Would you like some steak knives with that?

Our thinking in preparedness is extending to approaching awareness in a whole different way to what has been done previously. Generally the approach has been to have someone up the front of a room, telling people what they should do, giving them a booklet and pamphlet, and then going away. Then, later, there is usually […]

Emily hearts Marysville

Enduring a bleak Melbourne winter’s morning, Emily set up her Marysville stall at the school market. The couple of months thinking, and planning and preparing were now on her, and it was time to do the job. She was a little bit nervous “what if no one comes, Daddy?” I suppose this is the […]

Hitting the Wall

Breaking the radio silence of a few weeks! I’ve been away on a well overdue break. I had scheduled a break back in March, but as it approached, thought “Nah, I’m OK, and got plenty to do after a busy-ish summer”. It’s interesting, our day jobs are not sitting round with our feet on the […]

In the Supermarket

Over the weekend we were in Marysville for Emily’s project. We caught up with Tony Thompson, the terrific chair of the Marysville and Triangle Community Recovery Committee (amongst other things he does). Emily interviewed Tony for her project, and he was very generous of his time (having spent a day up at the Lake Mountain […]

All the bits and pieces that make me are gone

I have been grappling with, at glacial like pace, with developing a training presentation on our disaster preparedness program. Simple task. Or should be, given that I’m the architect of the program. However, if feel like I have reached some sort of writers block, a bit like John Turturro in the Coen Brothers Barton Fink. […]

Off the Half Back Flank

Bob Murphy is an Australian Rules Footballer who plays with Footscray in the AFL. He writes a very thoughtful column in The Age, not always on football, because he is s very thoughtful guy. I’ve had the pleasure of having a kick of the footy with him with the bunch of guys I run around […]

Ca Va?

I’ve just come across this cool website. All Right. http://www.allright.org.nz It’s another Christchurch initiative. (I love New Zealanders and their innovation) and is focussed on helping Cantabrians with the mental health issues relating to the Earthquake. They utilise a wellbeing approach that was developed by the New Economics Foundation in the UK. “Economics? “I hear […]

An Update on Emily’s Marysville Project

Just a little update on Emily’s Marysville project. She is in full swing now, as part of her Year 6 Geography Unit . She’s doing her impact assessment, got in touch with local leaders, has booked a stall at the market (August 2), created a roster, made a piggy bank, and creating her communications. The […]

After the quakes

On my morning walk with the dog (his second for the morning, so he was feeling a bit tired) I listened to an amazing podcast from Radio National’s 360 Documentaries, After the Quakes on Christchurch, nearly three years after the first quake, that one of our great volunteers Catherine Young put me onto. This is […]

Firestorm

This is worth a look through. Thanks to Sophie Cunningham for drawing my attention to this http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2013/may/26/firestorm-bushfire-dunalley-holmes-family It is a Guardian newspaper project that documents the journey, thus far of the family whose image was captured sheltering in the water at the jetty at Dunalley in Tasmania during the fires earlier in the year. It […]