Rollingstone & District Lions Club Inc.

Hello everyone in the greater Rollingstone area and welcome to 2023. After a short Christmas Break your Lions Club is back in full swing doing what we do – supporting our Community. Already this year we have supported the Australia Day Community Awards including providing our yummy Lions Breakfast, Bunnings BBQ, planning for future Projects and Activities, liaised with the School for the School Junior Leo Program, conducted our first social monthly Brunch, held the first Rollingstone Pineapple Festival Committee meeting, supported the inaugural Animals in War commemorative event, and supported our Rollingstone Leos with their first activity of the year where they elected their new Club Leaders for 2023. Congratulations to Leo President: Marley Parker, Vice President: Jasmine Burstow, Secretary: Jarvis McMahon and Treasurer: Mia McNeil.

At our February Brunch, we farewelled John and Jan Holliday, Jeff Stark and Jackie Pownall. All have provided great support to our Club and Community, and have now decided to transfer to a Special Purpose Lions Club in Townsville which better suits their particular circumstances where they will continue their Service. We wish them well and thank them for their past efforts.

We are often asked “Who are the Lions and what do you do?” We are local Community Members who volunteer our time and effort in our local Lions Club, as part of the largest Service Club in the world. The International Association of Lions Clubs commenced in 1917 in Chicago, and has grown to 1.4 Million members in 46,000 Lions Clubs in 210 countries worldwide. We serve where we live, providing support when and where we can to help make our Community a better place in which to live.

The majority of our effort is local, however when a need arises either Globally, Nationally or across North Qld, Lions are there to answer the call. Over the years our members have supported disaster recovery efforts following Cyclone Yasi, catastrophic floods and fires, donated electric recliner chairs to locals so they can stay in their own homes following major surgery, supported local Youth programs and Community Events – the list is endless and ongoing, and as evidenced by our recent small donation to assist the victims of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria. The proceeds of our March Bunnings BBQ are also earmarked for our School’s Chaplaincy program so that we can retain the services of our Chappy Travis in Rollingstone!

We support the Environment through our recycling programs –including “Lids for Kids” where we collect plastic bottle tops which are processed in the Townsville facility into Kids playground equipment; collect eye glasses for recycling in remote Australian Communities, PNG and other Third world countries; collect used postage stamps which last year raised $60K to purchase walking frames and other medical apparatus to support Australian kiddies living with Spina Bifida and Multiple Sclerosis.

Like every other Volunteer Community Organisation, we can’t do the things we do without like-minded compassionate people who have a bit of spare time available, and who would like to make a difference in their community while at the same time have fun – knowing that their efforts are truly appreciated. Want to know more, or join us for Brunch on the 4th Sunday of each month – please give me a call, we would love to hear from you.

Michelle Ambia President 0490 338 668

Rollingstone & District Leo Club

Hello Rollingstone, and welcome all new youth to our Community. We are your local Youth Group for young people aged 13 to 18, and part of the worldwide Leo Club organisation sponsored by Lions Clubs International. Leos held their first meeting of the year on Sunday 5th Feb. and congratulations to our newly elected Club Officers for Calendar Year 2023:-

President: Marley Parker

Secretary: Jarvis McMahon

Treasurer: Mia McNeill

Vice President: Jasmine Burstow.

We also discussed our Calendar of Events with many new ideas floated. Two parents attended and also contributed ideas. We have agreed to again support the Pineapple Festival by selling water and cold drinks on behalf of the Committee. We will also sell Hot Dogs and some other Fund-raising things, as well as modelling the Festival’s Mascot “Pineapple Pete” in the Pineapple Suit. We are also planning to do our Easter Egg donation to the Childrens

Ward at the Townsville Hospital as well as the Teddy Bear Drive for Christmas, and other Fun activities including our Colour Run in November as part of our healthy lifestyle support for Diabetes Awareness. Generally we try to do a filled activity every 6 weeks or so during the year as part of our Service to our local Community.

Leos stands for Leadership, Experience and Opportunity, and with the support of our Leo Advisors (Lion Travis and Shirley), we do a mix of fun activities as well as some handson service projects. In the past, these have included fundraisers for local causes, environment clean-ups, promoting Kids healthy life style activities and the like.

It sure is great to be a Leo – if you are not yet a member of our Leo Club and would like to know how to join, please talk to Leo President Marley or any of the Leos, or contact one of our Leo Advisors:-

Travis Johnson:Mob 0439 540 552 or Shirley Muller: Mob 0458 156 646

LEOs = LEADERSHIP, EXPERIENCE, OPPORTUNITY

Visit: 86-92 Herbert Street, Ingham QLD 4850

Hi Rollingstone Readers.

It was lovely to have a short break with family and friends over the Christmas period and I hope that everyone made the most of the festive season to have a rest and also share valuable family time together.

The Hinchinbrook electorate office team and I are ready to hit the road running in 2023 with fresh energy and strong goals for the year ahead. There was no better way to get the year off to an eventful start than to resume State Parliament and I can assure you that I, and my Katter’s Australian Party (KAP) colleagues took the opportunity to fight hard for long overdue youth justice changes.

Youth crime has been at the forefront of many people’s minds recently and especially so since the most recent and shocking tragedies in Brisbane, Hervey Bay and Toowoomba. Unfortunately, the Premier didn’t believe that Queenslanders dying at the hands of children was a dire enough reason to resume parliament earlier and get the work done that could help prevent further devastating loss. The KAP has very little faith in this government and therefore prepared our own amendments to the Youth Justice Act. KAP’s amendments included: minimum sentencing, removal of detention as a last resort, provisions to allow relocation sentencing and a presumption that youth offenders be tried as adults for several prescribed crimes such as murder and rape. The KAP has listened to the community and our amendments reflected their views.

Another hot topic here in the north is the traffic congestion along sections of the Bruce Highway as you head through the Northern Beaches into Townsville. The exploding population in that area has created traffic mayhem during the morning commute into the city and frustrated residents can now have their say to urge the Transport Minister to fast-track desperately needed road infrastructure upgrades. You can have your say by signing the Parliamentary Petition before the 14th of April 2023. The petition can be found on this link: https://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/Work-of-the- Assembly/Petitions/Petition-Details?id=3861

Nick Dametto MP

Member for Hinchinbrook. We believe this petition may be of interest to you.

Mr. Dametto has been advocating for some time now for Transport and Main Roads (TMR) to fast-track upgrades to this action. We are doing all that we can to have them address this with some urgency and Mr Dametto plans to use the media and his time in parliament to keep pressuring TMR on this.

We have prepared a Parliamentary e-petition calling on the Transport Minister to commit to urgent road infrastructure upgrades and we are aiming to get a huge response to this which the Transport Minister must respond to. The petition only recently went live on Wednesday, 15 February and can be found by clicking on this link: https://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/Work-of-the-Assembly/Petitions/Petition-Details?id=3861

We encourage you to sign and share the petition with as many people as you possibly can.

Mr. Dametto is away for Parliament next week but on his return, we will be conducting a press conference to formally launch the parliamentary petition. Clearly, this won’t be an overnight solution for commuters such as yourself, but we are determined to keep up the fight and force TMR to take action. We will keep you updated on any progress.

Kind Regards,

Taneisha Girgenti | Assistant Electorate Officer Office of Nick Dametto MP Member for Hinchinbrook

P: 07 4765 4700

Visit: 86-92 Herbert Street, Ingham QLD 4850

E: hinchinbrook@parliament.qld.gov.au

Ergon Energy Network is pleased to advise that an upgrade at the Ingham zone substation has been completed and the network supplying parts of Townsville’s Northern Beaches has since been returned to its normal status after being temporarily reconfigured for safety reasons while work was underway. The equipment upgrade and the return to normal network conditions will provide normal by the Ingham zone substation and from Black River to Rollingstone.

Ergon Energy Network would like to thank the Community for their patience while these essential works were in progress late last year when a series of storm-related outages caused some disruption.

While our planned maintenance and vegetation management programs can help reduce the risk of unplanned outages, customers need to be prepared for the impact of severe weather events, like storms, cyclones and floods. We’ve created a storm kit checklist for easy reference.

Nick Dametto MP