For those of you who weren’t able to attend last Monday’s meeting, you missed an inspiring talk by Marty Edwards.
Early in his career, Marty was a Clearance Diving Officer with the Royal Australian Navy. This elite position put him into some very interesting, and dangerous, situations involving the disposal of unexploded ordnance. He even escaped unscathed from a helicopter crash in Guam.
What a devastating shock it must have been for him to be diagnosed, at age 41, with Parkinson’s Disease. He underwent surgery for Deep Brain Stimulation in order to try to stabilize the effects of the condition. He showed us some rather graphic slides of the procedure which involves placing electrodes deep within the brain. This is carried out with the patient fully conscious!
He then returned to the family vineyard (The Lane, near Hahndorf) where he had been producing fine wines for 19 years before becoming an independent wine consultant and Director of his own special brand, Silver Lining. We were grateful to have some bottles for sampling at our meeting.
Several you have asked for a copy of his wine order form. Happy to attach a copy here! Note also that he generously donates a potion of the proceeds of sales to Parkinson’s research in Australia.
From this brief encounter with Marty, I was amazed at his sense of humour and optimism.
A brave man!
On Tuesday, I was invited to give a talk on Leadership at the Heathfield High School together with Bernadette Reading from The Hut Community Centre (L) and Rebekha Sharkie MP (R).
The students were from year 8 and are involved in our Interact Group at the school. I was pleasantly surprised by their knowledge and enthusiasm and several have already volunteered to support our SAFD! Greg will take this further.
On Thursday, Pauline and I spent a pleasant, if messy, couple of hours potting plants and cuttings for a project to help with gardens devastated by the recent bushfires.
Pauline has circulated some ideas about how you can help out with this project such as by contributing unused plastic pots (all sizes) and bits of plastic or metal which could be used for labelling the plants. Anything in your garden you want to get rid of (including the dreaded Aggies) would be wonderful. You can even just fill a fill a styrofoam box or two with them! Please do your best to help out.
The next "gardening bee" is at Pauline's on Wednesday morning from 10-12.
In view of our rather limited income sources at the moment, Pauline and her committees have also circulated a list of other useful projects that involve very little actual cost. These can only succeed with your active participation.
As you are probably aware, we shall be visited by District Governor David Jones and his wife Lyn on Monday 14th September. I hope for a good turnout for this important evening.
Stay safe.
Neil
Rachael Meade
Join us next week to meet Rachel Meade, a local poet and author who has just released her first novel, Application of Pressure featuring stories based on real incidents experienced by members of the SA Ambulance Service.