Blue September is a fun way of delivering a serious message about ‘facing up to cancer in men’.

Why BLUE?

Blue is for men and we lose too many of them to prostate, lung, skin, bowel and testicular cancer.

Did you know?

1 in 2 Australian men will have been diagnosed with cancer at some stage of their life by age 85.

Each year, more than 22,000 Australian men die of cancer.Even though less than half of the Australian population are men, more men than women are diagnosed with cancer each year.

Some of the most common cancers causing death in men are: lung cancer, prostate cancer, bowel cancer, melanoma and testicular cancer. Unfortunately the list doesn’t stop there. There are many other cancers that commonly affect men, have a high mortality rate and which are often preventable through lifestyle choices. These include cancers of the kidney,
liver, head and neck, oesophagus and bladder.

Help raise funds for cancer research and GET BLUE this September!

Help the ones you love in your life with education, support, donations or create a fundraising account!

More info here!

I ran into the Awesome Robert Garland from Jobsmart at lunch and I finally have my new “I ♥ Hervey Bay!” top!!!

Buy yours now , Click HERE!!!

Well done Rob, always promoting pride in our town and community!!

I’m glad there is someone else who gets excited about making this town FUN and proactive!!

Keep up the Great Work!

Once again I participated in Earth Hour at 8.30pm, Saturday 26th March.

I was away for the weekend at Bargara with my parents and their friends. I made everyone turn the lights off (and the football on TV! LOL) and we played a game of five handed 500 cards in the dark for an hour.
We had a small lamp I brought, a torch and my iphone torch for light. I brought a couple of candles but forgot a lighter! I didn’t think till after that I could have lit the candles with the toaster!
Needless to say some were glad when the hour was up! LOL!
I had a ball, there were some pretty funny calls as we couldn’t see our cards properly!

The other week I decided to gernie my grandmothers cement for her before someone had an accident. OMG it was so black in places, it hadn’t been done in over 30 years!

I LOVE Gernie-ing, it is so much FUN!!!
I just find it totally mesmerizing watching the moss and slime disappear!
The cement came up looking brand new again!

I even gave two of my aunties a gernie lesson and one said she is definitely buying one when she returns home from her holiday back to Tamworth.
The other was sticking her toes abit close so I warned her to put her joggers on or she would blow her toenails RIGHT OFF (a gernie sprays water and is very high pressured, it will blow paint off walls if you are not careful!)

In 1931 my grandmother and her father had a 15minute plane ride with Sir Charles Kingsford Smith in the Southern Cross.

She wrote on the picture, “He and his navigator & mechanic were on a ‘barn storming’ flight to raise money to continue flying. There were not any big government handouts in those days. We enjoyed the flight but I got alittle fright when the plane hit an airpocket & suddenly dropped. The Southern Cross can be seen at Eagle Farm Airport. My children so much enjoyed seeing it – The flight cost my father one pound.”

Photo below, he is pictured in the cockpit.

The Hervey Bay Public Library was the result of community demand and positive input by the Hervey Bay Cultural and Library Council and a City Librarian, Mrs Sandra Maynes (my Mother) was appointed and commenced work in May 1977. Her role was to assist in the establishment of the Hervey Bay Public Library which opened on the 6th July 1978. Therefore my family relocated from Townsville to beautiful Hervey Bay.

Mrs Sandra Maynes was appointed Librarian and the Council is very fortunate in having such a capable and experience Librarian as Mrs Maynes to establish the library, encouraged by the town clerk and his staff with the full support of the Council.

Mrs Maynes commenced duties on the 2^nd May 1978 after all the alterations were done and proceeded with due haste to obtain shelving, books carpets and furnishing and it does credit to her what has been achieved in two months.
[Info via the Commemorative Brochure from the Opening of the Hervey Bay Public Library - 6^th July 1978]

1978 [Population 11,000] – The first Public Library was located in three rooms upstairs in the Council Chambers in Bideford St Torquay.

1979 – The Public Library moved to three leased shops in Turo Street, Torquay. Two extra shops were acquired and the corridor enclosed during the next three years.

1985 [Population 18,800] – The Public Library relocated to the Pialba business area in Main St. where it continued to grow.

1996 the Hervey Bay City Council commenced a partnership with the University of Southern Queensland and on the 1^st of March 1997 the Hervey Bay Public Library opened its doors at 161 Old Maryborough Rd in a spacious facility of 1306m2 which housed the first joint use Community / University Library Collection in Australia. The library staff assisted in establishing the first Regional Public Art Gallery in the Wide Bay area which is also located in the library facility.

2003 [Population 45,959] – 51% of Hervey Bays Population are enrolled at the library.

Mrs Sandra Maynes was the Chief Librarian from 1978 – 1996. She has worked at both the Hervey Bay & Maryborough Libraries and currently still works part time …. (Good Stuff Mum, Very Proud of You!)

My Book Store HERE!

Anzac Day makes me so proud to be an Aussie. 

Thousands came down to Freedom Park in Pialba to watch the main march that I participated in this year wearing my late grandfather’s medals. 

His name was Stan McCarthy and he was in the army transport corp. during WWII 1942-1946 and served in Moratai, Cape York, Darwin & Borneo. 

Corporal Norman Saunders (pictured with me here) was also in WWII and served 1940-1945. I was chatting to 87 year old Norman after the ANZAC Day march. He served in Darwin, Moratai, Borneo & New Guinea.

The medals on his right belong to his brother Earald Nilsen who lost his life in the Vietnam war.

He was in M Special Forces and 2^nd 4^th AGH (Australian General Hospital).
He was in the army in Darwin in the artillery section but when the Japanese started bombing he was retrained in a town outside of Melbourne and then sent to New Guinea where he was a nurse. He said he always wanted to be a doctor and pretty much performed the role of one during the war just didn’t have the title on paper.

 It was an honor to chat with Norman and a very proud day in Hervey Bay.

ANZAC was the name given to the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps soldiers who landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey early on the morning of 25 April 1915 during the First World War (1914-1918).

As a result, one day in the year has involved the whole of Australia in solemn ceremonies of remembrance, gratitude and national pride for all our men and women who have fought and died in all wars. That day is ANZAC Day – 25 April.

Every nation must, sooner or later, come for the first time to a supreme test of quality; and the result of that test will hearten or dishearten those who come afterwards. For the fledgling nation of Australia that first supreme test was at Gallipoli.  

Anzac Day Services in Hervey Bay 

Dawn Service
5am – Meet at the Torquay Road side of the RSL
5.15am - March to Freedom Park, Main St
5.30am - Service Starts

Main Service
9am – Meet at Woolworths Carpark, Torquay Road
9.30am - March to Freedom Park, Main St
9.45am - Service Starts 

Participants in the March that have served for Australia wear their own medals on the left, if you are wearing the medals of a loved one they are worn on the right.

 Two Up
1pm - Hervey Bay RSL 

Today I caught up with my lovely Aunty Cheryl to view the Picasso exhibition in Brisbane and for lunch. This is the first time the exhibition has been held outside of Europe. We arrived at 10am when the gallery opened and were surprised at how quickly the exhibition filled up and was extremely busy the whole time we were there.

‘I am interested in expressing the metamorphoses of forms into new bodies, from the furtherest origins of the world up until my time.’
Picasso

Aunty Cheryl instantly spotted a painting named ‘La petite Jeannette’ c.1848 by Jean-Baptiste Camille Carot that was present to Picasso in 1910 by German Art historian Wilhelm Unde in gratitude for Picasso’s portrait of him.

I really liked Picasso’s ‘Paysage de Juan-les-Pins’ (Landscape at Juan-les-Pins)1920. Oil on Canvas. ‘…this scene seems infused with an impression of happiness.’
I find the bright colours and abstract effect visually pleasing and even inline with today’s current design trends.

The exhibition features over 100 works from Picasso’s extraordinary collection plus more than 80 important works by the artist himself. A range of documentary photographs also feature.

‘Picasso & his collection’ includes paintings, drawings and prints by artists such as Chardin, Matisse, Renoir, Cézanne, Rousseau, Miró, Modigliani and Braque, as well as an extraordinary selection of Oceanic and African works. …… Picasso’s collection was donated by his family to the French state after his death in 1973, and is now held by the musée national Picasso in Paris. An exhibition of Picasso’s collection has only ever previously been mounted in Paris, Munich and Barcelona.

Queensland Gallery of Modern Art

STYLE was the name of the game in Brisbane yesterday, as more than 30,000 Queenslanders stepped out to enjoy the Exhibition Day races as reported by the Courier Mail .
(p.12,Thursday the 14^th and p19. Monday 25^th  August 2008).  But it took a special someone to pull off Eagle Farm Racecourse’s prize-winning look.  

As the only guy competing in the event, civil engineer Stephen Challenger, 21, of Beachmere, north of Brisbane, had his work cut out.Fortunately, his op shop buys, including $3 jacket and waistcoat for $1.50, stood him in good stead.  

Mr Challenger, who also chose a pair of beige slacks and snakeskin shoes, impressed the judges so much they awarded him third place.

“I was trying to create that awesome-guy look that you see on the catwalks,” he said. “I don’t think you have to spend a lot on your clothes to look stylish.”

Congratulations Steve, third is the new first! You are always one Sharp Dressed Man!!!! Love Net  

Today I attended the Star of the Sea, Catholic School in Hervey Bay’s, Silver Jubilee (1984-2008). A time capsule that was buried 25 years ago was dug up and the historic contents put on display. As I was a pioneer student of the school in Grade 4, I was pictured in the first ever school photo that was among the buried treasures.

This picture of me was taken in April 1984 and published in the local newspaper when the school was officially opened by his grace the Archbishop Francis Roberts Rush from Brisbane. My grandmother and father are pictured in the background of the photograph. 

The new child care centre an extension of the school was officially opened today and the local politicians were out in force with Andrew McNamara MP, Paul Neville MP and Fraser Coast Mayor Mick Kruger all present.

I enjoyed a delicious steak sandwich with my parents and purchased promotional stubbie coolers as a momentum of the occasion. My parents also brought a Recipe book that the Grade five students had put together that was really well done.

My father was employed as a groundsman at one stage for the school and was involved in several Saturday working bees when I was attending the school.

We stopped to get a photo next to one of the original targets Dad painted on the wall for the students, and by the chalk marks on it today,
it looks like it is still a hit at lunch times!

I also caught up with Andrew McNamara MP on the oval where there was a lot of activity and plenty of people.

The school is probably five times bigger than it was when I attended and it’s great to see all the new shade structures for the children.