 Just letting you know we finished up with 112mm of rain across nine days with the cloud lifting and the sun coming out last Friday. Haven’t seen rain like that for years. The biggest fall was 65mm starting late afternoon last Tuesday and going through the night. Not drought breaking but it has boosted spirits because the outlook from the experts wasn’t and still isn’t that positive. We were on the edge of the system and until the 65mm arrived we were looking at a pretty meagre total. Still as always happens it doesn’t rain everywhere and a big part of our patch measured nil or nothing useful; mainly to the south-east and east and just to the north. Our enjoyment of the rain is tempered by the utter devastation and staggering stock losses on properties to the north and west of us. Some more rain might turn up for us and we have about two months for it to rain and grow enough feed to get stock through the year. The Tuesday we got the 65mm we had just finished batching up over 500 debit cards loaded with $999 ready to be sent to farmers in the seven shires in Rotary District 9570 (from) support under the Federal (Government's) Drought Communities Support Initiative. We should get another $500k of Federal Govt money at the end of the month. I volunteer with Western Qld Drought Committee and we had a study done to look at a whole host of things, and one of the findings was that outside money coming in to our region can have a multiplier effect up to seven times. We sent the Belvoir-Wodonga Movie Trailer back about a fortnight ago. The Burrumbuttock Hayrunners came to Quilpie so one of our members towed the trailer to Quilpie and it was kindly back loaded to Wodonga. We have our own trailer now. We will wait and see what happens with the wet and then plan our response. Every year we support each Show Society in the region with a donation towards the cost of running the show. Sponsorship is tight so we are sending cheques out a little earlier this year. Thanks for your ongoing support and fingers crossed for more rain. Damian Arthur Longreach Rotary" Damian subsequently advised that the club received $500,000 under the Rotary/NFF/Chanel 9 programme which was distributed before Xmas according to the recipient guidelines laid down under the programme. The government funding is also subject to recipient guidelines and accountability. Despite these valuable funds Damian advises that they still need some regular funds for activities that don’t qualify under the above mentioned programmes such as their movie trailer nights , community functions and youth programmes etc so if clubs have any funds left over in their budgets for the current year any donations to RC Longreach Activities Account CBA BSB 064706 a/no 00903648 would I am sure be greatly appreciated. The work that RC Longreach has done in the district over the last few years in the face of a major disaster is truly inspirational and I am sure will continue to be so. |
Around the world, 25 April is declared as World Malaria Day. Here in Australia, because of Anzac Day, this day has been moved to 30 April. 
