The boy child strikes

Last week, sadly, four people lost their lives in fires in Esperance, in Western Australia, in tragic circumstance, they appeared to take a wrong turn, for the worst. El Nino is here, and is already wreaking vengeance. El Nino or ENSO (EL Nino Southern Oscillation) is the phenomena when warm water wells up on the […]

Katrina 10

Normally Hurricane warnings in the Gulf Country don’t make news here in Australia. This one, on a Tuesday ten years ago, did, as it was rated a Category Five and heading straight for New Orleans. I watched the events unfold with interest, then horror, as the levees broke. The professional fascination lie with the catastrophic […]

Sastrugi is two and a bit

So I haven’t written much in the last little while. Things like Budgets, EOFY, HR, Recruitment, Credit Card statements, Tender Documents, quarterly reports, transferring vehicles, 5 year plans, one year plans, a week off in the mountains, a back injury, a re-injury (gee i’m getting old) have kinda sapped some of the creative and thinking […]

Not sure if this is of any interest: 2014 in review!

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,900 times in 2014. If it were a cable car, it would take about 48 trips to carry that many people. Click here to see the […]

Merry Christmas

It’s been a busy couple of months since I last posted. I had a stint in Cali, Colombia at Red Cross’ Global Community Resilience Forum, then followed by a gathering of the national Red Cross’ Preparedness and Recovery Teams in the Blue Mountains (which are still affected by the fires of last year, and following […]

#RedCross100

Red Cross in Australia is 100! It has been an interesting journey for an organisation that is a little bit different to others. It has been recognised by at least one author as the first disaster management organisation in Australia. When you think about it, we do precede fire services and emergency services as they […]

nicht neues im westens

So, it has been pretty quiet in the writing space since February. It has felt a little bit like writer’s block. Each time I have sat down to write something, it didn’t flow like most of the posts i have written. I do have a few half formed or somewhat trite posts which I didn’t […]

Gong

Today I went to a lovely reception at Government House in Melbourne. The occasion? Receiving a National Emergency Medal for services in both the Victorian Bushfires in 2009 and the Queensland Floods in 2010/11. It was fabulous to be there with dedicated colleagues, both volunteers and staff, seeing them be recognised for what was one […]

Elwood Floods

A relatively short post, I just thought I’d draw your attention to this article on climate change in Melbourne, and featuring our experience in the Elwood Floods in 2011. I will write more in the future on the floods. http://wheelercentre.com/dailies/post/84f8e43af454/

I like Traffic Lights

When I was in Christchurch last August, I had time to do an early morning walk around the city. The CBD was still cordoned off, and some buildings looked like a warzone, others looked like they were just waiting for the building manager to open up for the morning, from the outside looking undamaged. Then […]