This Week’s Guest Speaker – Alan Wickes: The Second Storey Man Aussie Rules Football has been the driving force behind Alan’s life and he combined this with his passion to support his local community. Alan has played a key role in every aspect of the game – a player in the local Frankston Football league all the way through to a player at Collingwood (1958 – 61), a Coach of the Millennium at Seaford Football Club and an administrator as President of the F & DJFL and the way up to the President of the VFA. I would appear he lived everybody’s childhood dream when comes to a job! Alan spoke to us about the importance of junior sporting clubs. He believes they have evolved from a body that taught a sport and provided an environment for them to have fun into a key development tool for turning young people into responsible and positive citizens, and active community members. It was interesting to hear that the Mt Eliza Junior Football Club is the largest junior sporting club in Australia with 37 teams and over 2500 people involved. Alan took the view that junior sporting clubs have a large role to play in developing the culture and community spirit of young people. He went further and suggested that these clubs have a lot to offer other community organizations such as Rotary. We don’t need to support them so much, as the AFL is committed to Junior Clubs as the source of players for the AFL. Alan believes that Junior Sports Clubs can/will be the source of future Rotarians and members of other community organizations if we can plant the seed and build partnerships now. Alan also explained a bit about funding of sport infrastructure. Unfortunately, the AFL tends not to support senior clubs as they have little to offer the AFL. A bit short sighted! The money from all levels of government tends to be politically motivated and spent on facilities and grounds that have junior clubs attached. If anything, community organizations need to rally around the senior clubs and help them. Alan pointed highlighted this with an example of the flood effected clubs in the north of the state. There has been little help for them other than the efforts of local community groups. It is ironic in a way that the sporting clubs are the rallying points for all towns/communities in times of natural disaster yet may miss out in funding when disaster strikes them. Alan finished by explaining /offering his book, The Second Storey Man as a history of his life involved in the game and the development of his ideas that modern sporting clubs are now a key component in the development of young boys in girls. . I am sure those of us that follow Aussie Rules would be most fascinated in learning about the history of the code in that period between the late 60’s to the new century where everything changed as explained in Alan’s book. Thanks to Jim Young for inviting his friend Alan to speak with us, we were lucky to have him as our Guest Speaker Three Minute Speaker – Jim Voss on Nuclear Waste wrt nuclear submarines. Jim Voss gave us an excellent overview of the nuclear waste produced by the proposed AUKUS submarines. The waste from these subs is exactly the same as that produced from the Lucas Heights reactor in Sydney presently stored at Sandy Didge in the outback. This waste will not be produced for at least another 50 years, towards the end of the life of these submarines. The subs will also produce regularly low grade waste similar to what is produced from hospitals using radiation treatment processes and is dealt with daily throughout the country. Jim also noted that CSIRO is already planning and researching the storage of waste in preparation of the high grade waste. He did put the issue of the waste into perspective and suggested there are far larger issues to be concerned with. |
