GENERATIONS OP SHOP

There’s change in the air at Generations Op Shop. The last few months have seen multiple transitions take place with new staff members on board. New manager Jacqui Hall has taken over following Neville Crow’s retirement at the end of 2022 after many years at the helm. Since the beginning of the year they have also introduced a new truck driver Jack Popplestone and new Food Bank manager Jolene Bowles.

“We have been on an exciting journey in the last few months to get the op shop back running at full capacity. Not only do we have fresh faces on staff but we have almost doubled our volunteer base since the beginning of the year which has allowed us to open up again for longer hours”, says Jacqui. Generations Op Shop is now open 10am till 4pm Monday to Friday and 10am till 12.30pm on Saturdays.

“We get many visitors both local and out of town who tell us how much they love our shop and the variety we have in-store. It’s great to see the community getting behind us,” says Jacqui. “Our volunteers are really what makes

Winton Wetlands Walk

this such a great place with a great atmosphere. They are all wonderful people who love serving their community and do it so well.”

Generations Op Shop have also been running a Food Bank providing food relief to many local families since 2019. For those struggling to afford the basic essentials such as food and hygiene products Generations Food Bank is open 9am till 4pm Monday to Friday. This can be accessed within the op shop store itself during store hours or by presenting to the back of the store. People are encouraged to reach out if they need assistance.

The community can continue to support Generations Op Shop by donating quality goods either by dropping them in-store or requesting larger items to be picked up by the op shop truck. There is a pick-up request form on their website or you can contact 0358243059 for any enquiries about pick-ups. Generations Op Shop is a ministry of Generations Church located at 119 Hogan Street Tatura.

Our April mid-week walk was to the Winton Wetlands. On a beautiful autumn day, nineteen walkers had a very pleasant walk along Boggy Creek Road to the historic and scenic Greens Hill area. As always, the wetlands gave us a great experience in its special environment. It was a different perspective to walk along Boggy Creek Road over the creek and past several historic sites rather than usually driving this section to another walking place. We turned off Boggy Creek Road into the Greens Hill area and the first stop was the camping area with information boards, signage, toilets, and picnic tables amidst the marked camping sites. (You can book online to camp at this lovely spot). Beyond this, a more formal road/track has been added out to Greens Spit which provided great panoramic views across the main wetland. At the moment there is still considerable water from last October’s rainfall event and the more recent rainfalls. This made for very special views. As one walker commented, “You’d be rapt to go to Kakadu and see sights like this and it is so close to home.”

The group then walked to the historic site of the Green family homestead and read and saw evidence of the life once lived by the early nonindigenous farmers. After pondering these historic harsh living conditions, we walked to Greens Hill and found a suitable lunch spot looking out across the wetland. After lunch we headed past the information site/car park area to the Boggy Creek Road and then back to our cars.

Before our usual coffee stop, we had a quick walk through the impressive LotjPatj Natjan Danak, Sculpture walk; a creation of cultural works by fifteen Yorta Yorta artists. Several of the group said they would like to return when they had more time to fully appreciate the information provided about these quite amazing works.

While enjoying our coffee in the Mokoan café, we were fortunate to have Graeme Domm, the Winton Wetlands Marketing, Media and Communication Project officer give a most interesting overview of this restoration project and many of us were surprised to learn that it is the largest wetland restoration project in the southern hemisphere.

We walked nearly 10kms in total before driving back across the Broken River Valley to Shepparton; another most enjoyable day for our mid-week walkers.

The Clubs next Midweek walk will be on Wednesday 24th May in the Strathbogie Ranges near Ruffy. Details are on the Shepparton Adventure Club Website and will appear on Facebook. That walk will be a medium level of difficulty mostly off track on private land.

- Dianne Hanna.

Quote Of The Month

“Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.” – Henry Ford

Wa Connection

Ted Harper was born in Murchison North and played in Murchison’s only GVFL premiership in 1910, aged 17 years. Ted was Gladys Harper’s brother. Gladys married Lt Col Andrew Crawford of Toolamba. In September 1923 Ted Harper married Myrtle Dwyer of Murchison whose brother, Leo Dwyer, won the Morrison Medal in 1936. Leo also played for North Melbourne. Reportedly the Harper family weren’t happy about the marriage as Myrtle was Catholic, so the family sent them away to Western Australia. Ted and Myrtle had seven children, two of their sons Keith and Roy were exceptionally good footballers.

For years there was very little contact between the branches of the Harper family, and it was only when the boys started playing football for WA that their Victoria cousins knew of them. Keith Harper playing on the wing was a superstar. He captained the WA state team, playing in two state carnival sides and won the Simpson Medal for the best player in the 1954 carnival. Keith and Roy continued playing football until the early 1960’s. In 1975, James and Pat Crawford visited Aunt Myrtle Crawford for the first time.

In 1978 I began playing football at Murchison, and Arthur Trevaskis wrote in his book My Memories of Murchison that I had the same action as Ted Harper (not the ability though).

In 1980 Alison and I went to WA for a month. Kevin Dwyer, Leo’s son, was President of the Murchison Football Club and said that I should visit my Harper cousins.

At that time I wasn’t into family history, and I wasn’t aware of the achievements of my WA relatives. In the early 90’s many of the Harper cousins came over to Toolamba for a family reunion, and it is there I first heard of their history.

Kevin Dwyer, a cousin, still resides in Tatura.

- Andy Crawford

Tatura Physiotherapy Clinic

85 Hogan Street, Tatura

Lisa M. Cullum

Opening HOurs: Monday : 8:30am – 4pm Tuesday: closed Wednesday: 8:30am – 4pm Thursday: closed

Friday: 8:30am – 12noon

From July Tatura Physiotherapy Clinic will be open the first Thursday evening of the month 5-8pm and closed on the Friday.

For an appointment phone 5824 2889

Working our way to Heaven. After my first marriage broke down, I found myself out of ministry for 27 years. When this first happened, I needed to find meaningful work for myself. In order to do this, I had to translate my skills and knowledge of ministry into the skills and knowledge desired by secular employment.

Ministers of Religion are usually portrayed badly in films and books - dopey, otherworldly incompetents - so, I had to work hard to present myself as otherwise. Ministry is a stereotyped profession, and most people only think of the public face of ministry: preaching, conducting funerals and weddings, and drinking cups of tea with little old ladies. There are a lot of other skills that need to be teased out before most people are able to appreciate them.

We have an ambivalent attitude to work. We love it and we hate it. We fear being unemployed, but dream of holidays and longweekends. Hard work it was said was God’s punishment for Adam and Eve’s rebellion. But even before “the fall” as Genesis tells it, people had to work, for they had to tend the garden of Eden.

The main benefit of a job is that it provides a steady stream of income. While people may argue that money can’t buy happiness, it does make life easier, is essential for your survival and can provide a feeling of stability and security.

Work also gives a sense of identity. When meeting people for the first time, the first thing that people ask is usually your name. The next thing they ask is you, “What do you do?” Our sense of identity is closely tied to our job. It is an essential factor that shapes your definition of who you are as an individual. Even in retirement what we did for a job remains an important part of our identity. People very rarely ask you about your interests, your hobby, your family, or other things about your personal life right away. Your job doesn’t tell everything about you, but it is typically what people are interested to know about you first.

A good job also challenges us mentally. There are always problems to be solved. We hate the idea of a monotonous job. Most of us love a challenge. It is how we learn, and it gives us a sense of achievement. At its best, work gives us a sense of meaning and purpose.

Work also puts us in contact with other people. We don’t always like everyone we work with but the relationships we build at work are important. For many people, their closest friends are the ones they met at work and many of us met our life partner at, or through, our work.

For the reasons above, and other reason as well, as long as your work conditions are fair, and the nature of your job isn’t risky or lifethreatening, working provides many health benefits, both physical and mental. During my years of “exile”, I spent a number of years working with, firstly, unemployed young people, and then, later, with longterm unemployed adults. Just as working in a meaningful job is the best way to achieve independence and personal satisfaction, so too, unemployment can be a pathway to poverty, homelessness, substance abuse, crime and depression. Unemployment can be soul destroying.

This is why I find it offensive that the economists, who supposedly know what’s good for our nation, seem to now want more people to become unemployed. High unemployment is apparently one of the levers that they can pull to put the-brake on inflation. Low unemployment is supposed to push up wages and therefore inflation. There are 508,500 people in Australia without a job at the moment. This is about 25,000 more than last October when unemployment bottomed at 3.4% and interest rates began to rise. According to people who run the economy the unemployment rate needs to be about 4.5% to prevent inflation. That’s another 140,000 people. (That’s about 50,000 more people than witnessed Collingwood’s magnificent win over Essendon at the MCG.)

I believe that something is seriously wrong with our economic system. Presumably, we don’t want it to be us or our family and friends who become unemployed for the good of the country. I question why 650,000 people have to be out of work to make the economy work properly? Can you imagine the outcry if our leaders said we needed more sick and dying people to take the pressure off our hospitals? Or that we needed more people willing to be homeless to solve our housing crisis?

We need a system that allows for full employment - a God-given right. God created human beings; he created them godlike, reflecting God’s nature.

He created them male and female. God blessed them:

“Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth!

Take charge! Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air, for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth.” (Genesis 1:27-28 The Message)

Work is our participation in the ongoing creation of the world. It has been the duty of people from the first day of human. Work is not the result of original sin. It is not a punishment for disobedience. Work is participation in God’s ongoing creation. Some of us even say we love to work. That shouldn’t be a surprise. Even Jesus admitted he was something of a workaholic: “My Father is working straight through, even on the Sabbath. So am I.” (John 5:17, The Message)

This is the gospel, and it’s working.

Brian Spencer, Minister, Tatura Uniting Church