Bluebird Early Education Parkes recently opened our doors to offer care for children from nursery, toddler, pre-kindergarten to preschool age. The preschool class for children aged four to five has Chelsea Neems as their teacher.

Chelsea has a Bachelors of Teaching and more than 15 years of experience. She is there five days per week to work closely with pre-school families in the transition to school process. “In preparation for school we are working on social skills, gross motor skills, pre numeracy and literacy experiences, self-help skills and looking after our belongings,” said Chelsea; “We include lots of excursions around the community in the daily program of our transition group. We often make biscuits to take to nursing homes, the Police and other community workers.”

Another project staff focus on is friendship and what it entails: appropriate ways of expressing emotions, ways of building positive relationships, discussing personal qualities in each of us, and social and emotional wellbeing.

In providing an excellent and engaging early childhood education experience, the Bluebird Parkes centre has stimulating indoor and outdoor learning environments, and applies an engaging, playbased early learning program that focuses on successful learning for life skills.

The team have a bus to offer a pick up and drop off service; all nappies are provided, as well as meals. Just like
the bluebird, Bluebird Early Learning continuously reach for the sky. The staff look forward to helping your child’s greatest potential take flight.

The six giants came and they conquered thousands last Saturday at Parkes Showground. More than 2,500 people braved the cold weather for the first Ultimate Monster Action show to be held in Parkes. The seriousness of the day’s voting soon evaporated with the spectacular after burn mode of the jet car. “The crowd was wowed by the jet car fitted with a helicopter jet engine,” said Professional Monster Truck driver and part owner, Troy Garcia.

Bennie the Clown had the children in stitches with his attempts to ride or climb on everything out of bounds for him. Country music star Adam Brand, who hosted the show, had to enlist help from the children to keep an eye on Benny’s antics. Benny did manage to get into the Old Skool monster truck and performed some stunts. This
truck is one of the original monster trucks built 40 years ago in the United States to crush cars.

When it came to the action stunts, a monster truck flying three to four metres through the air and crashing down on old car wrecks, sent tingles down many spines. But it was the motocross bikers doing backflips that had everyone holding their breath. “It was the best of the night,” a young spectator summed it up. Troy said it was a bit touch and go for the bikers. “They still did the backflips, which is their most difficult stunt, but the wet weather made it harder to do.”

The show ended on a high with a stunning firework show. Troy had lots of positive reaction to the show. “The Show Society was rapped. They were worried about the grounds getting messed up with the trucks as the annual show is not too far away, but it was all good.”

Troy said they planned to be back in Parkes every couple of years.

Meals on Wheels now have two new faces, Fiona Graham and Gillian Kinsela, to help ensure this vital service keeps on meeting the needs of the Parkes community. Fiona is the new service manager and Gillian has joined as an administration support to help Deborah Wren.

Fiona assured all families and clients that the service would continue as normal and made a call to any new volunteers to join this organisation that is at the heart of the community in Parkes and the villages of Peak Hill, Bogan Gate, Tullamore and Trundle. Fiona recently moved back from Gundagai and is looking forward to this new experience. “I love Parkes and the community. The role brings something different every day while we make a difference in people’s lives. Meals on Wheels represent helping hands, teamwork and looking out for each other.”

Volunteers do not only deliver a meal to clients, but also fulfil a monitoring role. They receive a lot of training to be able to recognise changes in clients. “This gives families peace of mind,” said Fiona. In Parkes an average of 45 meals are delivered per day. The meals are cooked at the RSL. About 25 clients in the villages have a wide selection of frozen meals to choose from, while Parkes clients also receive frozen meals for weekends.

According to Susan Terry, Network Support Consultant for the Western region based in Sydney, the Parkes service is very unique as it includes the villages too. She said the 160 volunteers in Parkes were doing an amazing job. “They are the back bone of the service.” Volunteers work in pairs and can choose how often they would like to work. Fiona welcomed everyone, whether a new client or volunteer, to visit the office at Neighborhood Central.

By Maggi Barnard

GWS Personnel began in Parkes in 1994. After opening more branches in Dubbo and Orange in 1996 and Bathurst and Wagga Wagga in 2006 they made the strategic decision to be a foundation partner in Spinifex Australia in 2012. In this merger Peter O’Donnell became Chairman of the Board for the group.

In August the Spinifex group plans to launch one, combined business that will offer services across New South Wales, with nine offices and a team of 50 behind the scenes. Spinifex have eight business service lines that they specialise in recruitment for; executive search, mining, government, local Councils, business support, industrial temp, IT and traffic control.

The local team at Parkes are as follows…
Damien O’Donnell, part of the group executive with the MD runs the country section of Spinifex. Katie Mapperson, the offices longest term employee, is the group conduit for IR Advice. Kris Kent has completed a secondment as acting Regional Manager in Northern NSW, the groups Byron Bay office and has now returned to lead the Parkes team in the Western Region. Phil Cartwright, is instrumental in the group IT and systems, having recently co ordinated the successful implementation of industry best cloud based software and infrastructure across NSW and Wendy Cheney, has been in the business for many years, bringing a wealth of experience to the group and has performed functions across the whole company. Wendy now leads admin including RTW.

For more information on any of the services the Spinifex group provide, give them a call on 6862 6061.

Bogan Gate Public School has been recognised with the second highest award, a Platinum Award, from Stewart House for fund raising efforts in 2015. They were one of only ten schools across the state to receive this award. Students from Bogan Gate are now aiming for the highest award, a Diamond Award, and hope to achieve this in the next three years.

Stewart House in Sydney provides a residential program for public school students. It gives children opportunities to participate in a great variety of experiences not usually available to them. As well as participating in educational programs, students are also provided with dental, optometric and medical assessments and urgent treatment.

Carefully planned activities encourage and promote respect for self and others, develop positive learning behaviour and social skills as well as behaviour that supports healthy living. Students take part in constructive learning activities and experiences which include Sydney Harbour Bridge Walk, Crab Hunting, City Tour, a trip on a Sydney ferry and Taronga Zoo and Aquarium visits.

For almost 40 years, the Mudgee Small Farm Field Days has been putting people living on the land in touch with the latest information, best practices and hundreds of exhibitors. Small farms, hobby farms, tree changers and small family holdings have been a focus, as it is often these ‘new chums’ that need a ‘leg up’ in dealing with all those things that need doing on the land, be it fencing, rain water storage, choosing livestock, machinery and implements or a robot drone to go fetch the sheep.

Equestrian activities have been growing in popularity at the event, reflecting how horses are increasingly the focus of many rural holdings. Come to the new display areas and enjoy talks from presenters such as Mark Langley and Merje Summiloff who will talk about horse starting and equine psychology. Events this year include three times a day fashion parades, displays from craftsmen such as Roy Davi the Leura bodger and a new permanent feature, the Festival of Yesteryear, a celebration of how things were done in the good old days. The Founders Pavilion is also packed with gourmet treats, private schools, health and home wares to satisfy the neediest shopper. See you at the Mudgee Small Farm Field Days 15th and 16th July, for more information see www.mudgeefielddays.com.au

This October community members across the Parkes region are invited to come together at the sixth Parkes and District Relay for Life. The event, held over the weekend of the 22nd and 23rd October, is a time to remember loved ones, celebrate survival and fight back against cancer. Participants will give back in honour of their own personal cancer journey by walking or running continuous laps of a track as part of a relay team of 10–15 people. Cancer doesn’t sleep, and in recognition of that simple fact, the teams camp out around the relay track for the overnight experience, with one member from each team encouraged to be on the track at all times.

For those not busy walking there is food, games and activities to provide entertainment and build camaraderie. In the Western NSW Region alone, it is predicted that by the end of 2016 over 1,818 people will be diagnosed with cancer, with over 582 deaths expected. Relay for Life gives the opportunity for close-knit communities to come together, walk for hope and give back in honour of all those in their area affected by cancer.

This year Relay for Life hopes to raise $6.9million through events across NSW. Since the inaugural event in 2006, Parkes has raised a massive $240,685. Relay for Life fundraising helps Cancer Council NSW fund vital cancer research that will improve treatment and diagnosis for cancer patients across Australia. It also provides funds for support programs that connect patients and carers around the country as well as advocacy initiatives and prevention programs that help reduce the risk of cancer in our communities.

With around 200 relays being held annually across Australia, Cancer Council’s Relay for Life ranks third globally amongst the 24 relay nations, putting the event at the forefront of the global fight against cancer. To register a team for your local Relay for Life event, or to donate, visit: www.relayforlife.com.au

Northparkes Mines (NPM) volunteers have planted more than a quarter of the total 9,000 plants put in so far at PAC Park. The community effort to revegetate the banks of the wetland with 15,000 plants by spring is progressing well with about 4,300 planted by NPM volunteers.

Under the Northparkes Mines Volunteer Leave Program, employees are encouraged to do two volunteer days per year. Linda Snyman, who organised ten employees of the mining operations technical services team to do a planting session last week, said they wanted to do something physically challenging. “I would also like to see the area beautified and used by the community,” Linda said.

Other community groups involved so far include Parkes High School, Parkes Christian School, Currajong Disability Services, House With No Steps (Lachlan Branch) and the Motley Crew of Central West Lachlan Landcare. “The efforts of all volunteers on this project has been fantastic, and it’s especially great that the NPM Volunteer Leave Program were keen to contribute their valuable time to this project for two separate planting days,” said Michael Chambers, Environmental and Sustainability Coordinator of the Parkes Shire Council.

Managed by Parkes Shire Council, the PAC Park project aims to rejuvenate the waterway and the entire park. It is hoped that establishing strong partnerships with community and school groups they would engage community members and encourage a sense of ownership over the area. Funding for the project was provided through three different NSW Government agencies including the Local Government NSW ‘Building Resilience to Climate Change’ program and the Central West Local Land Services ‘Natural Resource Management for Local Government’ program.

Any school or community group interested in doing some planting would be greatly welcomed by Michael. Please contact him at the Parkes Shire Council on 6861 2349.

By Maggi Barnard