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June 2012


Frost Over Barraba

Sat , 30th June 2012

This weekend we had the Frost Over Barraba, painting, photograph, and pottery exhibition with lots of contributions from people in a large region around Barraba.

The last 37 years it has been run by the St Laurence Anglican church auxiliary. The ladies who had been involved had mostly retired so their leader asked other organisations in Barraba to take over.

Our organisation Barraba Community Incorporated (BCI)) did take over and we had to do lots of preparation and organisation.

We were trained and supported well by the previous leader, a wonderful lady from the church auxiliary who lives opposite us.

The Convener and the Secretary of the new committee were Dave Drummond, the President of the BCI, and Sarah Marrett the BCI Secretary.

We got lots of sponsorships from businesses, organisations and people. The major sponsor was New England Mutual which runs our Credit Union in Barraba.

Before the exhibition we did all the stuff which had been done previously. We prepared and delivered lots of documents and got lots of contributions.

We had chosen to move the exhibition from the church hall to the RSL Memorial Hall and had to get lots of physical preparation done by the RSL guys and other volunteers.

A significant number of volunteers did all the work necessary to make the exhibition ready for the people to come to it. I was an assistant and did some hard work and made some loud public announcements to the audience.

We had a wonderful audience this weekend, all of whom seemed to appreciated the art in the exhibition.

All of us have spent lots of time and will only give up early next week when we have returned all the contributions to their owners and undone the furniture in the hall.


Another poor meeting

Monday , 11th June 2012

A recent meeting of a volunteer organisation in Barraba caused me to write some notes which said that I was unhappy about the meeting.

I was puzzled by what the President and a new member said.

I made one statement about something I was unhappy about. I said that the organisation charges the vendors to provide the promotion and the insurance for their activity. The President didn't accept what I said and he said that we had to treat charity vendors at no cost which was real but avoided considering what we should do for the vendors who are making their own money.

I emailed my notes to the Secretary and she emailed me notes that said I was wrong and I didn't understand what was happening. She also said that I should have made more presentations because my note said that I was planning to say nothing.

I resigned from the Barraba Lions Club some time ago because its meetings were pretty poor and I was unhappy. Perhaps I will resign from some of my other volunteer jobs where I am not impressed with the management. I don't think my views are accepted by these people which also makes me unhappy. Not all my volunteer jobs suffer like this.

I know I haven't been stating the proper methods to the organisation committees even though I was well trained. I feel that as a newbie, my views will not be accepted in Barraba. If this is true it justifies my plan to resign.


Another Volunteer Day

Wednesday , 6th June 2012

Today I had to do the Junior Red Cross Breakfast at the Central Primary School.

I had a wonderful girl volunteer to help me.

After that I had to go to a meeting in Barraba about the local community view on the proposal to close the Crow Mountain Road where it goes past the old Asbestos Mine.

The State Government was proposing to close the road because it was covered with asbestos from the tailings tips and would increase the risk of asbestosis of those who used the road.

There was just requests for each person to express their opinion. There was no debate about these opinions so I didn't think we were getting a rational assessment of the community view which we could present to the State and Local government with significant evidence to try and get them to decide not to close the road..

One of the men at the meeting was a senior worker at the mine and had spent 29 years in asbestos mine here and elsewhere in the world. He explained what was done when the mine was working and he expressed views that the risk were insignificant because the asbestos was the least risky type and the way the mine had treated th tailings had reduced the asbestos content in the tailing to less than 1%.

My presentation was about my view that the State And Local governments were not thinking of the effects on the communities activities if the road was closed. I suggested that those who presently use the road would have to use other roads if this road was closed and would have to do very long detours which would cost them a significant amount of money and would also increase their carbon footprints.

I told the listeners that I was the convener of the CSIRO Barraba Energymark Group which was asked by the CSIRO to reduce their carbon footprints.


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Created: 6/7/12 and last revised 30/03/2014
Author: Robin Chalmers - Copyright in all the material on this site is asserted by the author.
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