Last weekend’s Tenterfield conference was the first ‘in person’ one since 2019 and it certainly was one with a difference! Not the glitzy 5-star hotel or big club ballroom, but a true country-style bar-be-que affair. It started off on Friday night at the local Railway Museum (the old Tenterfield Railway Station). Roughly 300 Rotarians, partners and guests lined up. Roughly half the participants were seated in rows of tables and chairs along the platform, the other half inside the historical railway carriages. A well organised ‘production line’ managed to get everyone’s plates filled to the rim with multiple choices of meat and veggies in a remarkably swift time.Saturday’s program included a local farming couple speaking of the enormous hardship and heartbreak suffered due to the drought and fires. This was a farm which benefited from the ‘Fodder for the West’ program organised by the Rotary Club of Hope Island. I wish I had the writing skills of a Bryce Courtenay
to describe the raw emotions of the speaker when she described the arrival of a B-Double loaded with hay for their starving cattle.
And it only got better… There was Kevin Butler, the founder of BlazeAid. His organisation grew from an idea to a massive organisation of thousands of volunteers across the nation to assist farmers to rebuild after bush fires and floods, rebuilding thousands and thousands of kilometres of damaged fencing. “The fences need to be repaired as quickly as possible, otherwise the cattle will walk out to the highway and get run over by the trucks…”
But it wasn’t just all about natural disasters. You should have been there to listen to Bernie Shakeshaft, outlining his hugely successful program Back Track of keeping youngsters out of jail. Yes, it works. Not only do they embark on a career, it’s at a fraction of the cost of keeping a youth in jail. Or Alice Mabin describing and displaying her photo and video shoots of country life in Australia. Check out her books! And Saturday afternoon and the best on Sunday morning still to come!
In many conferences, one sometimes can skip a speaker or two because they may not be of major interest. Not this one! And did I mention the proverbial Rotary and Rotaractor fellowship?
Our sincere thanks and congratulations for a job well done are well deserved by conference organiser PDG Harry Bolton and his team. Stay tuned for a more detailed write-up to follow soon.
(Photo by Jodie Shelley. Lots more photos on the District Facebook page)