Parkes will get into the Christmas spirit on Friday, 2nd December when the Christmas Parade returns to the town’s streets after an absence of three years. “Back by popular demand,” said Peter Guppy of the Action Club, the organisers of the event. The Parade will start at 6pm and will be followed by the Parkes Upmarkets and Christmas Movie Night in Cooke Park. The Parkes Lights Up event when the Christmas light show will be turned on, will take place on the same day.

The Action Club invites all school children to dress up in their Christmas clothes, as well as businesses to dress and enter a float into the parade. The floats must be decorated in a Christmas theme. Entries must be received no
later than Friday, 25th November. “Let us get together to make this parade one to remember and an occasion our Parkes families will look forward to in years to come,” said Peter.

The parade will start from Cecil Street onto Short Street, up Clarinda Street and down Welcome Street. Peter said the idea was not to close Clarinda Street so as to allow businesses to carry on as usual. Address all Parade enquiries to parkesactionclub@gmail.com or 0448 166 016, and all Upmarkets enquiries to parkesupmarkets@hotmail.com.au or chamber@parkeschamber.com.au

Aurora College, the state’s first virtual secondary school, is a new and unique option for students in government schools in NSW. To be eligible for enrolment, students must also be in a NSW Government school classified as rural and remote. Aurora offers selective classes in English, Mathematics and Science to gifted and talented Year 7-10 students. Students are chosen in the same way as students in all other selective classes in NSW government schools.

The college also gives Stage 6 high school students the opportunity to study subjects not available in their school
Aurora provides a mix of online and residential school classes twice per year. Students connect with their teachers and classmates through a virtual learning environment comprising of web conferencing software, a learning management system, and a range of cutting-edge online communication and collaboration tools.

Aurora has a strong science and mathematics focus. Mentoring opportunities and master classes are key features of the learning experience. They offer students expanded career options through innovative partnerships with business and with scientific, cultural and tertiary education institutions. Call 9886 7560 if you have questions
or visit www.aurora.nsw.edu.au.

The Northparkes Mines Emergency Rescue Team (ERT) won three events at the Victorian Mine Rescue Competition in Bendigo last weekend. The national competition was held for the 23rd year and attracts teams from mines
across Australia. Northparkes came first in fire, ropes and theory, and second in first aid.

The team was also ranked first for safety across the three days and team captain Jamie Pope was placed third for his leadership during the competition. Other members of the 2016 Northparkes team were Travis Beaton, Wayne Logan,
Linda Snyman, Jack Medlyn, Mat Allan and Brooke Lees. Northparkes Managing Director Stefanie Loader said: “Our consistent success at this competition reflects the team’s hard work to stay at the leading edge of emergency response practices. We are enormously proud of our competition team, only three of whom had competed before.

“Our congratulations go to the winning team from Evolution Mining. It’s great to see another company operating in NSW’s Central West bring home the trophy,” Stefanie said. This year’s competition took place in the Bendigo region at Newmarket Gold’s Fosterville Gold Mine. Teams competed in a number of challenges demonstrating theoretical
and practical mine rescue skills.

Northparkes Manager People, Safety and Environment, Angus Wyllie said: “Zero harm operations is our approach to all we do, and our ability to respond to emergency scenarios is a critical part of this. Competitions such as this allow us to practice our skills and benchmark ourselves against others in the industry. It’s great to know that our ERT is always ready to assist us and others in times of need. “ Northparkes has sent its Emergency Response Team to the competition for the past 20 years, and was named overall winner in 2009, 2014 and 2015.

It’s not often that you are given an opportunity of a lifetime twice, but local vocal trio Amitie are once again preparing for this year’s Rock The Boat cruise. The ladies were both thrilled and extremely proud to be asked by the promotors to return this year as part of the entertainment line up on Rock The Boat 6. “We worked very hard in the lead up to last year’s cruise and we received some amazing feedback from both the audience and the other artists,”
said the trio.

Christie, Shev and Christa have been in rehearsal mode for over three months, meeting weekly in a backyard shed, fine tuning their performance as well as adding in new material to go with this year’s cruise theme. Rock The Boat 6: A Salute to the Sixties, sails on 6th November from Brisbane on Royal Caribbean’s cruise ship Legend of the Seas. A seven night Rock ‘n Roll festival on the South Pacific stopping at the glorious Isle of Pines and Lifou along the way. This year’s cruise boasts the biggest international lineup of headline artists ever assembled on Rock The Boat. These legendary acts from the UK and USA, come from what many consider to be the golden age of Rock ‘n Roll. Acts include Chubby Checker, Gary Puckett and The Union Gap, The Fortunes, The Searchers, The Troggs, Brian Poole and Chip Hawkes, P J Proby, Badfinger, and The Pacemakers – all hosted by Glenn A Baker.

Amitie will perform daily throughout the cruise in various venues around the ship. When not performing they are treated as guests. Once Amitie return to Parkes they will go straight into preparations for the 2017 Elvis Festival. They will be performing throughout the festival period. Follow Amitie on Facebook for details.
By Shevaun Brown

“Each morning I have to hobble to the toilet because I get a sharp pain in my heel when I walk. It settles after a while and feels like I am walking on a bruise.” Is this you? Plantar Fasciitis is the most common cause of heel pain. According to research, 80% of all cases of Plantar Fasciitis show spontaneous improvement within 12 months. This means that if you are prepared to suffer the pain for the next year, you have an 80% chance of improvement. If you want to be a little more proactive there are a few things you can do.

The plantar fascia is a thick fibrous band of tissue that fans from the heel to the base of each toe. It helps to support the arch of the foot. Plantar Fasciitis strikes when degenerative changes occur in the fascia where it attaches to the heel. It is sometimes associated with bony heel spurs however the spurs themselves do not cause pain.

The cause of Plantar Fasciitis is often multifactorial and may include any combination of; stiff ankle joints, low arches, high arches, weak foot muscles, poor footwear or increased load due to weight gain or prolonged periods of standing. Self-treatment for this problem should involve massage to the foot arch and gentle calf stretches before rising each morning, strengthening exercises for the intrinsic muscles in the foot, a temporary decrease
in training and a gradual return to sport when it is no longer painful to walk. In addition any biomechanical issues present in the lower limbs should be addressed to prevent recurrence.

“For the fitness of you”
Linda Reilly

The Central West Car Club got plenty of engines revving at their Annual Show and Shine on Saturday. Almost 200 cars from all vintages were on display, with some coming from as far as Ipswich for the 12th annual charity event.
The impressive variety of motors in the show included vans, utes, hot-rods, motorcycles, vintage service vehicles, and even a lawn mower collection. Some attendees were impressed by the creatively restored panel vans on display,
which featured luxurious bar and bed options, a gaming room, or air-brushed murals on the panels.

Others were taken by the rare vintage cars that were in show-room quality, such as the 1915 Model T Ford owned by Brian and Alicia Day, or Simon Holland’s 1933 Plymouth Coupe, which is believed to be the only one in Australia.
Even with so many beautifully restored cars, the old rust-coated work-trucks won quite a few hearts.

Mick Beuzeville demonstrated his 1949 Orchard Crawler, a tidy little tractor that ploughs between trees, and his 1948 tractor that is started with a shot-gun cartridge. There were 55 trophies awarded for different categories. The Car of the Show was won by Rod Goodsell’s 1956 FE Holden, which also claimed the Aiden Ashcroft Memorial Award. Dwayne Boan’s 2012 Harley Davidson Fatboy won the Bike of the Show.

The real winner was CanAssist. Rodney Barnes, President of the Central West Car Club, said that once the finances are tallied up he expects they will donate in excess of $9,000 to the charity. Photos of event on page 10.

By Raen Fraser

The St.George branch in Parkes will be closing its doors next month and its operations amalgamated with the St.George Forbes branch. The existing Parkes Branch Manager, Andrew Kerr, will be based at Forbes full time. It is not yet clear what the future will be for staff members. “We’re currently having discussions with our staff about redeployment opportunities,” said a spokesperson of St George.

The reason for the closure is that fewer customers are visiting the Parkes branch with a steady decline in over-the-counter transactions as more people choose to use digital banking channels. “Today only five per cent of customer
transactions take place over-the-counter at a branch,” said the spokesperson. “In many regional communities the number of transactions taking place is as low as three per cent.

“It’s for this reason that we are changing the way we provide banking services to our customers in Parkes, and why we have made the difficult decision to close our branch. We wish for the Parkes community, including local businesses and our customers, to know that the decision to close the branch was not made lightly.”

The spokesperson said locals who can’t get to Forbes, Bank@Post was a great face-to-face banking option in Parkes to make deposits and withdrawals, account balance queries and bill payments. “Customers can also access their banking 24/7 through our Internet, mobile and phone banking services, and withdraw cash free from the Westpac ATM at 270 Clarinda St, Parkes.”