Maggi Barnard

The new school year resumed for thousands of students this week and Parkes, Forbes and Lachlan Shire Councils are reminding local drivers and parents about children’s safety around schools.

There are 40km/h school speed zones around all schools in NSW. Most school zones are operational between 8 – 9.30am and 2.30 – 4pm on school days. The school zone in Bushman Street, Parkes is operational from 8am – 4pm. Police will be targeting school zones to ensure drivers obey the 40km/h speed as soon as school returns.

Parents and carers can help students remain safe by regularly reinforcing important road safety behaviours with their children, and following the below tips.
• Always make sure children wear a seatbelt or use a child restraint. Child restraint laws require children up to seven years old to be restrained in an approved child restraint.
• Always drop-off and pick-up children on the school side of the road.
• Make sure children use the footpath-side door, or safety door, when getting in and out of a car.
• Never call children across the road to you.
• Use a pedestrian crossing where possible and avoid being distracted by friends, mobile phones or listening to music through headphones whilst walking.
• Children aged up to 10 years old should always be supervised when near traffic.
• Children aged up to eight years old should always hold an adult’s hand when crossing the road or walking near traffic.
• Make sure children always wear a helmet when riding a bike.
• If your children catch a bus, always walk them to the bus stop. “Children are vulnerable road users. They are at risk in traffic because of their size, their inability to judge speed and distance, as well as the fact that they may behave unpredictably,” said the Councils’ Road Safety and Injury Prevention Officer, Melanie Suitor.

Chloey Davies, Shelbea and Louella Kennough, Rubie and Mello Davies with the giant koala kites on Australia Day. (Photo: Keith Turk)

Blue sky days have become somewhat of a rarity lately, but kite enthusiasts were not disappointed on Australia Day when over 200 people enjoyed a beautiful morning at the fourth Kite Festival at Northparkes Oval. The sky filled with colourful creatures from stingrays, flamingos, bats and butterflies to two adorable giant koala kites flown by Ian Burrell.

Ian is from Canberra and comes to every festival with his amazing array of giant kites. He has some surprises every year, and the koalas being a news-worthy topic currently stole the show this time.

“I would like to thank the organisers and the people of Parkes for putting on the kite festival again this year. It would not be Australia Day without going to Parkes. Hope to see you all again next year,” said Ian.

Organiser of the event Peter Guppy was very happy with the day and said it looked like it was the biggest one yet. “Considering it was a long weekend with many people going away, we feel it was a successful day.” He said all the events on Australia Day were very well attended including the early morning breakfast cooked by Parkes Action Club members for the walkers with more than 100 people turning up.

By Maggi Barnard

James Haddin will take over the reigns at Bosmac with the retirement of his father Robert, who started the business in 1981.

Dear Valued Customers and Suppliers,

The Haddin family is saddened to announce that we will be winding down the manufacturing side of Bosmac Pty Ltd over the next couple of months.

This has been an extremely hard decision our family has had to make. It has been driven by many factors including weather conditions, economic climate, cost of labour and cost of capital equipment needed to compete with other manufacturers.

The announcement of my retirement means a loss of skill and expertise in manufacturing design and implementation, which has played a big part in the products and services Bosmac has been able to provide in the past.

Whilst manufacturing winds down, and we change over to the new setup, we are happy to announce that Bosmac will still be selling many of our well-known quality products manufactured outside our workshop. James and the team will be assembling these and have them available for sale. However, our own in-house manufactured products will no longer be available.

James and the team will also be sourcing new quality products to service our customers’ needs from local and overseas suppliers. Bosmac is now also a local supplier of BOC and ELGAS gas agencies.