Photo: courtesy of Bright Stars Modelling.

Well, they’re not the words that 15 year-old Stacey Bentley would use, nevertheless, she is the best young Paint Horse rider in the country, and this striking young woman will soon leave for Fort Worth, Texas to prove her own worth as one of the best riders of the Paint Horse in the world. Stacey spoke to Hinterland Times editor, Michael Berry about this rarely known, but growing sport.

“Competition is like a western type of show with the emphasis on what they call Western Pleasure”, says Stacey. “You wear what the cowboys wear – leather stock curved saddles with shiny silver ornaments. The aim is that the
horse goes around in a relaxed manner with you being as relaxed as you can too, but having full control. The horse goes around on a long rein; they have to look willing. There’s a bit of an art to it.

Photo: courtesy of Agile Photographics.

“You ride around the outside of the arena, the judge will stand in the middle and they will call out to walk or to jog or lope which is a form of cantering but slower. They judge on how well trained the horse is, how well you ride yourself with position and leg aids.”

Paint Horse riding has become the second biggest show horse event in the US. The special quarter horse and thoroughbred  breed has striking white patches ‘painted’ over its body and the genuine  Paint Horse rider looks like a cut-out from Wild Bill Hikock’s Wild West Show.

When you see her all dressed up Stacey Bentley wears her wide cowgirl hat, silver belt buckle, wide chaps with frills down the leg, wrangler jeans, high boots and rhinestone covered shirt. A good paint horse rider must also learn equitation – a form of etiquette in the saddle. You have to look prim and
proper, relaxed but not sloppy.

Stacey is raising money for her airfares and expenses to Fort Worth in June when she will be in a team of four under eighteen year-olds.

Photo: courtesy of Francene Neuendorf.

“When we get there we literally draw a horse out of a hat”, says Stacey. You only have about 40 minutes with the horse before your event. So, you’ve got to be able to ride any horse, adapt and do your best. You might get a horse
that has been trained completely differently to what you’re used to, so there’s a bit of luck and some strategy to it to be the best rider that you can be.

“They also have a team relay on foot where you run from station to station having to piece together a bridle, then to another and say, put together a map of the world. Then there’s knowledge of the horse competition, a teams
parade with a set theme. Then they add up all the results. Last year Australia got fourth.”

Stacey was born into a horse-riding family. Their Kunda horse stud in Peachester has its own ring and stables and Stacey trains and rides her own paint horse called Odette. Stacey’s grandmother and mother have both been
champion riders and their trophies from decades past literally line the entire lounge / dining room of the grandparents’ home.

“My mum rides, trains and breaks paint horses, so I was kind of born into it”, says Stacey matter of factly. I started competing when I was 12. I have been to the state and national championships every year since then. In the last two years I have got high point junior youth (14 and under). At the state show I got high point junior for two years and high point youth overall (18 and under).”

Is there a secret to Stacey’s winning form? “Well, you see some people riding around who have such plain, scrunched up expressions. I enjoy myself and the bond that I have between me and my horse, Odette.”

“Presentation is the key”, adds Stacey. “I make sure all my tack and clothes are clean and I am fit well. And I pay attention to things like hair, make-up, clothes, etc. If you come into the arena on a dirty horse, with a bad outfit you will not place; the judge won’t even give you a second look.”

Stacey, who is a Year 11 student at Beerwah State High, is also doing a retail traineeship. She rides 4-5 days a week and when she leaves school she has ambitions of going back to America to work as a ranch farmhand.

Win or lose in Fort Worth Texas, one thing is sure. Stacey has her hands firmly on the reins of her future.

The Pattemore homestead, first known as ‘Fairview’ has now been re-named ‘Pattemore House’

ROB PATTEMORE has fond memories of his first five years in Maleny around the house built for his great grand-father, John Robert in 1908. Pattemore House is now owned by the Sunshine Coast Regional Council and forms part of the 126 hectare Maleny Precinct.

John Robert Pattemore was a butcher by trade and arrived in Australia from Somerset when he was five. He came to live in Maleny in 1907. His four sons had come on ahead to built the home that John Robert lived in until he died in 1947 aged 97.

In the early 1940s Rob Pattemore remembers his elderly grandfather’s home because he remembers picking persimmons from his tree and receiving a very sore tongue.

John Robert’s son Bill and Stan had bought the land in 1906, known these days as Armstrong’s Farm. This large and close family had been farmers and butchers in Central Tilba, but too many dry seasons persuaded the Pattemores to move north to the Sunshine Coast hinterland.

The Pattemore family gather on their verandah during the early part of the 20th century.

John Robert also bought adjoining land parcels and the heavily timbered land provided the materials to build the elegant Pattemore House. It was typical of the times that the Pattemore brothers were not only farmers, but good builders and carpenters. They cut the timbers in a saw pit, then planed, tongue and grooved the cedar and white beech by hand for this spacious house with its deep verandahs and tall windows.

The only other surviving building in Maleny constructed with local pit-sawn timber is the first stage of the Maleny Hotel.

Keep in mind that there was no shire council until 1912, so there were no annoying building regulations to worry about. During this first decade of the 20th century Maleny grew with the dairy boom. An ES&A Bank came in 1906, a hotel was built the following year and there was a butcher and general store. Maleny was officially listed as a township in 1912 and it had a population of about 510.

When John Robert came to live in his new home in 1908 he set to planting a vegetable garden and fruit orchard around the house. At the turn of the century, if you didn’t grow or raise your own food, then life could be very tough. Ernest lived in the house with his father and mother Emily, and he became the share farmer taking a lease on the Pattemore land until 1923.

Robert and Shirley Pattemore. Robert is the great grandson of John Robert Pattemore who first settled in Maleny in 1908.

The Pattemore brothers – Bill, Stan, Albert and Ernest were industrious builders. For example, after Pattemore House, they built Forest Lodge, the house that stands at the crossroads in north Maleny. It’s believed they also built Lawley House and Priscilla Cottage now combined into an historical village in Bryce Lane.

In John Robert’s latter years his son Stan helped him grow corn around the home and he took on local farm work. His sisters continued to look after the house and their parents.
Councillor Jenny McKay says Pattemore House is fully protected by the Sunshine Coast Regional Council. “It is the first piece of the Precinct jigsaw in place and the first step has been to secure it for its historical value”, she said.

Rob Pattemore is president of the Friends of Pattemore House and hopes this rare Maleny homestead, which is on the state heritage register, will be maintained in perpetuity.
“Personally, I think it should be put together as an educational centre so people, particularly children, can see what life was like in the early 1900s. The old cow bails should be moved up there too, perhaps with a typical cream shed. We need to be reminded of how hard life was in those early days”.
PHOTOS: COURTESY OF ROBERT PATTEMORE

M

“From the time I bought the business I wanted to go green”, says Brenda. “I changed the name to Maleny Green Printery because I started using recycled paper and 100% vegetable oil inks for my offset work. I use environmentally- friendly chemicals as much as I can, because it’s a really dirty business and the chemicals are quite harsh. So we try and limit that impact.

“The digital press is totally environmental”, Brenda adds. “There’s no ozone, there’s no volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and there’s no chemicals.”

But does being green mean the customers pays more for their printing.

“No. I try to keep the costs down”, says Brenda. “I eat some of the margin to use the greener paper. “

Since taking over the business located in Coral Street, Brenda has updated most of the finishing equipment as well as buying the digital press. She has a new collator, stapler, and trimmer for booklets, and a perfect binder which makes paperback books. The floor-to-ceiling wall racks display the very wide range of publications, 90 per cent of them produced on the premises – business cards to brochures, stationery to books. Some jobs Brenda will outsource and not do on the premises.

“Large posters for example, and refrigerator magnets can be done better elsewhere. You literally have to cut them one at a time because quite naturally they stick together (she laughs).”

Before turning to printing Brenda had an executive position in sales and marketing with Hewlett Packard.

“Marketing just fascinates me”, she says. “What hooks the customer and what doesn’t.”

And, given her previous business life Brenda is comfortable with technology. Aware that it changes every five years, Brenda calls herself an “early adopter” – a quick customer for new technology and products. She is applying for a national certification as a green printer for ethical reasons through the Printing Industries Association of Australia. It’s also because within a couple of years all government printing contracts will require it.

“I have to make a couple of physical changes to the place. I had to buy a spill kit for example. But I am well within the range for most of the requirements.

“Certification does bring out particular graphic designers who are looking for green printers, so I am looking forward to that.”

Clients are approaching Brenda from interstate because they are looking to use recycled paper, and she has printed jobs for clients down south cheaper than printers they’ve known around the corner.

“One of the things I like about this business is that you create what you want and I like printing a variety of things. I will print 100 books and then we’ll do some business cards and brochures. I have spoilt the community though”, says Brenda with bright laughter. “ They ring and say, ‘Oh there’s no hurry. This afternoon will be OK”. www.malenyprint.com

“Volunteering – an important part of life for Rhonda Hetzel”

Rhonda (left) with volunteer recepionist, Claire.

WHEN Rhonda Hetzel took on the task of coordinating the Maleny Neighbourhood Centre four years ago she added another level of professionalism to the way it was run, and with its new, purpose-built building in Bicentenary Lane the centre is flourishing. Rhonda took time out of her busy schedule to explain the role of the Maleny Neighbourhood Centre to Hinterland Times Editor, Michael Berry.

“We were given a grant for this Centre because of the lobbying of Carolyn Male. But we don’t own it. We lease it for a peppercorn rent, on Council-owned land . Although we’re in a government building that we don’t own, the Department of Communities has been very good to us. We are an unfunded centre which means that everyone who works here is a volunteer. We don’t have any paid staff.

“We got a gambling fund grant to furnish the building, but we need money to run the centre. It probably costs $25,000 a year to run the centre so we need to get sponsorships for some of the programs we’re running. We definitely need community support to keep us going “We’ve been told this is your building now. You make it work for you. That’s my philosophy anyway –to get the community engaged with the neighbourhood centre, and to connect up with other local organisations. We need to get people in here having their meetings, and making use of the building. We get paid rent, and that’s one of the ways we will pay our way.

People still ask what is the neighbourhood centre and what does it do. There are several centres on the hinterland including Beerwah, Mooloolah, Landsborough and Conondale.

“Basically what they all do”, says Rhonda, “is they respond to the needs of the people who come through the door. They also reflect the type of skills of the volunteers. So for instance they might focus on the older people or their youth or life skills.

“In Maleny we are very focused on youth because we have the flexi-school, and one of our aims this year is to establish a youth program.

“When the neighbourhood centre was first set up it was for homeless people, people on the dole, youth -all those people who slip through the cracks and we fail to see them, or don’t want to see them. What I love about being here is that we’re actually saying to all those people we respect you enough to have this beautiful building and this is your place. So we’re not telling them they’re insignificant and invisible anymore.

“Over the past year our clientele has changed. We now get pensioners and old Maleny dairy families coming in and saying they can’t cope. So, we’ve developed programs to help those people. We take them out on bus trips. We have morning teas for them. We teach them how to clean their home easily in a green way without buying all those chemicals that cost a fortune. We talk about cooking from scratch and different ways of shopping and all sorts of things that really do help to support them.

“We’ve got a free legal service that operates every fortnight and is manned by volunteers – most of whom are Maleny lawyers. It’s a two hour session. Anyone in the community can ring up. It’s free and not means tested.

Head teacher at the flexi school, Brad Owens, with teachers

The flexi school is located in its own suite of rooms in the centre. It takes young people who don’t fit socially into the local high school. It is incorporated within the state education department and it liaises closely with Maleny High School staff. Head  teacher is Brad Owens assisted by John Mays and teacher’s aid, Carol Ferriday.

Our bus is also used to pick up food from the food bank in Brisbane for our emergency assistance. When people don’t have anything to eat, they can come to us and we will give them groceries.

Homelessness is a problem in Maleny even though some people don’t believe it is a problem. There is the presumption that this is a wealthy community and therefore there is no reason for anyone to be homeless.

Rhonda says there are about 20 homeless people at any one time. They are mostly young people but there are also women over 60.

“When there are homeless people in town -which is always”, says Rhonda. “ they can come here and have a shower. They can wash their clothes and dry them. That situation is dire because there is no emergency housing anywhere in Queensland. There’s nowhere to send them. There are no vacancies in hostels. We have lots and lots of people couch surfing in Maleny, or sleeping under the bridge.

“We have two people who work in the building who are paid by other agencies. One is a family relationships worker. She works with families with children aged up to eight years. She looks at how the family is functioning and tries to help them. It might be for a short time or it might be for years. We also have a family relationships hub, where couples may be breaking up and we can offer them counselling – that’s an outside service we can offer.

“We’ve also got a community development worker three days a week and she works with other centres. She has experience in community and youth work and is a great help to me.

One wonders how Rhonda survives if she’s not paid. Her background is writing and she still writes for Burke’s Backyard magazine, as well as writing a book. She is also regarded as the most popular female blogger in Australia, getting paid for advertising on her blog site.

“It’s a struggle to fit everything in”, says Rhonda who spends three days a week running the centre as well as countless hours at home. “This is really a full-time job, but I have a lot of eggs up in the air and I hope I don’t drop too many of them”, she adds with a laugh.

“Whatever I do, I do it to the best of my ability, whether I am paid for it or not. Volunteering in the community is a very important aspect of my life. I have had a good life and I want to give back some of what I’ve had. That is why I am here and I hope that because I do my best, people will respect it and I will be seen not just as a volunteer but as an important member of the team.
Contact: Rhonda Hetzel, rhonda@malenync.org.au

Humble Beginnings…

The Maleny Neighbourhood Centre began in 1993 when a group of concerned Maleny residents recognised the need to develop supportive responses to families, young people and people with special needs. The organisation was incorporated in 1994 and became the first community association in Maleny that had a specific purpose to address poverty and social disadvantage in the area.

When they started, the organisation rented a small space in the RSL Hall, which limited its activities. So, they focused on active projects out in the community and not in the Hall. Over the years the MNCA has moved several times, always looking to develop programs and services that respond to the community within the limitation of the premises they were in.

They are now operating five days a week Monday to Friday from their own purpose-built building at 17 Bicentenary Lane.

“A Vision come true for Howard Buckley”

Howard Buckley, key founder and long term president of the Maleny Neighbourhood Centre.

MALENY RESIDENT Howard Buckley has been at the forefront of setting up and guiding the Maleny Neighbourhood Centre over the past 17 years – it’s a vision come true for this dedicated community worker.

“The journey of the neighbourhood centre has been about people in the community being there for other people in the community”, says Howard. “They have struggled together to try to do things for other people, and to work with other people to make things happen. So, having a new centre will enhance that immensely.”

Tertiary trained in community welfare and social planning, Howard has spent 25 years in community development. He is currently managing a youth service in Deception Bay. It was a youth crisis 17 years ago that sewed the seed of a neighbourhood centre in Maleny.

“Back in 1993 when the neighbourhood centre first began it was a time when there had been a spate of suicides” says Howard. More than 100 people turned up to a meeting and out of that the neighbourhood centre was formed.

“There’s been one core thread right throughout”, adds Howard,” and that is about people’s commitment. Without setting ourselves above any other community group, a neighbourhood exists because the people involved want to see other people in their community get help.

They want to give to their community and I guess that’s the heart of what a neighbourhood centre is all about – social justice. The head part of the centre is about the planning and the strategies we use to get there – essentially partnering with other organisations, particularly with those on the Coast because we don’t have those resources in Maleny. For example, mental health – we’ll never ever get government funding to provide a mental health service in Maleny, and it’s a problem that’s growing in our region. So, we create the hub so that they can come here to provide those services.

The new building is a dream that began in 1998 when again, a group of concerned people began planning a “space” that could be a hub for community services in Maleny, particularly for young people.

“We developed a concept plan for a new centre called Centre for Youth Community and Arts Development (CYCAD). It would provide a shared home for the MNC and the Maleny Flexi School. Carolyn Male took the CYCAD plan and knocked on the doors of every State Government minister in an attempt to get funding for the proposal. Eventually in September 2006 the then Treasurer Anna Bligh dedicated the funds to make the concept a reality.

This began a long process to find suitable land, building designs, and eventually making the whole project become a reality by building it!”

“Being here from the very start I have seen some difficult times for the MNC –judgementalism, ignorance and even malicious attacks on the centre from people who don’t understand what we do. At times we wondered how we were going to continue so I guess this is a moment of celebration, not only for what we have achieved but how we have achieved it. Having this wonderful building is certainly an exciting phase in our history, yet it is just another chapter in our story of how people working together in a respectful way can achieve good things for other people”

A volunteer management committee is headed by Howard Buckley, and after 17 years he says it’s probably time for him to take a lower profile.

“My passion is working with young people and maybe in the future I will work with the flexi school on a voluntary basis. Professionally I started in youth work 25 years ago and now I am managing a youth service, so I guess that’s a thread for me – continuing to work with young people.”

ON A RECENT television news bulletin a distraught resident of Port au Prince in Haiti faced the camera to declare that, “I have lost my wife and my children. I only have God now”.

The horrific earthquake in Haiti and the 2004 tsunami that devastated coastlines to our north, are only two natural events that many still see as ‘acts of God’.

History reflects these tragedies many times where whole societies are bewildered and disorientated by rampant death and destruction. Inevitably it seems, people turn to their gods for the who and why of such events.

It was not until 1906, when San Francisco was wrecked and set ablaze by a giant earthquake that a different explanation was given, and God was taken out of the equation. The governor of California set up a commission of enquiry of scientists to work out what had taken place. The final report was a classic of modern geology, and it defined a 1300km-long fracture in the earth’s crust that they named the San Andreas Fault. God was not in the report.

Mind you, scientific explanations for natural catastrophes have not stopped faith-based thinking on such events. Despite the science, Pentecostalists in 1906 believed their earthquake was evidence of ‘God’s vehement disapproval’.

Retired Anglican priest and academic Ray Barraclough has tackled this complex issue in a book called Why -how to explain life’s tragic experiences.

Ray Barraclough’s book essentially traces the who and what of earthly calamity including diseases such as epilepsy.

The religious and supernatural causes stretch from the multitude of deities to the stars. He acknowledges that Christians have always approached God with the difficult questions. For example, if God is omnipotent and all loving why doesn’t he stop catastrophes occurring, and why does he let people go through such prolonged suffering?

Rarely in the book though does this former priest reveal a conflict between his own belief in an omniscient God and scientific explanations for disasters. But he does display a very open mind on the matter. For example, on illness he says, ‘There are too many people whose suffering has been relieved, or even removed, by modern medical procedures for me to be so dismissive of people’s belief in modern medicine’s capacity to affect what is within its claims to affect’.

Ray Barraclough inclines towards the social justice core of liberation theology which is where he comes close to his Catholic colleague and rebel priest, Peter Kennedy. Like Kennedy, he is wary of Church dogma and fundamentalism: “There is a need for alternative Christian voices to speak softly of God in the midst of resurgent strident expressions of faith.”

It is in his final chapter that Ray Barraclough focuses on the Why of his book. When nature becomes destructive of life and ‘the brook becomes a destroying flood’ it is Ray’s view that ‘in the face of these dimensions of nature, hymns of praise sound heartless.’

When tragedy strikes, Ray asks, what use are words, religious or otherwise?

Grief is intensely personal and Ray acknowledges that ‘God-talk’ is manifestly inappropriate and a hangover from past theology.

Ray Barraclough’s book Why is a fascinating insight into the role of calamity in our lives. We humans want certainty despite the scary randomness of horrific events. Many will not go as far as Richard Dawkins to claim that God is a delusion, but Ray recognises that within the underbelly of theology: “…pious explanations will tend to make the floor more slippery”.

Ray feels on more solid ground with the message of liberation theology where he sees social justice as the very core of the Christian gospel in action. It may not be the total answer to why but, “No explanation can repair the fractured faith so damaged by the realities of experience”.

Ray Barraclough is now a Hinterland resident who will join rebel Catholic priest, Peter Kennedy in a community conversation on Wed March 17, 6.00pm in the Maleny Community Centre. Bookings at Rosetta Books. These two thought-provoking clerics will explore the relevance of God in a contemporary world that must cope with the Haiti earthquake, AIDS, global warming and other natural and man-made calamities.

This was a crisis that had been brewing for several years and was as much about Peter’s shedding of Church formalities as it was about his personal struggles with the relevance of a heavily doctrinal church.

Kennedy was accused of not wearing vestments at Mass, of allowing lay women to preach and of using alternative Eucharistic prayers. More concerning for the dogmatists is Kennedy’s worrying out loud that Jesus was a human being rather than a divine one.

Peter Kennedy has been strongly supported by his articulate congregation at St Mary’s Church in South Brisbane. Following Kennedy’s sacking they became St Mary’s-in-Exile and re-located to the Trades and Labour Council building also in South Brisbane.

Journalist Martin Flanagan has assembled a number of commentators who reflect on Kennedy’s personality, the people who worked with him, his social justice work with the disadvantaged in Brisbane, and the complexity of his doctrinal fight with Catholic hierarchy that went all the way to Rome.

Broadcaster Paul Collins is clear on what side of the line he stands -”the temple police seem to be the kind of people who psychologically can’t tolerate the fact that others may have different approaches to faith to them…”

The specific combatants were Kennedy and Archbishop Bathersby who was once Kennedy’s friend, and Collins now sees the clash of two pretty big egos. He puts the blame for the sacking on Bathersby who he sees as having ‘a very narrow view of the nature of ecclesiastical communion’.

Age journalist Martin Flanagan’s sensitive portrait is of Kennedy the lonely but determined and charismatic man.

That charisma was felt by Millie De Conceicao a Timorese migrant who was the community garden coordinator at

beliefs.

History professor Ross Fitzgerald goes further to suggest that, ‘Fr Kennedy is the victim of an institutionalised Church more concerned with papering over the cracks than in cleaning up its own act as a force for good in the world.’

Catholic nun, Veronica Brady takes up that theme and is worried that the Catholic Church is bureaucratic and follows the model of the old Roman Empire. “The Law seems more powerful than the Spirit and prophets are regarded with suspicion”, she says.

A differing point of view comes from theology professor Neil Ormerod who says that when Kennedy brings into question the divinity of Christ, he can’t then call his beliefs Catholic or Christian. He frowns on the schism caused by Kennedy and says that ‘notoriety is almost guaranteed to produce St Mary’s. A strong Catholic, Millie is deeply saddened by what has happened at St Mary’s. ‘It’s taken a lot of people’s home away’, she says conscious of the homeless people who came to rely on the community garden and the church grounds. ‘The church without Peter … is nothing’ she adds.

Like Millie there are a number of short contributions in the book by St Mary’s supporters and a wide range of thoughtful people who were drawn to this vibrant church community.

Some are concerned at being ‘out of communion with Rome’, still others are angry at conservative church vigilantes who secretly reported on Kennedy’s wayward interpretation of church doctrine. Kennedy is said to have ordered one vigilante out of St Mary’s for taking photos at an unorthodox Christening.

Michael Morewood, a former Catholic priest believes what has happened to Kennedy is symptomatic of the wider view of Christians who don’t see relevance in orthodox theology or Catholic sacramental practice. He says these people are not being unfaithful, they just want their religion to shift to more contemporary views of men,

women and their relationship to each other and their

popularity’. In the end it comes down to whether Kennedy’s parish can claim to have upheld central Christian and Catholic beliefs.

Australian songwriter Shane Howard has sung at St Mary’s. He attempts to analyse the dilemma that caused Kennedy’s sacking and like many essayists in this book, sees an inflexible Church unable to embrace a modern world.

He concludes with what the Church has perhaps forgotten, that they and Father Peter Kennedy are on the same side: “Fr Peter Kennedy and St Mary’s ‘crime’ was to lean toward a modestly different kind of Australian Catholicism. It’s not a foreign country. ‘All are welcomed, none are turned away’.

T

There’s a parlour room, kitchen, laundry, embroidery room, as well as rooms displaying war memories, Scouting, the Moreton Sugar Mill, Nambour Hospital and telecommunications.

This amazing window into local times past has been assembled by a volunteer group led by its president, Clive Plater and secretary Barbara Want.

What is most fascinating are the implements and furnishings of a society now foreign to the digital world of our modern experience. So, there are embroidered samplers that were de rigeur in the 19th century, beautifully delicate wedding dresses of the 1920s, hat boxes and trinkets that define the interests of Nambour householders of times past.

In the kitchen is fine bone china laid out on the dresser, a butter churn and a bowl of scones in the centre of the kitchen table. The laundry displays washing hung on a line with wooden pegs and a collection of steam irons of all shapes and sizes. A copper sits against the wall.

Reminders of the Moreton Sugar Mill, built in the late 1800s can be seen in the recreated Board Room with its original boardroom table and timber-lined walls. Outside in the museum grounds adjacent to the now demolished mill, is the restored engineer’s hut.

The sugar train ‘Eudlo’ has been restored by museum enthusiasts, along with a tipper and fly wheels and several pieces of sugar mill machinery engines, looking like items of techno sculpture.

An entire collection of tools from Potter’s Bootmaking Shop is on display in the downstairs area of the main building, along with a collection of lawnmowers and an old red ‘tardis’ telephone box.

Bizarre stainless steel items for medical and surgical procedures are featured in the Hospital room. They contrast dramatically with the contemporary hospital facilities of Nambour’s modern hospital and are a reminder of how the treatment of patients has changed over the past 100 years.

For those with a gadget preference, the Telecommunications room is a delight. The progression from the telegram boy’s bicycle, magneto telephones and manual switchboards, through to telex machines and the first mobile phones can be seen here, all packed into a small space.

If you love to poke around in the past, the Nambour Museum is a remarkable collection that reflects our recent history. It is a place that reminds us so poignantly and so graphically just how far we have come and just how quickly.

J

John is currently refurbishing a 1917 Fordson tractor – machines that were sold to farmers by Henry Ford around the world, and were made to last.

“These wheels are the heaviest I have ever handled,” says John, a retired mechanic. “They are solid steel and I wondered why they were so heavy until an old farmer explained. He said you’d often hit a hillside and the front would come up. So that’s why Henry Ford made the front wheels so heavy …to keep the front down.”

John hopes to get the old Fordson running again if he can find the right magneto.

“Someone nicked the magneto off the engine. But a British visitor came in recently and he became so enthusiastic that he said, John, I will go back to England and source a magneto for you.”

John’s lifelong commitment to mechanics and transport led him back to the museum after he retired.

“One of my thrills three years ago”, says John with a nostalgic look in his eye, “was to look at this poor old dear all covered in rust. And I thought I would love to renovate you and put a new coat of paint on you. Then I saw a little ad in the local paper asking for volunteers, and I thought, well I’ve got the time. So, now I’m fulfilling a dream. “

For all enquiries phone the Nambour Museum secretary Barbara on 5441 2119.
The museum is open Wednesday and Saturday 1-4pm. Adults $3. Children $2.
More detail is available on the Museum website at www.nambourmuseum.org.au

John (above) with his latest mechanical renovation - a 1917 Fordson tractor, and (left) in his workshop underneath the Nambour Museum.

Clinical nurse at Maleny Hospital, Bernice McLennan is packing her bags - all 60 of them – and is about to head off to the Philippines where she will be part of a surgical team whose chosen mission is to repair the lips and palates of poor Filipino children. Bernice spoke with HT editor Michael Berry before she left for Manila.

THIS IS Bernice’s twelfth trip to isolated parts of the Philippines where transport is scarce and medical care is even scarcer. She is the secretary and mission manager for Helping Children Smile Inc - a Sunshine Coast voluntary organisation that provides free reconstructive surgery for Filipino children who otherwise would have no access to specialist surgery.

“There’s 13 of us in the team”, says Bernice. “Anaesthetists, surgeons and nurses. My role is team manager for the upcoming mission. I don’t go into the theatres, but if I am needed I do recovery or the ward round.”

Bernice organises the team’s departure from Brisbane – about 800 kg of equipment, kindly loaded free onto the aircraft by Qantas. The team takes everything they need says Bernice because the small Luzon towns they’ll visit have primitive conditions, and hospitals provide the barest of essentials.

“We take everything with us”, adds Bernice, “from the cotton wool balls to the anaesthetic machines, suction units, defibrillators. We get good support from companies loaning equipment and other essentials. We go for two weeks. We fly out on a Saturday. We screen on the Sunday, start operating on Monday and go right through,

depending on the numbers of children. We usually have the Sunday off mid way through, because we are knackered by then”, she laughs.

The surgical team operates for up to nine days of the two weeks away, and they can deal with up to 90 children over that period – some are simple lip operations, others are more complex lip and palate reconstructions. The results of these 1-3 hour operations are not only physically life- transforming, but they turn around the social lives and health status of the children and their families.

“Sadly, if the children don’t have reconstructive surgery they are ostracised”, says Bernice, “and very often the parents are also ostracised because they are considered to have sinned at some time. They believe that God is paying them back with this awful infliction on their children. But once we repair the lips and palates of the children, they can go out to work and augment the family income, which of course helps to support their parents and grandparents”, says Bernice.

The team operates on children as young as four months and it is the young ones who get the most benefit because their speech has not yet formed.

“We did a little girl of six”, says Bernice remembering with a smile, “and her lip was so badly deformed she couldn’t speak. But her first word after the surgery was ‘Mum’. We’ve also done cosmetic surgery on older people”, adds Bernice. “We had a street vendor who had a terrible mouth deformity. He was just selling corn or whatever he could find to sell on the sidewalk. We operated on him the first day we were there. Four days later he was back on the sidewalk. He came and saw us on the day we left and told us that his income had doubled, and that was purely because of his improved appearance.”

Bernice explains that no-one really knows why there is such a high incidence of cleft palate in the Philippines. It’s thought the cause may be poor dietary intake in the first six weeks following conception when the facial muscles are formed, but that’s not conclusive.

There’s never a shortage of children turning up when the surgical team arrives – usually at a small government hospital. Host hospitals offer the team free use of their operating theatre, recovery and ward beds.

“Ahead of our arrival we usually contact social workers”, says Bernice. “They go out to the communities and churches to spread the word that we’re on our way. Many times they don’t believe we’re coming until we’re there, because they’ve been let down by other organisations in the past. They also construct banners across the main street of each town and do radio messages for those who have radios. But a lot of it is just word of mouth. We’ve seen children in supermarkets and told them what we’re doing and they’ve come along for the surgery.”

Bernice says the two weeks away in the Philippines is very busy and there’s not much time for the team to let their hair down. “But we do have a lot of karaoke and dancing at night, if we’ve got the energy”, she adds with a smile.

The team receives no Australian or Philippine government funding. Fundraising alone has helped restore the smiles of over 600 children in the Philippines since their first mission in 1997 under the name of Helping Children Smile Inc.

With her typical sense of humour, Bernice McLennan says she and husband John occupied a penthouse at 50 Maple Street, Maleny for the first 18 years that they lived on the Hinterland. John was ambulance superintendent until his retirement in the early 1990s. Bernice’s life has always been nursing. She commenced training at 16 and only now says that every day is closer to retirement. She has been a clinical nurse at Maleny Hospital since 1975 and experienced big changes in her profession.

“Once upon a time when a patient walked through that door of the hospital we seemed to relieve them of almost all of their independence; and not always did we clearly discuss management plans with them . Now we like to include patients in their care and make sure they are happy with how we’re managing their illness. Maleny Hospital is a community hospital. We nurture ownership of that hospital and we ask the community to comment on our practices and how we can improve our services.

“There used to be a large gap in the relationship between medical and nursing staff in years gone by. These days there’s a better relationship because we all work together as a team more closely than we ever did in the past - we simply have to, to get better outcomes.”

Having been a Maleny resident and a nurse at its hospital for so many years Bernice McLennan finds it increasingly difficult to see locals she knows come into the hospital, and perhaps later, come to the end of their journey through life.

“When you’ve known them for a long, long time and know how they’ve contributed to the community and to their families, I must say, sometimes it makes you think you’ve been here too long.”

And every day is getting closer to the end of Bernice’s professional career, she concludes with her infectious laughter.

Part-time Hinterland resident and video documentary producer, Emily Berry recently visited the tiny African country of Burkina Faso to make a corporate video about a unique humanitarian project. Emily travelled with her partner and cameraman / editor, Yann Guerin to film the impact of thousands of pairs of used spectacles collected in France for the benefit of these African children.

BURKINA FASO is a little known, land-locked country in West Africa bordered by six African nations: Mali, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Nigeria and Benin. More than half of its people (called Burkinabe) are under 18 but when we first landed in the capital Ouagadougou, there was no evidence of its nearly nine million kids wandering the streets. Once we hit the rural areas though, they appeared in their hundreds, out of every nook and cranny, in the remotest of areas.

Upon arrival in the capital, we were taken directly to The Mercure to meet our host, Didier Papaz, CEO of French eyewear company Optic 2ooo. He is a self assured young looking director, still in his 40s, perfectly groomed and composed like most Frenchmen in his position.

The next morning we set off in a convoy of four, black 4WD, sticking out like sore black thumbs against the sandy rural landscape. First off, we’re headed towards the town of Ouahigouya which served as the capital of the old Mossi kingdom, before it fell under French colonial rule in the 19th century. Now independent, the town still bears some memories of its origins, namely a king, le Roi du Yatenga who presides over the land, as counsel and support to the myriad of tribes, languages and religions that call Yatenga home.

As we drive through the dusty desert landscape, I cannot help but be reminded of some of the more semi-arid western Queensland terrain. While only 10 per cent of the earth here is arable land, about 90 per cent of the Burkinabe depend on agriculture to survive. Soil erosion, caused by de-forestation, overgrazing, continuous cropping and drought, continues to threaten their means for survival. It is no wonder then that Burkina Faso is one of the poorest countries in the world - ranked 177 out of 182 countries - according to the latest United Nations Human Development Index.

A day or so later, we’re visiting a bush village in the dry plains of Yatenga. Straw huts with thatched peaked roofs separated by mud brick walls are neatly arranged into a compound-like formation. Each household has it’s own plot which I am told can contain up to five wives, with each wife giving birth to on average six children. The demands on the family are great, and it is no wonder then that able children are often pulled from school to work on the family plot or become part of Burkina Faso’s biggest export: migrant workers to neighbouring countries.

The people of Burkina Faso also suffer from immense health problems, illiteracy and unemployment. Schooling is in theory free and compulsory until the age of 16. To add insult to injury, many Burkinabe children suffer the early onset of eyesight disorders.

Enter Optic 2ooo who, In 1985, joined hands with French NGO Jeremi to provide support to the thousands of Burkinabe in need of eye care. They began by setting up a makeshift office in the local hospital of Ouahigouya, and armed with optical equipment, they set out to the remote areas of Yatenga, setting up camp in schools and community centres, to test vision and supply eyeglasses to those in need.

Some 20 years ago Didier Papaz was part of this first mission to Ouahigouya. Now CEO of Optic 2ooo, Didier has ramped up the company’s commitment. Last November two teams of French optometrists travelled to the remote areas of Yatenga in an attempt to reach some 6000 children over 15 days.

By visiting local schools and community centres, and with the assistance of local authorities, the medical team were able to test each child’s sight, and within days, furnish them with a pair of glasses suited to their needs.

The success of this initiative has been in part due to the partnership with NGO Jeremi but what’s interesting about this initiative, is where the money comes from. Back in Europe Optic 2ooo has installed drop boxes in its 1200 retail outlets across France and Switzerland. People can trot down to their friendly Optic 2ooo optometrist and dispose of their old glasses. The Mission: “Give your glasses a second life! Glasses for the children of Africa” - is a lovely thought. Not only are you saving the environment from more landfill, but your glasses get a second life with a Burkina Faso child.

However, this isn’t the whole picture and it certainly isn’t where the money comes from. Those frames that are in good condition do make it to Ouahigouya. But what they’re really looking for are the frames embossed in gold which are separated from the rest. The metal is extracted, and the gold is then melted down to produce a small ingot that fetches about 15,000 Euro on the gold market.

Each year this little ingot contributes to the running of the hospital in Quahigouya, including the maintenance of the optical equipment that is used to manufacture and test the lenses for the Burkinabe children.

Despite the slightly misleading advertising in France, there’s no doubt this humanitarian mission is doing wonders for the people of Yatenga. What’s even more impressive, it’s a mission run on the ground by the Burkinabe, who have been medically trained thanks to those gold ingots. As Didier Papaz explains, success of the mission has been in part due to the simple nature of the operation. “There’s little administration; it’s mostly equipment, well trained staff and infrastructure… If you give the Burkinabe the opportunity to help themselves, and to help others, they will.”

And that is truly the case. Proud and optimistic, the Burkinabe are extremely resourceful with the little they have. What we found to be a simple solution to an African heath problem became a wonderful lesson in the complexities and richness of this proud and optimistic African culture.

View the video at the Broadoak productions website:
http://www.broadoakproductions.com/Broad_Oak_Productions/TV_%26_CORPORATE.html