Well, we have survived “Straya” Day despite the near 40-degree heat! We again had a presence at the Berrima event, mainly thanks to the organisational input from Geri Gardiner with a little help from your truly.  We adopted a lower profile this year as we did not have the ShelterBox tent and we did not take on the face-painting role that we had last year.  Instead we were kindly offered a donation from the event organisers so that we did not compete with the professional face-painter who attended this year.  Geri was very pleased not to have to do this activity for some reason!

 

The event itself really suffered from the heat and the crowds were markedly down from last year.  This was reflected in the much lower number of people taking advantage of our cold watermelon, iced water and Australian Flag tattoos.  However, some money was raised for Club good works and it was positive that we were there.  We had been tasked by Council to gather comments and email addresses from those who are interested in the Marketplace playground upgrade.  However, despite having a photo display of the likely equipment and a number of signs around the park advertising our involvement, we garnered little interest from the public. I am not sure whether this is a good sign or not, but may have been because we were located well away from the existing playground this year (bumped by a children’s “carnie” set-up which is hard to argue with) and/or there were very few local residents attending.

 

All in all, I think it was worth the effort and I am hopeful we will continue to do it on an annual basis (that may depend on the future frequency of heatwaves!).  As usual, our involvement would not have been possible without the valued assistance of a number of members. Geri’s husband, Cal, was a great help in fetching and carrying the various items for the food and drink and in participating in the breakdown, and Allen Cupitt and Chris Webb also assisted by setting up our marquee the day before.  It was also an added bonus to have Chris Webb (again), Richard Krohn and Min Aistrope helping on the stand.  Finally, I would like to give a shout-out to those other members who advised me they would have attended if they had not had competing commitments on the day.

 

Please find below a couple of photos of the event:

 

 

 

It was nine years ago that MAFO shipped its first container to Fiji, full of hospital beds donated by Southern Highlands Private Hospital. More shipments followed over the next two years and in 2013 our Club signed an MOU with Ramsay, under which the health care provider agreed to donate surplus equipment from its 60-odd hospitals around Australia on a regular basis to our MAFO project.

Since then the scope of the project has grown enormously. Last year 25 consignments were shipped, seven of them direct shipments organised from start to finish by MAFO. The remainder were donated mostly to other RAWCS projects in all regions. All shipments combined helped to fill 22 shipping containers and one air freight consignment.

 

The cost of the direct shipments was approximately $16,000 with another $5,500 spent on contributions to other shipments and local transport costs.

 

Destinations during the year for both direct and indirect shipments included PNG, Samoa, Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, East Timor, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

 

Supplies donated by Ramsay Health Care included some 500 beds, an ENT microscope, operating theatre table and equipment, birthing kits, wheelchairs and medical consumables.

Donating hospitals included Southern Highlands, Thirroul, Lawrence Hargrave, Wollongong, Mount Wilga, Westmead and Hunters Hill (NSW); Glenferrie (Vic), Greenslopes (Qld), and Glengarry (WA).

 

We could not manage the distribution of Australia-wide donations without the assistance of DIK facilities in all RAWCS regions. Northern Region In particular, because of its proximity to our Ramsay corporate office and the huge Greenslopes Private Hospital, has accepted many donations over the years. Northern Region is a formidable shipper with 16 x 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) sent overseas since July last year and four TEUs already planned for February.