File this one under "what the?"
I have to be honest... when I first heard about the Midwest Charity Begins at Home "Charity Home" I didn't think something of this scale would be pulled off in a place the size of Geraldton.
But it has.
It's truly remarkable to see what the women from the charity and the community supporting them have accomplished in their short life. They really are an inspiration to anyone who wants to make a difference in their local community.
Please take the time to check out the charity home, share the info, and if you're in the market for a home or an investment, consider the upcoming auction. And show your support to the local businesses that have donated their precious time and resources to making the project happen.
All proceeds from the sale of the property will be going straight to the charity.
Midwest Charity Begins at Home are thrilled with the progress on their first charity home here in the Midwest. Generously donated by Redink Homes Midwest and Geraldton Heights Estate the house will be auction off in October this year.
Midwest Charity Begins at Home Inc raise money for local residents in financial need due to the result of serious illness such as cancer. All money raised from the sale of the charity home, will be distributed as needed back here in the Midwest community through the charity.
“It is such an honour to have this opportunity – we can’t thank Redink Homes Midwest and Geraldton Heights Estate enough,” Charity president Chris Dobson said today. “And for so many businesses to donate their time, their staff, the supplies and products, it is such an amazing feeling, and something we are all very proud of. Everyone has pulled together to make this happen and the buzz out at the house with all the tradies is fantastic.”
Redink Homes Midwest Geraldton Heights Estate Glass Co Batavia Concrete Structerre Consulting Engineers Central West Pest Control Quantum Surveys CMI (Combined Metal Industries) Geraldton Earthmoving Contractors Rayco Plumbing Bunnings Warehouse Metwest Steel Forrester Electrical Pty Ltd Patience Sandland Midland Brick Independent Timber Supplies Geraldton Hire & Scaffolding Character Cabinets Mitchell and Brown RP Browne Transport SP Ceilings & Insulation Paul Sorensen Mitchell Anick Brendon Plug Byron from Batavia Coast Carpentry Brendon Trant Shapland Plastering
If you wish to visit the home under construction, head out along Chapman Valley Road and turn RIGHT at Webber Road. Follow it all the way to the end and you will come to the entrance of Geraldton Heights Estate.
For more information on Midwest Charity Begins at Home Inc. visit their website at www.charitybeginsathome.org.au or on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Midwestcharitybeginsathome
If you're roughly my age, 33, you will remember the message from that old kid's show "Captain Planet", that sought to make kids around the world believe that true justice involved the three R's, reduce, reuse and recycle. Grant and Tina from "Second Time Around" are doing just that, and making some very groovy furniture in the process.
The have a Facebook page where they post their creations for sale, and business seems to be ticking over nicely, with plenty of their posts displaying a "sold" comment underneath.
Here's a few of their excellent creations. And you can check them out on Facebook by following this link: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Secondtimearound/1462054397346445
Stores away for summer ( all parts fit inside )$250
Jake Drage, a 23 year old man from Geraldton, is currently in an Indonesian jail after being involved in a motorbike accident where a woman died. (read more here) Tiena Drage, Jake's mum, has arrived in Indonesia and put out the following release:
In speaking about the accident, Jake says "On behalf of myself and my family, I want to express our deepest sympathies to the family of the lady who has tragically died. The accident leaves me with a sadness that is very difficult to describe" and "I want to thank her family for all the kindness and goodwill they have shown me. My family will be providing support to them and I hope we can be warm and close friends in the future".
"It was a tragic accident and the family understands and accepts that the tragedy was not my fault", he said. "They hope that there is a speedy resolution to this too"
On Jake's treatment, Tiena said "It was a huge relief to see Jake and hug him, I'm thankful that Jake has been taken care of, but it is a draining experience. I'm just so glad to be here" and "I will be speaking to Indonesian Authorities shortly to see how the case is progressing and hoping that we get a decision as soon as possible". Jake also commented that "I have great respect for Indonesia and its Justice system and I'm very hopeful that the right decision will be made".
Speaking about the support he has received, Jake said "I want to thank all of my family and friends and people I don't even know for their love and support of me. It's not easy living in a jail and the kindness of people here, at home and in other countries has been overwhelming and has again shown me the goodness in people".
Jake also had messages for Aussies considering travelling to Indonesia. "I love Indonesia and its people and I'll be coming back", he said. "Don't let my experience of being involved in a tragic accident put you off seeing the beauty of this country and its people and experiencing its cultures. And remember you are bound by the laws and processes of any country and these need to be respected" he added.
Francie sent this in to Everything Geraldton:
On Monday I was with a client offering social support to an elderly gentleman. We went to the Greenough hamlet for a day out (highly recommended by the way) and as I was assisting my lovely gent into my car I put my purse on the roof so I could help him in the car.You guessed it! I drove off unawares, with the purse on my roof. I did.
I didn't know until I got a phone call from this beautiful lady telling me that she had picked up my purse from Brand highway scattered all over the road. She took the time to pick up all my cards and personal stuff that was in the bush and on highway.
My faith in human nature is restored! Thank you Helen!
About 11:30am on Monday morning, Jake Drage was involved in a tragic motorbike accident in Indonesia.
Jake is a 23 year old from Geraldton, who his mother describes as someone who loves life, is spiritual, has a heart condition, and was loved by all and wouldn't hurt a fly, was on the holiday of a lifetime. He had been in the Philippines, before heading to Indonesia.
On the fateful day he had been surfing, and was heading back to his accommodation. Tiena Drage, Jake's mother, described the incident to Everything Geraldton.
"He was on a motor bike, behind a little truck" Tiena says. " They were facing up a hill and the truck came to a complete stop. Jake was concerned the small truck might roll back on top of him. There were no lines or markings on the road at all.
"He's nudged his head and the front of the bike out a small amount, perhaps a foot, to try and see if it was safe to pass the stationary truck. All of a sudden a motorbike with two people on it was there and clipped Jake's bike."
"The bike was being driven by a 16 year old girl, and her mother was on the back not wearing a helmet."
"Jake said the girl panicked when she saw Jake. Their bike crashed an the mother on the back of the bike was taken to hospital."
This happened on Monday 30 June at 11:30am.
The woman on the back of the motor cycle died the following day in an Indonesian hospital.
Jake was taken into custody by police immediately following the accident. He has been held without charge since then.
"I found out about the accident about 7:30pm on Tuesday" Ms Drage tells us.
"Jake had been working in the mines for 6 months and been saving for this holiday" says Tiena.
"Jake had been in discussions with the family of the deceased woman over the following days, and even negotiated compensation or a payment that would be made to them, but due to being in custody without charge was unable to really do anything about it" Tiena says. 'The family of the woman has been bringing Jake food as well."
Following the embassy's meeting with local authorities, it was confirmed to Tiena Drage that Jake could be held for potentially 40 days before being charged.
She has not been advised what he will be charged with.
Friends of Jake chose to set up a fund raising site for him, but Tiena expressed to Everything Geraldton that she was not trying to get money from people, she just cared about her son.
Tiena has been speaking with Everything Geraldton over the last couple of days about the incident and her concerns at this time. Many people have asked us to publish something earlier about Jake's situation but after discussing the matter with Tiena we decided to hold off to prevent complicating things for Jake.
After learning that media members had been contacting friends of Jake, Tiena decided to speak with Everything Geraldton. Friends of Jake say random journalists have been trying to add them as friends on Facebook in order to get more of the story.
Tiena Drage, who is currently in Geraldton, arrives in Indonesia tomorrow. She says she is going to do whatever it takes to help her son.
Everything Geraldton will be keeping in touch with Tiena and we'll let you know how things develop.
An update on Australian Citizen JAKE DRAGE, who is held in Indonesian custody following traffic accident
Tiena Drage, the mother of Jake Drage, is currently organising to fly to Indonesia to work with the Australian Consul, lawyers and Indonesian Authorities to secure the release of Jake as soon as possible.
The family wishes to thank the many people who have sent messages of support and contributed to a fund to assist with the costs associated with helping Jake.
The family’s heartfelt condolences go out to the deceased’s family following their tragic loss and any excess contributions to Jake’s fund will be donated to the family of the deceased.
At this time, the family requests that the media do not interfere with the processes that Jake’s mother will engage with in Indonesia by way of any unauthorised reporting. While there is public interest in respect to this story, Tiena needs to first engage with lawyers, the Australian Consul and Indonesian Authorities and do not want any reporting, unapproved by the family occur, that may potentially undermine the family’s efforts and therefore potentially impact negatively on Jake.
They respectfully request any future reporting to be authorised by the family’s media representative prior to any publication.
Their stated aims are to • Rescue and re-home unwanted cats • Support responsible pet management • Develop Community Education programs
Each year around WA, thousands of cats are put down, mostly due to irresponsible ownership. While the cat haven has existed in the Perth metro area for some time, no formal service existed up until now in the Midwest to help re-home unwanted or abandoned cats.
Foster carers get to enjoy company of a new feline friend and directly help save a life in the process. They provide like food, clean water and a clean litter tray every day, a secure home and plenty of love until the cats are adopted out into their new forever homes.
Others help out at the new Davies Rd facility, run by the Mid West Cat Shelter.
The shelter does not take direct surrenders. They only take cats that are in danger of being euthanised from the RSPCA or the pound.
Under new state legislation, registration, sterilisation and microchipping are now requirements of being a cat owner, and local councils now have the job of managing cat registrations.
While the kitten may be free it will cost you around $60 to micro-chip and anywhere upwards of $95 to sterilise a male and $160 to sterilise a female cat. Remember, these are legal requirements now for all cats over the age of six months. Add in a worm treatment, flea treatment and vaccinations and it adds up very quickly to a lot more than $150. The shelter's adoption fee is fantastic value and by adopting from them you also get to save a beautiful cat from euthanasia.
It is now the law; as a cat owner you MUST get your cat sterilised. But financial assistance is available to pensioners and health care card holders.
Click here to learn more about the new cat laws.
Click here to visit the MWCS website
Click here to check out the MWCS on Facebook
Steve White reporting for Science Network WA:
A FAUNA-monitoring expedition at Eurardy Reserve, 145km north of Geraldton, has revealed the intricate life of trapdoor spiders.
Bush Heritage Australia and the Conservation Council of Western Australia were completing fauna surveys as part of managing the 30,000 hectare reserve, when they stumbled on a spider trapdoor.
Click here to read the full article, including Dr Vanessa Westcott describing the expeditions discovery of the cleverly camouflaged trapdoor burrow.
Event Location: Spalding Park parking
Event Details: Next Guided Walk in the Chapman Park :
Sunday 6 July at 3pm
Meet at Spalding Park (entry is off Chapman Road between the roundabout and the old bridge)
Focus will be on birds, animal tracks and traces, wildflowers.
The flowering on the river valley slopes is spectacular at present - the small wattles and thryptomene, in full bloom and there is so much more to come..
Children welcome!
For more information contact Alan and Nancy on 99231314
Start Date and Time: 06 Jul 2014 03:00 PM Event Duration: 2 hours
For more Geraldton and Midwest events, check out the Geraldton Events Calendar on our app or website. It's free to post your community event too.
Facebook have something of a reputation for pushing the boundaries of privacy, but to their credit they are treading where no web service has gone before. There's never been a social network of 1billion + people before.
But people all over the world were in shock to find out what Facebook had done this time, and the folk at Facebook actually published a paper on their experiment, as though they were proud of what they'd done. Read it here.
A lot of people still think when they log in to Facebook they see the most recent posts from their friends and pages or groups they follow.
But that's not how it works. Facebook decides what it wants to show you, based on whether you normally interact with certain people, how popular a particular post is... and many many other factors.
Facebook say the reason they do this is to provide the best possible user experience. There's thousands of new posts they COULD show you, but you won't have time to see them all. So they dish up what they think you'll like the most.
No big deal, this has been public knowledge for some time (even if many people are unaware or unhappy about it).
Basically they wanted to know what would happen if they showed a bunch of users more negative content, or more positive content.
So they manipulated the content seen by more than 600,000 users, to either have more negative keywords in it, or more positive keywords, and then measured what those people went and posted later on Facebook themselves.
That what you see on Facebook DOES affect your emotional state.
People shown more negative content, were more likely to post more negative things later, and vice versa.
And all Facebook users have agreed to participate in this.
It's in Facebook's terms of service (you know, that stuff that none reads) that they're allowed to experiment on you.
Perhaps someone needs to talk to the data scientists at Facebook about depression, anxiety, suicide, and using unwitting human subjects as test objects.
Pics sent in to Everything Geraldton of a wall taken out by a vehicle last night. Opposite Subway.
Perth Now and Channel 9 are running a campaign called "Real Men Don't Binge". Nine News presenter Libby Stone is the ambassador for the campaign which aims to change public attitudes toward "male drunkenness". She's joined by 5 other females who all want to tell men that men shouldn't binge drink. But many in the public are incensed with the campaign which they claim unfairly targets men, when women also have a problem with binge drinking.
Perth Now changed the title of their article from "Real Men Don't Binge Drink" to "Libby Stone, Blair Evans, Simone Heng, Melissa Marsh, Chloe Powlika and Ashleigh Nelson join fight against binge drinking". Read it here.
When shared on Twitter and Facebook, the public was very vocal against the campaign.
Just a taste of some of the comments:
Matt put it well:
Even Twitter was aghast with the campaign:
Libby stone responded publicly to some of the criticism that said it singled men out, saying it wasn't her intention (to single out men in her "real men don't binge" campaign) but that it was "very much a community issue".
Hi @Saint_Lions @FrankMatera - certainly not the intention, it is very much a community issue.
— Libby Stone (@LibbyStone9) June 30, 2014
(notice the high percentage of females)
(actually I have no idea what's happening in this photo)
(It's the details that make all the difference)
And a shoutout to the City of Greater Geraldton who just gave $2,828 from the community grants program to go towards the upcoming Sin City Slam.
The Sin City Slam
Geraldton Roller Derby are proud to present THE SIN CITY SLAM 2014 - a Roller Derby Event. Starts at 6.30pm till about 10 on Saturday June 28 at Activewest Basketball Stadium, Eighth St, Wonthella.
This is the first time that the Mid West will be able to watch a game of Roller Derby!
With 2 Roller Derby bouts for the price of 1, featuring local skaters and officials, along with visitors from all over the state. It will be a night of good VS evil, with entertainment throughout the evening.
Doors open at 6.30pm, first whistle at 7pm. Roller Derby merch will be available for purchase, cash only.
The ActiveWest Basketball Stadium canteen will also be operating.
This is a family friendly, alcohol free event.
This event could not have taken place without the support of; The City of Greater Geraldton, MMG, Activewest Real Estate, Geraldton Property Team, Geraldton Toyota and Young Motors.
For more information contact Roxanne Grant on 0428 286 064.
Tickets can be bought online from trybooking.com/81902, Geraldton CD Centre or the Bootenal Family Tavern.
Tickets: Adults (children 13+) $15 | Child (4-12) $5 | Family (2 adults, 2 children) $35 | Children 3 and under are free. Bout 1: Easy A's vs Chastity Belters Bout 2: She Devils vs Excorcists
If you still don't have a clue what Roller Derby is, watch this:
Strathalbyn Christian College students recently had the great fortune of being about to wear perhaps the worlds most comfy item of clothing to school, as part of a fundraising efforts for the college. Anita Kirkbright, Development Officer at Strath said that the Student Representative Council raised $2072.89 on Onesie Day, from donations and the sale of hot Milo and a sausage sizzle.
Opera Australia has finally succumbed to world-wide outrage and cancelled the contract of Tamar Iveri, Georgian opera singer who was due to perform in their production of Otello.
Ms Iveri has recently made world headlines for the aggressive homophobic statements she made in a letter that was published on her Facebook page, supporting an attack on Georgian LGBT protesters that happened in May 2013.
Many people were seriously injured during the attack, to which the Georgian President responded, “We have been disgraced, what will Europe and the world think of us?”
The President’s stance prompted Ms Iveri to write him an open letter criticising his ‘bending to the West’.
“Often, in certain cases, it is necessary to break the jaws in order to be appreciated as a nation in the future,” she wrote.
“I was quite proud of the fact that Georgian society spat at the parade.
“Please, stop vigerous attempts to bring West’s ‘fecal masses’ in the mentality of the people by means of propaganda.
“If you ignore it today…. tomorrow they will demand same-sex marriages, the day after tomorrow they will require rights for adoption. And I really do not want Georgia, a place that I am always happy to visit, to resemble certain blocks of Amsterdam.”
(Read her entire letter in English here.)
The Georgian LGBT community translated Iveri’s shocking homophobic letter into English, sending it to the National Opera of Paris who cancelled her performances. Iveri begun offering half-hearted apologies to the LGBT community, which were taken as an attempt to save her career rather than a show of real remorse.
Opera Australia has been under huge pressure over the past few days to cancel Iveri’s Australian contract, with social media campaigns condemning them across the globe.
The satirical Facebook page Pauline Pantsdown garnered huge support for their open letter to Opera Australia, which stated,
Dear Opera Australia,
As much has happened over the last 24 hours, you may need a summary, as the proven inadequacy of your initial response demands that you now take responsible action on this matter.
On Saturday morning you made a decision to support Tamar Iveri merely on the basis of her response statement, after her advocation of violence against GLBTI people.
Her response statement has now been shown to be unequivocally false.
Unfortunately for Opera Australia, they delayed their decision to release Iveri from her contract until yesterday, which has led to widespread criticism from those who believe she should never have been allowed a working permit in Australia in the first place.
Opera Australia published this statement to their Facebook page yesterday:
Opera Australia confirms soprano Ms Tamar Iveri will not be performing in Otello.
Opera Australia has reached agreement with Ms Iveri to immediately release her from her contract with the company.
Ms Iveri and her husband have both made public statements in the last 48 hours with regards to comments attributed to Ms Iveri.
Ms Iveri has unreservedly apologised for those comments and views.
Opera Australia believes the views as stated to be unconscionable.
A petition on change.org, asking for Iveri’s Australian working visa to be revoked gathered 4600 signatures in just three days.
Ms Iveri has recently changed her Facebook profile picture and cover photo to images that say, “Peace, Love and Harmony”, but she is continuing to receive a lot of criticism on her page.
ABROLHOS ISLANDS
The boys from saltwater Charters had a cracker 4 day trip out at the Abrolhos Island. Warwick Upton (WAZZA) and a few of his mate's went on a fishing adventure of a life time, with Craig the skipper and Omar his trusty decky The boys were bound for that trip of a life time.
Day 1&2 the boys hit up the southern group and hit up the pinkie grounds and what a way to warm up their arms with the 160mm squidgy producing the goods. Wazza hooked on to a mother of all trout measuring at 810mm and plenty of them with jigs the way to go.
The boys headed north to little rat and got more species than you could poke a rat with, with trout, coronation baldies.
By now the fella's arms where well and truly warmed up Craig decided to head to the wallaby group and get in to some smoking pelagic action and action it was with plenty of Spanish and Shark mackerel shark Tuna
RIVERS The Greenough river has slowed down a little with alot of small Bream but if you are prepared to stick out the mozzies the evening and mornings are the best times, the bigger bream have been taken on lures
[tentblogger-youtube n0uMQAFdz1Y]
FISH REPORT WRITTEN BY
TACKLEWORLD COUNTRY GERALDTON
20 ANZAC TERRACE GERALDTON WA
08 99216822
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