Shelley's New Baby

It might have a long time to happen, but my cousin David's daughter, Shelley, who lives in Melbourne ... a long way from her parents and sister in Sydney ... gave birth to her first child, Nathan Reed (both are first names) a  little over a week ago.

As I happened to be Melbourne earlier this week for a conference - the timing was coincidental and unplanned - I was, to my surprise, invited to a Brit Milah (or circumcision) ceremony at Shelley's home in North Caulfield, an inner Melbourne suburb. See http://www.jewfaq.org/birth.htm for a description of the event. It took place at 7.30 am on Tuesday morning, a strange time. But perhaps it was chosen to maximise the number of guests - there must have been about 60 people inside the small apartment for the ceremony, including heaps of kids. This made for a lot of hugging and kissing, not to mention an enthusiastic racket!

I won't go into the exact form of the ceremony, which you can look up for yourself, but there seemed to two Rabbis in attendance, with maybe one or two helpers, together with parents, grandparents, sisters and brothers, and friends of the family. It only lasted perhaps ten or fifteen minutes and young Nathan seemed to take things in his stride, with little wailing! After the event he went to sleep in his cot and the rest of us nattered on bolstered by some nice food.

I travelled there by train from Melbourne Central to a station close to Shelley's house and walked the remaining distance and the fare there and back was trivial for an oldie like me. Anyway, here are some pictures of the event.

Mother and Nathan.

AS

Close to Melting Point!

This is a quick post. In Australia, summer officially starts on 1 December and so, today, it was the third day of summer ... and how! I went for a 16 km bike ride and, knowing it was going to be hot, I set off around 6.30 am when the temperature was a little short of 20 C. It was one of the most exhilarating rides I've had recently - sunny, but without wind, and relatively cool. Also, I had the road more or less to myself.

BY midday the weather became more like the inside of a sauna! And the temperature peaked at c. 33 C. As it rose so did the humidity and, unsurprisingly, thunder began to echo through the sky leading to a few showers, some briefly heavy. Fortunately, there was no hail-storm of the kind we sometimes experience, though as Dot returned last Wednesday from Singapore the skies opened up with small hail at the airport!

By the way, our average summer maxima are around 26 C, so today's heat was somewhat on the wild side!

AS

Christmas Party in the Mall

Yesterday also saw a second interesting event ... don't we lead busy lives! This time, we celebrated to imminent arrival of Xmas with a community party in Armidale's lovely pedestrian shopping mall. I thought a few people might turn up but was blown away by huge crowds with heaps of youngsters and their parents, coupled with plenty of oldies like us. There was a rock band whose music dated from the 1960s, individual singers performing Christmas songs  ... I lost count of how many times I heard about one horse open sleighs despite the fact that none exist around here and the temperature when we arrived for the event at 6pm was still 26C, a subordinate Claus in traditional uniform attended by a crowd of elves, other I suppose people dressed in strange uniforms, plenty of food stalls selling mainly non-Australian foods - I had tasty Chinese dumplings and two Indian curry puffs, and so on. These pictures give some idea of the electric atmosphere:

This 7 m high artifical Chistmas tree is the first of its kind in Australia and is rumoured to have cost about $35,000!

Singing elves.

A Martian?

This guy liked one horse open sleighs.

 A subordinate Claus and his attendants.

The hids play area teeming with ... er ... kids.

AS

Positioning Armidale Regional Council

Invitations and new experiences keep on coming fast. Yesterday morning I attended a special breakfast convened in, of all places, New England Regional Art Museum (NERAM) by consultants hired by the newly established Armidale Regional Council (ARC - our local government) to position Armidale. By position, I mean market our region to businesses, potential residents, tourists, other tiers of government and so on. Basically c. 12 invitees were considering what makes us special and enviable and I knew many of the participants who were civic / community leaders from a variety of backgrounds. It was rather nice to be recognised as someone able to make a worthwhile contribution!

In fact the meeting went, I thought, very well. And judging by the consultants' reactions I'd say we made a considerable impression and that their final report to ARC will be impressive. By the way, ARC emerged from the amalgamation of Armidale City Council and Guyra Shire Council which was located to the north of us. We cover a large area - approximately 150km E-W and 70km N-S, but only have a resident population of c. 30,000. That's a density of c. 3 people per sq km. At the point of merger, all the existing Councillors were sacked and their role assumed by a single 'administrator', Dr Ian Tiley. I've known him for quite a while because he studied for his PhD at my university and we were already paired on LinkedIn. By the way, I've been approached as a possible candidate for the ARC's first elections scheduled for September 2017, but I won't say more at this point.

Anyway, I have a couple of pictures of the event taken with my mobile phone:

AS

Armidale Markets

Today is the last Sunday in November, a date set aside each month for the Markets in the Mall. Dot and I often make a point of visiting the markets, partly because it's a good occasion to meet up with friends and acquaintances and partly to but local produce for consumption or as presents. Despite's Dot's being in Singapore, I made the trek alone today, but wasn't disappointed as I met many people I knew, brought a few things like bars of soap, a new cactus for my collection and some food-stuffs, and chatted about batteries to complement the solar panels on our roof. Besides that the weather was, as they say, glorious: about 22C (at 10am) and a cloudless sky. It certainly made me feel happy. So this is what I saw - in no particular order.

This couple had bought themselves a touring Harley and set up business escorting passengers around New England's many lovely tourist destination - a definite must for me, provided it's not raining!

A general view of the markets, with Armidale's historic court-house as a backdrop.

There were multiple cafes where patrons could relax and watch the passing crowds while consumign their chai lattes.

The main drag, where the markets are held has a few vacant shop premises and sometimes pop-up shops emerge, this one selling high-quality artistic pottery ... and doing good business.

Typical of many market days, there are many stalls selling garden plants (front) and fresh fruit and veges (rear).

Then there are stalls selling bric-a-brac, comme ca!

Dot's favourite honey provider was also there.

And it was a foodies delight, with heaps of ethnic foods. This picture shows an Indonesian stall (closest) and one selling German sausage (rear). I noticed a Vietnamese stall nearby, but I chose Prawn Har Gow dumplings (or Cantonese Xiā jiǎo). And I also bought a French-style croissant. 

Then I had a quick squiz at the metal menagerie produced by a marvellously imaginative welder. He makes many different animals, some imaginary, from pieces of scrap metal, and we have two in our garden: a blow-fly and a winged mythical beast.

Entertaining us, was this school band featuring kids from one of Armidale's expensive private schools (The Armidale School). Long a boys only school it has just started taking girls, so I was surprised to see this outfit dominated by the girls and noted that the singer had a fine voice.

Next I passed an astrologer ... but passed on quickly for obvious reasons.

And so to my favourite stall. I have a sizeable collection of cacti and and added one more today - a Parodia Scopa. Don't know what that is? Well see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parodia_scopa. If I keep on buying cacti we'll have to move to a larger residence.

I think that these picture illustrate my point. The monthly markets are fascinating - lively, colourful, friendly, often innovative or imaginative and so on. If you visit us, try to make it near the end of a month.

AS

Backtrack - something your community badly needs to emulate

Among the many privileges I had last week, I was remiss in omitting one from this blog. I had the privilege of meeting up with Bernie Shakeshaft whose organisation, Backtrack, has had brilliant success in rescuing troubled youth from the legal system - or preventing them from committing crimes in the fist place - and then reorienting them via education, imparting useful skills, and psychologically managing their self-esteem. The kids even train sheep-dogs and take them to regional competitions. Have a look at this URL: http://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/health/community-based-program-troubled-teens-halves-crime rates , which indicates stunning estimated cost-benefit results for Bernie's program - it has saved >$6 for every $1 spent. Moreover, a very high percentage of kids going through his program have gone on to full-time employment or further education.

I had always wanted to meet up with Bernie because I had heard so many favourable comments about his program. Indeed, we used his work to bolster our relatively successful campaign last year in the Intelligent Community of Year world-wide contest operated from New York City. Anyway, a colleague of mine, Alun Davies, was escorting a team from the US software company Cisco Systems around Armidale to show-case our social, economic and technological prowess. He invited me along and we had perhaps 45 minutes hearing about Backtrack's achievements. It was most enlightening.

Also, go to http://www.backtrack.org.au/#o1gtpiLOBc7hZXBv.97 for more information. The organisation won the State Government's State Youth Service of the Year award in 2015 ... and many more awards besides, such as:

2015 Regional Development Australian Innovation Awards.  Winner:  “Research and Education”

Churchill Fellowship Award (Sponsored by Vincent Fairfax Family Foundation) – presented to Bernie Shakeshaft, 2014

Armidale Dumaresq Business Chamber Awards – Outstanding Contribution to Community Services Award (Sponsored by REX Airlines) awarded to BackTrack, 2014

Northern Inland Innovation Awards – Research and Education awarded to BackTrack, 2013

NAPCAN – National Association for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect – Innovative Community Program for Safety and Wellbeing of Young People awarded to BackTrack, 2013. They've won another 10 before that, and the organisation has only been going 10 years. Impressive, eh!?

AS

A Busy Few Days

Two days ago, I was invited to attend a major political announcement at Armidale's college of Technical and Further Education (TAFE) so I went along out of curiosity to see what the fuss was about. It turned out the Armidale had been selected to revolutionise TAFE's programme delivery across NSW. In short, about 40 new staff would move to Armidale or be recruited to live here with the task of designing a platform to deliver courses on-line state-wide and also develop content for TAFE students. Since my community role is promoting our town's economic development, this was great news. Here's our local state MP, Adam Marshall - who I know quite well  and respect - launching proceedings.

And here's the Deputy Premier of NSW, John Barilaro, providing the details for an excited audience pictured in the second of these two photos.

The audience comprised TAFE staff, the leader of the Chamber of Commerce, the University Chancellor (James Harris), the council administrator (Ian Tiley) and senior staff, and local development activists - including me. Later that day, Ian told me that he had approved the inclusion of a Maker Lab (otherwise called a Fab Lab) in the configuration for the town's new library and that pleased me no end after a campaign spread over 14 months.

Yesterday I hosted a colleague from the University of Tasmania, Robyn Eversole, who lives in Burnie on the North Coast. She was actually raised in West Virginia, but is now an Australian resident and President of the ANZ Regional Science Association. I had that role 20 years ago! Anyway her visit was designed to enrol UNE staff and research centres in a new network focusing on research in better strategies for regional development - my main research field. The proposed network is potentially exciting and is funded by Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). That struck me as odd at first sight because DFAT is not a research funding agency. But it turned out that the new network spanned three countries, the other two being the southern cone! What's that I hear you say. Well Australia's main trading partners are mostly in east and south-east Asia, but the southern cone comprises Argentina and Chile and it seems that Australia is trying to cosy up to nations with similar primary industry economies in a similar climatic belt across the Pacific Ocean. So I might find myself engaged in projects with academics in Latin America, although I speak very words of Spanish.

Here's Robyn in full flight at our successful meeting, after which we headed out for a tour of the campus, which she'd not previously visited. En route, we encountered this friendly fellow whom she adored. Yes, our campus hosts Kangaroos, Koalas, Echidnas, and some other less desirable creatures like brown snakes. Fortunately, we mostly see the nice guys.

Then this morning I was invited to attend a breakfast at the bowling club where local entrepreneurs and economic development networkers mixed with and talked to a visiting deputation of c. 40 staff from the software company CISCO systems. They wanted to hear some the exciting hi-tech developments in our town and seemed impressed with our offerings. Here's the chair of the Chamber of Commerce, Susan Cull, in full flight and her company (ICT International) manufactures and exports world-wide agricultural sensing probes.

So the last three days have been full-on, but very interesting and it seems that I might get a chance to address CISCO systems in Sydney some time in the future.

And, I've been 'retired' 9 years! I suspect - judging by the activities of many university retirees I know - that retirement aint what it used to be. It can be all go-go-go.

AS

Supermoon

The moon is now apparently closer to Earth than at any time in the last 69 years and, it's great to view it if you have a clear sky. It has just become dark here in Australia and the full moon was awesomely bright in the sky. So, I took my camera outside and laid it on a plank to steady the image when I clicked the shutter. And here are some of the results, with apologies from me about the state of the lens - there are some annoying dark spots on the images!

The first image was taken at dusk and some of the moon's craters show up because the moon itself is not so bright. About 20 minutes later, when the sky was much darker, I took the second and third images with slightly greater magnification.

I particularly like the first of these larger images!

Anyway, have a look fot yourselves if you have a clear evening today or tomorrow, the latter being the largest moon for the next several decades! Let's hope I'm still around 69 years from now to witness a repeat event. That might be possible with several new technologies emerging to enable us to regress ageing!!

AS

Some Craiovan Gems

WHile in Craiova in recent days we had an opportunity to look around the city and, contrary to expectations, we discovered a lovely environment in some places. When I say contrary to expectations I'll confess that I had premonitions of Craiova being an industrial city, which it certainly was in the past. However, I now gather that many former industries have closed down and that the economy is being rejuvenated.

Anyway, as dusk was gathering we strolled through the old city to find it rejuvenated and pedestrianised - an altogether pleasing experience. And the city centre also hosts some majestic old buildings that add to the city' image. Let's have a quick look:

An elegant new shopping centre.

And the following day another stroll revealed some gorgeous parks which even had the appeal of some of London's great parks - lovely trees - especially in Autumn colours, winding paths, elegant bridges, lakes, flower beds, vistas and even sculptures. Again I'll share my images with you.

An outdoor theatre.

An Emu? Certainly not a ostrich because that was in the next enclosure.

A second park with fancy ornamental flower beds aand even white swans.

So, although some parts of Romanian cities can be quite grim, others are rather fetching or entertaining.