Education & training

Kirstin Nicholson. Turn back the clock three years and Cassidy Bullock was unaware that her life path was about to take a different direction ... Cassidy was encouraged by her trade school teacher to enter the Victorian Apprentice of the Year competition run by the Australian Meat Industry Council ... “I was so nervous – it was very nerve wracking. A lot of them were Melbourne butchers, so they were a bit more fancy than a small town butcher" said Cassidy.

Fltlt Nick O’Connor. Employers throughout Australia who went above and beyond to support their Army reservist employees were officially recognised as part of the state-based Employer Support Awards ... For Barkly-based physical education teacher Sergeant Pam Dillon, consecutive civilian employers have paved the way for her distinguished military career.

And she’s off! Jeanette ‘Netty” Foy-Wilson left Kyogle on Monday morning, October 10 on her ride to the Gold Coast ... The Stop it where it starts tour aims to raise money to buy education courses for local schools to teach children about safe relationships.

A former scientist with the State Electricity Commission, the Latrobe Valley’s Ray Burgess, has scathingly attacked AGL’s plan to close Loy Yang A station by 2035, calling it “fairyland thinking” ... Mr Burgess said if a low carbon society was mandated by the voting public, “then we need to seriously be considering a nuclear future, and quickly”.

Alba Brockie. The Paterson Street Hub shared the Beanie Love with Tanya Hattingh from the Alice Springs Beanie Festival leading workshops at the Barkly Regional Arts, Tennant Creek Primary School and the Hub itself, in May ... The theme for 2022 was ‘Stitching Hearts ‘and beanie makers were encouraged to depict scenes that made their heart happy.

Catastrophic floods and droughts are currently being experienced across the world. Paul Wyrwoll and Quentin Grafton argue that our existing approaches to managing water are not working. We need a new paradigm for how we manage water, a rethinking where human societies work with and nurture the hydrological cycle, instead of trying to master it.

Pam Dillon. Water Safety week at the Tennant Creek pool recently had a real family feel to it. Lots of families came down to the pool to celebrate and learn more about how to be safe in and around water.

The NSW Government has launched two new groundbreaking projects to encourage landholders and farmers to invest in sustainable timber production as part of their land management practices. The Forest Stewardship Program and Farm Forestry Certification Pilot are the first of their kind in Australia and mark a new era in sustainably managed forestry on private land in NSW.

The capability of scientists investigating solutions to Australia’s invasive pest problems shone out at the Australian Academy of Science’s Shine Dome in Canberra earlier this month at an event hosted by the Centre for Invasive Species Solutions ... “Graduates of our Balanced Researcher Program are now adding to Australia’s biosecurity and invasive species research and innovation within the government and university sectors...": Andreas Glanznig, Chief Executive, CISS.

Cries of “make sure our TAFE is here to stay,” rose high in the air as staff and members of the NSW Teachers Federation from Grafton TAFE joined hundreds of their colleagues across the state on September 21, holding a stop work meeting to voice their concerns regarding uncompetitive salaries, exploitation of casual employees, and untenable workloads.

Angela Willsmore. Falls in older people are a serious health concern. In South Australia, SA Health reported in a March 2020 report that 47 people are admitted to an SA public hospital every day due to an injury caused by a fall ... Earlier this year, Good Country Physiotherapy commenced a falls prevention pilot program at Longridge Aged Care.

I was unexpectedly, and in the end pleasantly, surprised to find a story that is as much about 1950s and 1960s Australia as it is about one young woman’s experiences. It is the north-west Western Australia of Aboriginal missions, of cultural clashes, of extremes in temperature and of distance, of hardships tempered by moments of joy, of connections made and still treasured more than half a century later.

The Melbourne Cup visited Allora with guests from the Victoria Racing Club, Ray Dummett and jockey John Letts ... Cr Marco Gliori presented a poem he wrote about the thrill of the Melbourne Cup.

An Australian university has discovered four in five primary school students have no idea how modern milk is produced. The survey of more than 5000 Australian primary and secondary students found many had outdated ideas about where food came from, with the majority thinking cows were still milked by hand.

Fancy dresses and suits were the order of the day last Friday evening as the students of the Tennant Creek High School attended their annual Formal. School shirts were put aside as the students made every effort to look their best, and succeeded, in most cases to look like they could have easily attended New York Fashion Week.

Vale View State School was the place to be last Saturday, its fete a huge success with a crowd numbering in the hundreds turning up to support a small local school ... Crowds were kept entertained by the student performances, MC and singer Victoria Q, Garbage to Garments Fashion Parade and performances by Tornados All Stars, JE Dancehouse, Radiance Academy Toowoomba and Pinkies on Ice.

Sunshine Coast migrant residents are invited to apply for their chance to attend low-cost learn-to-swim classes. “Everyone should have the opportunity to enjoy our wonderful lifestyle and the Migrant Learn to Swim and Beach Safe Program incorporates water safety and water confidence techniques along with basic swimming lessons”: Sunshine Coast Council Community Portfolio Councillor David Law.

Pam Dillon. Rainy weather did not deter the 11 schools who participated in the first ever Barkly region inter-school soccer carnival recently. There were beautifully sunny skies on the first day of great competition out at Purkiss Reserve. In between games, teams attended health clinics run by Anyinginyi Health. Students still keen to be out on the field at the end of competition, helped their teachers from remote schools complete a mini roos coaching course run by John Moriarty Foundation.

Yanco Agricultural High School celebrated its centenary and family day at the college grounds last weekend ... Our speciality in developing students with a focus on agriculture, with students having the opportunity to work as an integral part of the school's sheep, cattle and show stock teams, as well as our equine program, is what makes us most proud": Principal Marni Milne.

Climate change threatens our forests, but it is not necessarily an existential threat, according to a leading Australian scientist. “It’s not necessarily the case that we will be wiped out by wildfire. The existential threat of fire can be mitigated, but we must use ALL knowledge,” Mark Adams, Professor of Bioscience and Innovation at Swinburne University of Technology ... This included indigenous people’s use of fire as a management tool.