthouse and cultural productions, which it will run, almost always at a loss, every few months, for three sessions across a week.

At the time of writing the Paramount had just hosted Echuca-Moama Theatre Company’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, comedian Anh Do and a choral performance combining a Melbourne group with local singers.

“We do that for the community, there is an interest it’s just not large scale, but we do our best to support it, and we do have a little leeway to help push these films.

The local calisthenics club is a big user, and in the past year the Australian Ballet, dance schools and touring shows have all dropped into the theatre.

“Your average moviegoer probably never even thinks about it but behind the doors here we have a suite of change rooms, props storage, technical areas, masses of lighting and other necessary bits and pieces, stage curtains, a loading dock, the list goes on,” Fiona said.

“I think in 2015 we had more than 12 500 admits for live theatre, which is basically the whole population of the Echuca,” she said.

The Paramount even has a green room, where stars and entourages can chill out.

And they mean green — imagine Kermit in a blender and you’ve got the picture.

Hardly conducive to chilling, more susceptible to vomiting, I would have thought.

“The other thing we like to explain to people is the difference between box office and admits,” Fiona said.

“Distributors love box office, that’s all about dollars for them, but at our end of the food chain we go by how many bums we get on seats.

“If we show a major movie, the new James Bond, Hunger games, anything like that, the distributor will take 55 per cent in the first week, then maybe 50 per cent thereafter.

“If it is really big the cut may be 55 for the whole run.”

Runs which have changed as dramatically as the industry itself.

Fiona said when Titanic opened in 1997 it ran in Shepparton for six months.

Today she said a really big movie might go four weeks, barely six weeks, let alone six months, and would be a blockbuster if it did make a second month.

“Some movies, sleepers, can really surprise. Dressmaker did

“And there is no doubt we push more Australian work than most regional cinemas, and we are happy to do so.”

One thing the Paramount team — there are five fulltime staff and a casual roster of 40 more — are not so happy about are the smugglers.

Sneaking in food of their own.

Despite the signs it is not allowed.

“We don’t bat an eye at a bottle of water but you would be amazed how often someone tries to smuggle in KFC or similar,” Fiona scowled.

“You can tell within minutes, it stinks out the whole cinema,” she said.

“But worse, the grease does untold damage to our seats with stains, so our ushers quickly track them down and they are escorted out.

“They can eat it out the front or just leave. But as we only get the chance to do a professional clean of the seating once a year, the last thing we need is seats being stained by fried food.”

Cost control, including cleaning, is critical to the Paramount’s future.

Some of the lighting used in projection and live theatre includes, for example, Xenon bulbs.

They cost $1500 each. They are good for a maximum of 1200 hours. Even if they last that long they must then be replaced.

The control room for live theatre has a state-of-the-art music and lighting system but they need constant maintenance.

The theatres need constant cleaning.

Any wear and tear and/or damage, during live theatre, must be budgeted for, and even with the shire investing into the live theatre component of the complex, much is still a work in progress.

But come hell or high water, the show must go on.

So it does. n

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COMING SOON

116 EchucaMoama

I rode the road

AN D IT GAVE ME A RUN FOR MY MONEY NATALIE DURRANT knows more about the highways and byways of the areas out back of Echuca-Moama than most. She invites us to take a ride with her. >>

117 EchucaMoama

Natalie Durrant and her daughters Kate and Hannah.

118 EchucaMoama

Bunnaloo farmer Peter Durrant with his long-distance family.

RIGHT NOW I AM ONCE AGAIN ASKING MYSELF WHY I KEEP DOING IT. NATALIE DURRANT >> The road runs endlessly ahead of me, its horizon hidden

better and we can actually tune into more than one station.

behind the glare of the blinding early-morning sun.

Which would be fabulous if it was worth listening to, although some occasionally flash up the song title and artist; providing me with much-needed trivia practice (Pleasure and Pain? The Divinyls! Correct. One point to Nat.)

I’m in the car.

Again.

I am hardly ever out of the car.

It is an inanimate extension of my personality, of my life.

I am, by default (and motherhood), a long-distance driver.

Every day.

Right now I am once again asking myself why I keep doing

But getting back to what we were talking about.

For me car technology, specifically the cruise control, makes the daily commute, and commutation, during which I am sacrificing great slabs of my life in exchange for the good life on the farm almost bearable.

it — that 58 km stretch of dirt and bitumen between our farm,

You get to lean back and contemplate, well, whatever you like.

Bunnaloo, Womboota, Caldwell and, eventually, Echuca.

With both daughters safely ensconced on the Bunnaloo school bus — that’s the first component of the daily tour de nowhere, the back seat is strangely empty and quiet.

And back again.

“Write me a story about driving,” the boss said, struggling to keep the grin off his smart alec face.

“Make it light-hearted,” he said, finally giving in to the guffaw that had been wrestling with his mock sincerity.

Light-hearted?

What is light-hearted about driving 40 000 to 50 000 km a

So now I can really think.

Think about this story.

Think about the weekend, sigh, and that list of chores I have, the grocery shopping (more travel), the phone calls I have to make, the jobs I have to do in town (ditto).

year?

Yes, the sky’s the limit.

Just for a couple of days of work, a few tennis matches and rounds of golf, and getting the kids from point A (which we

(Hang on, Take the Pressure Down? John Farnham! Bingo.

Two points to Nat. I’m on a roll.)

call home) to every other point in the alphabet.

Think about all the driving I seem to do.

Fortunately, in the past few years, radio reception has gotten

The 200 km I do every week just to the school bus stop.

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I SLAM ON THE BRAKES, CONGRATULATE MYSELF ON NOT SWERVING (OR HITTING THEM) AND CONTINUE AT A SLIGHTLY MORE CONSIDERED, CONSERVATIVE, PACE >> The 40 km round trips to Bunnaloo for reading and tennis.

Weekly Times and its computer system to handle.

The 120 km round trips to town; which seem to happen three

How can a rural newspaper employ people who have no idea

to four times a week.

what an RMB address means?

The 60 km round trip to visit a friend.

I thought they were in touch with rural Australia.

Struth, that was close.

But no, not unless; apparently, they have an address which

With all this navel gazing I forgot about the local Skippies.

Two just came bounding across the long paddock and straight across the road.

I slam on the brakes, congratulate myself on not swerving (or hitting them) and continue at a slightly more considered, conservative, pace.

(Avicci, Addicted to You. I love this song, turn it up and pretend I can sing. After all, out here, I am my only critic.)

Think about what I need to do at work today.

Ooh, typesetting tennis results, there’s a highlight.

Do I have time to duck out at lunch time and pick up my dry-cleaning?

contains a house and street number.

Like they do in the city.

Now I have to make a third phone call, as long as I remember to add it to my list when I get home. (It usually takes a week before I remember to do that; perhaps a notepad and pen in the car would be a good idea? After all, Hugh Jackman wrote a whole novel from the wheel of his truck in Paperback Hero.)

Speaking of writing, I also need to come up with an idea for my column in next Monday’s Riv. I glide around the Thyra Rd, Five Mile Boat Ramp section of Perricoota Rd, made even smoother and wider thanks to a $250 000 “upgrade”.

Everybody out my way laughed when they read about the

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upgrade in the paper.

Darn it, I just realised (despite two phone calls) my free

Because that section of road was what we out-of-towners

Weekly Times subscription cook book has still not arrived.

considered perfect.

Apparently having an RMB address somewhere in the

We’d certainly be delighted if they had picked up the old road

southern Riverina is too complicated for the Herald and

and dropped it at our front gate.

If the head honchos who hand out money for road maintenance would like to drive another 40 km out Perricoota Rd to where the bitumen ends, they would see a big sign.

Danger: Loose Gravel, Kangaroos, Rough Road.

Another sign even gives you the option of taking the slightly 121

longer, but fully sealed, road through Bunnaloo to Barham.

EchucaMoama

Imagine what $250 000 would have done for our selfproclaimed “dangerous” section of Perricoota Rd? (Budapest, George Ezra. This is gold. If my phone worked out here I would be shooting for the grand prize of the week. But like the road, the radio and the rest, the phone signal is also conspicuous by its absence).

Almost there.

While I have been lost in my little world the sun has backed across the sky and rain clouds are brewing to the south.

I wonder if anything will come of them.

Rain, we are always thinking about rain.

Thinking about when we do, and don’t want it.

Right now is a don’t, it’s just not a very good time of the year for rain; it will just make the weeds grow.

But if you think about the big picture it would be something to fill the rainwater tanks a bit, wouldn’t it?

(The Fire and the Flood? No idea. Vance Joy. Who? Never heard of him. And what sort of name is Vance anyway?

My perfect record is blemished, but let’s be honest, did you get that one?)

Wow, look at that.

A big wedge-tailed eagle just erupted off the road in front of the car.

It’s a quick getaway.

Its breakfast is a roo which clearly was not quick enough.

(On the Road Again? Willie Nelson.)

Nah, just having you on.

I don’t listen to country and/or western.

But it seemed fitting.

I think. n

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Home, sweet temporary home

EchucaMoama

Adrian and Mel van der Sluys lead split lives — between Melbourne and Echuca-Moama — but they want to bring their building business home where they have, well, already built their own home. echucamoama dropped in at their Merlot Drive property to see what the attraction is.

The toughest gig for any builder is to build his own

to complete the landscaping around the pool, and in a couple

home — especially when he isn’t the only one with the vision

of other spots here and there.

for the design.

Progress which had previously withstood some extensive (and

Just ask Adrian van der Sluys, from AV Builders Pty Ltd.

largely ignored) nagging.

He took on the challenge, with then partner and now wife

But with the cameras coming everything needed to be just so.

Mel, and, in the end, has not done too badly.

So it was.

He certainly hasn’t botched anything, and he has not done his

And the pool is a sparkling feature in the backyard, bracketed

business brand any harm either — not by a long stretch.

between an expanse of vineyard and the house itself, and is

Mel is actually delighted her man decided to put the home on

without doubt part of the wow factor.

show in Echuca Moama because Adrian took just two weeks

Integrally linked to the master bedroom complex.

125 EchucaMoama

Which is made up of the only upstairs rooms and including bedroom (with king-size bed, king-size balcony and kingsize vista across those vineyards), quirky ensuite with things tucked here and there (and more views) as well as a walk-in robe through which you access a large box room for storage.

Another individual touch is the interior balcony, from which the lord and lady of the house can observe what might be going on in the vast open plan area laid out beneath them

admittedly did it with an eye to the future.

“We built it about 20 months ago, something we drew up ourselves, and something we thought we would be happy living in,” he said.

“But it is also a bit of a display home for the business, and I suspect we will be selling it and doing another one.”

Being owners/occupiers/designers did mean, however, some

without descending the glass-lined timber staircase (unless

special touches were added you won’t find in your average

necessary).

display home.

Adrian said when they sat down to design their home they

Such as the giant freestanding bath in the main bathroom, >>

126 EchucaMoama

>> the walk-in pantry hidden behind the oven and cooktop benches and stretching the full length of the wall.

Even getting to that door is a visual treat.

A mini moat is crossed by a series of slate steps and

Or the professional drinks fridge.

complemented by burbling water spouts set in the garden

Not to mention the ocean of spotted gum from one end of the house to the other (offset by the Victorian ash staircase).

wall along the front of the residence itself.

“We liked the timber, liked it so much we used it underneath the eaves and the effect is better than we hoped,” Adrian added.

And we are talking a lot of timber; the entry hall would be a large room in any other house but in this case would allow for an army of friends to enter the large front door without any jostling for space.

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“But mostly we are trying to build up our Echuca operation because that’s where we want to live fulltime,” Adrian said.

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130 EchucaMoama

THE

sustainable herbalist Margaret Orso

Cooking and herbs go hand-in-hand for Margaret Orso. An Echuca Herb and Cottage Plant Club member for many years, the Echuca East resident spends hours in her garden, cultivating enough herbs, flowers, fruit and vegetables to make her dining table groan under the load. NATALIE DURRANT speaks to the green thumb about her passion for herbs and gardening Margaret Orso is blooming marvellous.

Really.

Before even setting foot onto the Echuca East resident’s property, the riot of flowers and eclectic crowd of trees is overwhelming.

There are irises and salvias (Margaret’s passions), and a confusion of flowers, shrubs and small trees.

The backyard is dedicated to fruit trees — fig, quince, hazelnut, plum, mandarin, cherry — as well as a vegetable patch, large chicken run and herb garden.

But this impressive display had humble beginnings.

She and husband John (they met at her cousin’s wedding), moved to the block in 1976.

John built the house and they set about raising their three children.

“It was totally different then,” Margaret fondly recalled of her garden.

“We had lots of lawn except for the fruit trees. When the children got older we dug up the lawn and put more garden in.

“The garden doesn’t need as much water as lawn and you can hide your sins, like weeds,” she laughed.

Wander through Margaret’s herb garden and it’s obvious where her passion lies.

“I’ve got rosemary and sage. It’s a must in this house for bolognaise sauce — and pretty much everything else.”

She looks at me. “My husband is Italian,” she says by way of explanation.

So cooking is a big part of the Orso clan?

“I like to eat,” she laughs. “And if you like to eat, then you like to cook.”

She points out the different herbs, proudly sprouting beneath the clothes line (because it was a “bit of wasted space”).

“There’s southernwood, sorrel, thyme, tarragon, stevia, hyssop, Moroccan mint (‘best for tea’), sage, oregano, basil mint, chives, basil, feverfew, corn flowers, garlic chives, salad burnet, sweet marjoram, lemon balm.

“The beauty of herbs is that they don’t need too much attention as a lot come from the Mediterranean where they don’t get much water.”

Looking around, Margaret makes a bee-line for an uninspiring-looking plant hugging the side fence. She pulls some leaves and crushes them in her hands.

“Smell this. It’s lemon verbena. Just beautiful.”

She’s right; the scent coming from the leaves is amazing.

“Now come here.”

Another plant nearby is duly plucked, crushed and waved under my nose.

The stench is overpowering and Margaret laughs at my

kennel and he wouldn’t go near it for three days. But I kept the plant.”

A garden this size must keep Margaret busy?

“I don’t go out every day but sometimes I go to do something completely different and get distracted,” she admits.

“It’s very addictive. But it’s therapeutic too. You start pulling weeds and you’re doing exercise and you don’t even realise you’re doing it, and it calms you down at the same time.

“And it’s also nice to go out and discover things you forgot you

“He doesn’t know a flower from a weed,” Margaret laughs. “But I’ll allow him to dig.”

While not a foundation member; Margaret has been involved in Echuca Herb and Cottage Plant Group for “quite a few years”.

“It’s quite a nice little gathering. We do have a formal meeting with minutes and then we have a roster and somebody speaks on a herb. A lot of times they bring a recipe featuring that herb.”

As well as her herb commitments, gardening and babysitting grandchildren, Margaret is also involved in cake decorating, the horticultural society, the judges association and Kanyana.

“That’s enough.”

Yes, it probably is.

HERB Q&A Coriander The coriander plant is actually named from the ancient Greek ‘Koris’, a bug.

The unattractive name can be attributed to the disagreeable odour of the foliage and other green parts.

The scientific name actually translates into “cultivated buggysmelling plant”.

Fun fact: Ancient reasoning attributed anything with such a pronounced and unpleasant odour to possess powerful curative or preventative attributes.

Coriander seeds have been found in Egyptian tombs dating to the 21st dynasty.

Basil Signifies royal or kingly; most likely due to the plant’s use in feasts.

In France it is known as herb royale and the generic name is derived from Oza — a Greek word meaning odour.

Fun fact: During the reigns of Queens Mary and Elizabeth, farmers complimented visiting landladies with the presentation of a potted basil plant.

Marigold

For culinary use, gather marigold flowers when in full bloom and dry in the shade.

Dried marigold flower heads are used in broths, soups and stews.

Mint Biblical references to mint suggest it was of such high value as to be used as tithes by the Pharisees along with anise and cumin. (Matthew xxiii, 23) In Ancient Athens, where it was common to scent different parts of the body with different herbs, mint was the scent most commonly used on the arms.

In the 14th century mint was used in the early version of toothpaste.

It was also used during that time for whitening teeth.

Parsley The Ancient Greeks associated parsley with death as it was supposed to have sprung from the blood of Archemorus, whose name meant ‘forerunner of death.’

Homer tells of chariot horses being fed parsley by warriors prior to battle in hopes of making the animals more fleet of foot.

Name origins: Its Latin name refers to the marigold’s flowering habit, signifying blooming through the months.

Victors at funeral games, athletic contests held in honour of a recently-deceased person, were crowned with parsley.

Our word ‘calendar’ is of the same derivation.

The saying ‘to be in need of parsley’ was their way of saying that someone was terribly ill and not expected to survive.

Marigold uses: At one time fresh marigold flowers were used to colour butter.

It was never served at the dining table.

>>

EchucaMoama

“It’s rue. I heard it keeps fleas off dogs so I put it in our dog’s

John is poking about in the chicken run and I inquire whether he helps out in the garden.

131

expression.

had planted. It’s lovely.”

>> The Romans did not generally eat parsley either but they did wear garlands of it on their heads during feasts to ward off intoxication.

132

Parsley was kept away from nursing mothers because it was thought to cause epilepsy in their babies.

Parsley was also associated with death in England.

EchucaMoama

In Surrey and in other southern English counties it was said, “where parsley’s grown in the garden, there’ll be a death before the year’s out”.

In Tudor times through to recent years, parsley was also thought to be a remedy for baldness.

Parsley history includes its use as an antidote against poisons.

Rosemary Derives from its native location near sea coasts — ‘rose’ coming from Ros (meaning dew) and ‘Mary’ from marinus (meaning ocean).

Fun fact: Rosemary was thought to strengthen the memory thereby making it the emblem of remembrance and fidelity.

It was for this reason that an old wedding custom in many parts of Europe included the wearing of rosemary.

Tarragon Artemisia, tarragon’s genus, comes from the Greek goddess Artemis (of the moon), known as Diana by the Romans, who was said to have given tarragon and other artemisias to Chiron, the centaur.

Other tarragon histories compare the colourisation of tarragon leaves to the moon.

The word tarragon is derived from the Latin dracunculus, “a little dragon”.

Tarragon is thought to be a native of Siberia and Mongolia.

The word tarragon additionally has ties to the French, herbe au dragon and references to ‘a little dragon’.

Much of this association with dragons comes from the serpentine shape of the herb’s roots. As with the other dragon herbs, tarragon is believed to cure the bites and stings of venomous beasts and mad dogs.

Folklore and medicinal uses: It is thought to have been brought to Italy around the tenth Century by invading Mongols who used it as a sleep aid, breath freshener and seasoning. Throughout the centuries, tarragon has been used in the treatment of poor digestion, intestinal problems, nausea, flatulence, hiccups, rheumatism, gout, arthritis and to soothe the pain of toothaches. www.ourherbgarden.com

Herb and mustard roast beef with cauliflower mash Serves four

INGREDIENTS • 800 g bolar blade roast • 2 tsp olive oil • 2 tbsp Dijon mustard • 2 tsp finely chopped rosemary • 2 tsp finely chopped thyme • 2 tsbp chopped flat-leaf parsley • 250 g desiree potatoes, peeled, chopped • 500 g cauliflower, trimmed, cut into florets • 1/3 cup fresh ricotta • 2 tbsp chopped chives • roasted cherry tomatoes and steamed green beans, to serve.

METHOD 1.

2.

3.

4.

Preheat oven to 160°C or 140°C fan-forced.

Brush beef with the olive oil.

Preheat a large non-stick frying pan over a high heat.

Cook beef for 1–2 minutes each side or until evenly browned.

5. Transfer beef to a rack over a roasting dish.

6. In a small bowl combine the mustard, rosemary, thyme and parsley.

7. Brush the mustard mixture evenly over the top and sides of beef.

8. Roast beef in a preheated oven for 45–50 minutes for medium, or until 65°C on a meat thermometer.

9. Remove from oven, cover loosely with foil and set aside to rest for 15 minutes.

10. Meanwhile, cook the potato and cauliflower in a saucepan of boiling water for 12 minutes, or until tender.

11. Drain then return to saucepan, mash until smooth and stir through ricotta and chives.

12. Cut the beef across the grain into slices of even thickness.

13. Divide the mash between plates, top with some slices of beef.

14. Serve with roasted cherry tomatoes and steamed green beans.

Tips: If you have a little extra time, try cooking the roast slower and for longer to get an even more tender results.

Roast beef at 130°C for approximately 1.5 hours, or until 65°C on a meat thermometer.

To roast cherry tomatoes, place 250 g tomatoes on a baking tray and spray with olive oil. Roast for 10–12 minutes, or until just wilted.

133 EchucaMoama

Sticky beef ribs with herbed potato salad For the sticky beef ribs:

Serves 4–6 Preparation time: 2 hours Cooking time: 10–12 minutes

INGREDIENTS • 10–12 beef short ribs • 3 garlic cloves, crushed • 1 tsp salt • 1 tbsp English mustard

• 2 tbsp soft brown sugar • 2 tbsp tomato sauce • 2 tbsp lemon juice

For the herbed potato salad: 1. Cook 1 kg new potatoes and allow to sit covered for 30 minutes, and then gently drain.

2. Combine 1 tbsp lemon juice, 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, 1/2 cup roughly chopped parsley, 1/2 cup roughly chopped dill, 1/4 cup roughly chopped mint and 3 finely sliced green onions.

3. Add the warm potatoes, season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper and gently fold the potatoes through the herbs.

4. Place the beef ribs in a large saucepan.

5. Cover ribs with water, and bring slowly to simmering point over a low heat.

6. Gently simmer, partially covered for 1 hour.

7. Remove the ribs from water and drain on paper towel.

8. Combine the garlic, salt, English mustard, brown sugar, tomato sauce and lemon juice in a bowl and stir to combine.

9. Brush marinade over ribs.

10. Stand for 30 minutes or overnight.

11. Barbecue the ribs over a moderate heat for 10–12 minutes, turning often and basting with marinade until ribs are golden brown.

12. Garnish with baby coriander leaves.

13. Serve with herbed potato salad and spicy tomato sauce.

Lavender Cookies Lavender can add a lovely subtle flavour to cookies and other baked treats.

This lavender cookie recipe also contains a bit of mint, just to make it interesting.

INGREDIENTS • 1 tablespoon finely crushed lavender buds • 1/2 cup sugar • 1/4 cup butter or margarine • 1 egg • 1 cup flour • 1/4 teaspoon salt • 1 tsp baking soda • 1 tsp finely chopped mint • 1 tsp lemon zest

METHOD 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

Preheat your oven to 190°C. Cream the sugar with the butter or margarine.

Add the lavender buds and egg to the butter mixture.

Mix well.

Sift together the remaining dry ingredients.

Mix the dry ingredients and the butter mixture well.

Fold in the mint and lemon zest.

Drop dough by the teaspoon onto an ungreased cookie sheet.

9. Bake for approximately 10 minutes.

Cooking times might vary slightly so watch your lavender cookies to make sure they don’t over-brown. www.ourherbgarden.com

134 EchucaMoama

Exclusive world of the herb And where the marjoram once, and sage, and rue,

True-love-lies-bleeding, with the hearts-at-ease,

And balm, and mint, with curl’d-leaf parsley grew,

And golden rods, and tansy running high,

And double marigolds, and silver thyme,

That o’er the pale-tops smiled on passers-by.

And pumpkins ‘neath the window climb;

—Extract from The Cross Roads,

And where I often, when a child, for hours

Or The Haymaker’s Story

Tried through the pales to get the tempting flowers,

John Clare (17 93 – 18 64)

As lady’s laces, everlasting peas,

It is certainly the most exclusive club in Echuca-Moama.

Maybe in Australia.

No, it’s not the Echuca Club.

Not even the Melbourne Cricket Club.

It’s the Echuca Herb and Cottage Plant Group.

With only 25 members allowed on the books there is obviously a waiting list (although it is practicality as much as exclusivity which restricts numbers).

Founded 30 years ago after a meeting with the Herb Society

of Victoria, the group began life as the Echuca Herb Group and its first meeting was held at Margaret Hore’s home in Echuca South in 1985.

By 1989 it had become incorporated.

During that time the Herb Society of Victoria has visited frequently, one trip including a workshop on how to make tussie-mussies — or nosegays. (Tussie-mussie, for the uninitiated, is the quaint 15th century English term for small, round bouquets of herbs and flowers with symbolic meanings.

For example, marigolds signified happiness and sunshine,

heartsease the remembrance of things past and lavender luck. In mediaeval England, tussie-mussies were also used to help ward off plague, fevers, noxious smells and illnessbearing aromas.)

Despite being a small club, every year Echuca members meet the day before Anzac Day — after raiding their herb gardens — to make hundreds of rosemary sprays for participants to wear in the Echuca, Moama, Lockington and Gunbower marches.

The club’s current president is Margaret Murray.

“It’s a great group to belong to,” she said.

“We prefer to meet in each other’s homes, that way we can pinch bits and pieces from each other’s gardens.”

Field trips are also included.

“We do two trips a year; the latest was to a garden in Shepparton and a place in Euroa called The Falls.

“Sometimes we go further afield and stay overnight. On these trips we throw it open to our friends, so we get a bus full, and there are quite a lot of people who love to go on our trips.”

Echuca Herb and Cottage Plant Group meets once a month and one member brings either a herb or a recipe of the month.

“We have a herb of the month. We find a recipe and provide copies to each other and we do a talk about the history of the herb and find out its medicinal value.”

As a general rule, the recipe is accompanied by the cooked version for members to sample.

“Of course some herbs are poisonous and we don’t make that recipe,” Margaret laughed.

The club also fits in guest speakers but it is the introduction of rare plants which is held in the greatest esteem.

“We love rare plants and sharing them.”And don’t be alarmed if you ever meet a herb person.

“Our club members are always looking down,” Margaret laughed, referring to members’ avariciousness for all things ground-dwelling.

The club does not actively fund raise, but any surplus monies are donated to the Moama-Echuca Botanic Gardens. n

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135

LIVING

136 EchucaMoama

OUR COFFEE CULTURE IS

pretty damn chic

137 EchucaMoama

The Nook on High

IVY WISE — who spends an inordinate amount of time roaming our café strips — finds there is a lot to feel good about in the café chic of the twin towns In Finnish it’s kahvi.

shop — which has been Janine’s dream from the start.

If you were playing it cool in the Hawaiian sun you would ask for some kope.

Although she prides herself on customer service, there is no

But should Mandarin be your thing then so is kafei.

fresh and flavoursome.

Our near neighbours in Malaysia would prefer kawah while Koreans have a hankering for keopi.

As well as an extensive gluten-free range, the all-day breakfast

But naturally it is the French who have given the custom its chic.

They call it café.

And if nothing else, Echuca-Moama is very café chic.

From one end of the twin towns to the other, everyone has their favourite port of call for their favourite cup of coffee.

Choice is also on the rise — more and more cafés are popping up, offering new and exciting options for a range of palates and personalities.

doubt her commitment extends to the kitchen — her food is

is popular, while hot and cold lunches range from an affordable $13.50 to $17.50.

Particularly hungry (and the boss is paying), I couldn’t resist the lamb souvlaki special, which was sitting in front of me 12 minutes later.

The meat was tasty and cooked well and the tzatziki was fresh and punchy.

It was just enough; or maybe too much, otherwise I would have been happy treating myself to a selection of delectable home-made sweets (on the company account).

So whether you’re a coffee connoisseur, food enthusiast, or just enjoy hanging out for breakfast or lunch — or coffee and cake in between — you will be spoilt for choice by the endless selection of our bustling cafés.

If you’re feeling really fancy, The Nook’s Devonshire tea and

Where you will find food made with love and served with country hospitality; such as THE NOOK ON HIGH.

But the coffee crowd is not forgotten — with the delicious

Janine and Steve Pain have converted the large warehouse into an eclectic café and homewares store.

best in town.

It is a welcoming and peaceful space to eat, relax and

you dine.

high teas are a must.

Its selection of 13 tea brews is impressive — with green, herbal, traditional and tisane teas available.

Sensory Lab beans used by Nook on High’s baristas among the As if good food and coffee isn’t enough — you can shop while

138 EchucaMoama

Johnny and Lyle

ITS HIP MENU … INCLUDES SUPER FOODS SUCH AS QUINOA, CHIA, KALE, GOJI BERRIES AND POMEGRANATES — THERE’S EVEN ACTIVATED ALMONDS (JOHNNY AND LYLE CAFE) Cookware, kitchen gadgets, knives, glasses and gift sets

sampled my mate’s feed) are the best I’ve had in a long time.

scatter the store — buried amongst quirky one-off items and

Staff were quick to check how the meal was going, if there

old-school game sets, including croquet and skittles.

CAFÉ 3564 WINE BAR ECHUCA, on the other hand, is as good as its word.

Or motto, anyway.

Good food, good friends and good times.

Except the food is actually great.

And the service was fantastic (and I am working on the theory they did not know where I was coming from and everyone gets the same deal).

Head chef and owner David Bowman has done an excellent job transforming the place since he took over the reins in August.

An all-day breakfast is always a winner and although the menu is compact, it can afford to be when every option is as good as these.

You can never go wrong with a café’s equivalent to a big brekkie, particularly when you have an appetite as big as mine, and the eggs benedict filled the gap.

Meals were up within 10 minutes despite a busy Sunday

was anything they could do.

Coffee and ice chocolate was on the table within a minute and although I’d prefer a larger mug size, that was the only negative — and probably saved me some time on the walking track.

The 3564 ambience is vibrant but still relaxed, very bright and very easy.

The physical changes the team has made to the outdoor dining area makes it much more visually pleasing and it’s an extra bonus to be able to people watch from the inside.

An Italian wood-fired pizza is a rarity in the twin towns and a welcome addition to the café which serves authentic, Italian style pizzas.

The fact David values fair trade, organic, local and gluten-free food is an extra bonus.

A block across at the family (and pet) friendly Johnny and Lyle is a new eatery done simply and done well.

You could almost feel like you’ve dropped into a friend’s house with its eclectic mix of tables, chairs and furnishings.

brunch hour — the kitchen was calm and composed as David

JOHNNY AND LYLE sources fresh ingredients — and roasts

mentored apprentice chefs.

its own coffee on the premises.

Could not fault either dish — and the scrambled eggs (yes, I

You can build your own breakfast, plunge into the challenging

139 EchucaMoama

Black Pudding

lunch menu with enthusiastic abandonment, or just relax with coffee or a cold drink out in the alfresco courtyard — avec votre chien (water bowls provided free).

Its hip menu, ranging in price between $13.50 and $19.50, includes super foods such as quinoa, chia, kale, goji berries and pomegranates — there’s even activated almonds.

I’m a huge fan of quinoa, so I opted for the wild rice salad with chicken.

On the table in six minutes, the dish was to die for.

The sweetness of the pumpkin, goji berries and charred corn was balanced perfectly by the tangy lime and jalapeno vinaigrette and creaminess of the salted ricotta.

Grazing platters are also available for $25.

But its best-kept secret is its secluded and enclosed courtyard overlooking the Campaspe River.

Which is exactly where I plonked myself before ordering the smoked salmon scrambled eggs, which were on the table before I had time to let out the contented sigh that comes with no cooking and no dishes.

I love an all-day brekkie and I wasn’t disappointed.

It was yummy.

Plus I don’t think I have ever had a bad coffee here.

If you’re tempted, the in-house pastry chef creates tarts, cakes

And the coffee was pretty damn good too.

and gluten-free macarons — daily.

The rugrats haven’t been overlooked — with bite-sized treats available, as well as a sand pit, toys and chalkboard to keep them entertained.

You can tell The Black Pudding’s owners — brothers John and

Although it’s funny the looks you get when you chain them up with the dog.

relaxed and inviting space which both embraces their Italian

Head down High St to the port and you will quickly find life’s too short for boring food.

Rob Taverna — are passionate about their end products.

Not only do they deliver with a hearty repast, they do it in a heritage and reflects the hard work essential to make it all look so laidback.

You can’t beat its bustling café atmosphere or go past its

And THE BLACK PUDDING’S food is anything but.

friendly and chatty team.

Another establishment flying the local products and supplier flag, this café and deli has developed a rock-solid reputation for serving up great coffee and delicious food during the past decade.

And you would have to go a fair way to find this much class

A foodie’s delight, it offers a seasonal all-day breakfast and lunch menu, ranging from $6 to

that infamous?) Gallic indifference where les touristes are

$18; which includes daily specials.

Vive le difference! n

across this much café chic — maybe a little table on a grand Parisian boulevard.

But then you would have to put up with that famous (or is concerned.

140

THE NOT-SO-LONELY

EchucaMoama

long distance runner From the elite runner to the absolutely useless but enthusiastic weekend jogger, Laurie Edmondstone is happy to help them all. And ANDREW MOLE discovers he is still doing it on a low-profile, but pretty grand, scale.

LAURIE Edmondstone is nowhere near as fast as he once was.

But try and pin him down for an interview, in which he is required to give up even a little bit about himself, and the almost septuagenarian can still show a surprising turn of speed.

Even when he is cornered in his own lounge room all he wants to talk about are others.

From his lightning-fast protégé Archie Reid to the pensioners and retirees who rock up to his Moama exercise classes.

In between that he coordinates “14 or 15” weekly walking groups around the region in a project partnership with YMCA and the Heart Foundation.

Along with his far more serious running groups — although that’s only twice a week.

And, as he said, the Thursday group only does a quick 7–8 km with a few drills.

On Saturdays, though, the runs can go from 8–12 km at a fairly quick lick, and include any one of 20 warm-up programs.

Both of these go early — Thursdays at 6.30 am because of his other commitments that morning, and Saturdays go at 7 am because Laurie likes the occasional sleep-in.

He also provides training programs for people focused on on-off events — such as the 2015 Melbourne marathon where he helped people in every distance on the day, from 5.7 km to the full 42.2 km.

“It is,” he said, “all good because it gets people to exercise and >>

141

EchucaMoama

142 EchucaMoama

Laurie Edmondstone (in the white shirt) sets the pace for some of his early morning training groups.

“IT IS ALL GOOD BECAUSE IT GETS PEOPLE TO EXERCISE AND HELPS THEM MEET OTHER PEOPLE.” >>

LAURIE EDMONDSTONE

helps them meet other people.”

Naturally, like many good bush blokes, there was also that bit of footy coaching.

Finally, he has been a long-time member of emergency services both sides of the river, having only just handed in his pager at Search and Rescue.

Although even then they have asked him to come back in a training role.

“SES, Search and Rescue, they are all important and great contributors to the community,” he said.

“But you know, there is so much that goes on unseen at major callouts such as searches, rescues or fires that are the real measure of a community.

“Look at SES, they focus on storm and flood, land rescue, rescues from heights, but they and other groups might also back up the CFA and/or police with traffic control at bushfires, or in a dozen other ways.

“Then add in the Red Cross. Wherever we are on a long job they quietly turn up with coffee and tea, water, food, and they stick at it as long as necessary.

life, even when I worked for the railways,” Laurie smiled.

“I started coaching athletics in 1990 when we were in Traralgon, I was running myself and trying, in the end, from everything between sprint and marathon.

“When you are a bit one-paced longer distance works better.

By the time I got up to speed in a sprint it was a little late.”

Laurie was club coach at Traralgon Harriers until he and wife Nancy moved to Echuca in 1997 and it wasn’t long before he was back in the coaching business.

Although it’s hardly a business, rumour has it Laurie does nearly all this for love, not money.

He first turned to coaching, mostly, he said, to learn more about his own running, to help improve and build more speed.

He gained his first formal accreditation in 1985.

The exposure to new ideas opened an equally new world to Laurie and proved the perfect foil for his innate communications skill.

He had the technical knowledge and he would pass it on.

Quite successfully, as it turned out.

do.”

He has had junior Australian representatives in sprint, a state junior hurdles champion and international runners in distance events.

Which brings us to the essence of this diminutive, quietly

As well as working in duathlon (run/ride).

“No-one hears about it, they don’t seek any notice, they just

spoken man who epitomises the word community.

“I have, I guess, been something of a trainer for much of my

“Running was fantastic, I always loved it, although riding is a bit easier on you as you start to get older,” Laurie added.

“But these days I see myself more as an advising coach, someone who can be a bit helpful. For me the most critical thing I can teach anyone is technique, particularly early in people’s athletic careers.

His doctor told him it was time to make a major adjustment to his life because his running days were over — for good.

“I said to him what about I make a major adjustment to my running style and see how that goes,” Laurie said.

The surgeon was sceptical, Laurie fanatical.

Laurie recalls one girl he started training as a junior in Gippsland.

And it was another race he won.

He said she won just about everything but one girl from Sale beat her at every event they both attended.

are the stylish equivalent of running in bare feet, and it works.

But as she continued to train and improve she eventually caught her and the Sale girl’s mother called and asked Laurie to train his daughter.

After that she ran a race while working with him and lost by a whisker to the other girl.

“The mother went mad, protested and really carried on, so I withdrew as her daughter’s coach,” he said.

“These were only under 14s, that kind of carry on was hardly needed,” he said.

His style is different, he now wears five-finger shoes, which

He is still a fixture on local roads and trails, usually chivvying someone along, or dragging them along in his wake.

Laurie’s diary must look like a novel, there would be so much written in it.

But on the rare days he has time to really and truly slow down he loves to work in his shed, he is an enthusiastic tinkerer, and equally keen gardener.

Although another rumour, possibly spread by Nancy, has it that starting projects in his man shed doesn’t necessarily mean they all get finished.

But in the end one of the major beneficiaries of being part of Team Laurie has been the man himself.

Because inevitably he has to run along to somewhere to help

On a training ride almost three years ago he was cleaned up

someone run a little better. n

EchucaMoama

“They don’t have to be champions, or even aspire to be, if they just want to get better I am happy to give them a hand.”

in general.

143

“My goal is to help juniors get the best out of themselves, whether they are playing footy or want to run, whatever their goal is, just to help them get the best possible outcome.

by a car, leaving him with a badly damaged knee in particular (think plates and pins and alarms going off in airports) and leg

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