Hervey Bay Gossip

It’s a sad indictment on the political system in this state when the only way you can get some help from the people you elect is by embarrassing them but that’s what former patients of Hervey Bay Hospital’s orthopaedic unit had to do yesterday.

While the Premier was basking in the warmth of the good feelings he had managed to generate out of the Dr Death fiasco in Bundaberg Hervey Bay’s former patients were forced to demonstrate out in the street to try and get the Premier to listen to them.

Fortunately it worked, perhaps not quite as effectively as the former patients had hoped for, but they did manage to extract some concessions from the Premier and that is definitely better than what they had before they took their grievances to Bundaberg.

Well not quite poor but we certainly are part of the happiest electorate in Australia. The Australian Wellbeing Index survey has just been released and it shows that the Wide Bay electorate is the happiest in Australia and it also happens to be one of the poorest in Australia.

Now that’s the last thing we wanted the politicians to know – that you can be happy and poor – now they’ll want everyone in Australia to be the same way.

Oh wait … with the new industrial laws we’re already half way there. Damn those pollies do move fast!

Artie Rocke is about to become one of the stars in Channel Ten’s new reality show – The Biggest Loser. A show all about losing weight.

I’m not sure that I could handle being humiliated in the way the show humiliates its ‘stars’ and I strongly doubt that I’ll be watching it. Public humiliation of people who have a weight problem is not something that I find interesting or entertaining.

Today’s Hervey Bay City Independent tells the sad story of Margaret Woolf who developed an all-natural skin care and repair cream that is just about to be launched in pharmacies across Australia.

Margaret developed the products over a number of years but died last month before she could see all her hard work come to fruition.

There are plenty of collectors here in Hervey Bay. Some people collect model trains and model cars, others collect bottles, stamps, coins and some people just collect junk.

Perhaps one of the least well-known group of collectors here in the Bay are those who collect comic books. If you’re one of those then you may be interested in a new website that has just been officially launched.

“The concept” says founder, Dave Gieber, “is to have a site with real meat and potatoes content to educated those just starting out with a comic collecting interest. I want to have an informative site for beginners and experienced alike. There are some great comic book sites on the Net, but many of them appear to be more experience oriented and not quite as content driven as what I am building. And some of the better sites, I do refer my visitors too. I am very proud of the positive comments I am receiving from my visitors and my newsletter subscribers”.

Comic Book Collection Made Easy is a source to help beginners get a collection started. There are articles on comic book protection and resources to use. Other pages contain info on how to grade your comic books in preparation for value estimation. There are also reviews on the best resources to use to estimate each comic’s monetary worth. And so far, the site owner has kept up diligent effort to comment back to all questions asked. Experienced connoisseurs of the genre are even giving positive feed back, which will be incorporated into the site.

You can find the website at http://www.comic-book-collection-made-easy.com

Last week we reported that Don Burchill had been recognised in the Australia Day honours list but Don wasn’t the only Hervey Bay resident to receive an Australia Day Award.

John Murray from the Hervey Bay campus of the USQ received a Special Commendation 2006 Certificate of Thanks for his work with students.

Megan Skidmore received the Young Citizen of the Year 2006 award for her work with various community groups.

Richard Yaxley received the Australia Day Cultural Award Senior 2006 for his cultural activities in Hervey Bay.

Samantha Robinson received the Australia Day Cultural Award Junior 2006.

Brenden Kelly received the Australia Day Sports Award Junior 2006 for his achievements in archery.

Jenny Oliver received the Australia Day Sports Award Senior 2006 for her contribution to swimming in Hervey Bay

Richard Dugdale from Pialba State School received the Australia Day Sports Administrator Award 2006 for his work at the school.

While we here in Hervey Bay were having a great old time celebrating and enjoying Australia Day spare a thought for those in the southern states who were celebrating all that it means to be Australian in another traditional way – fighting bushfires.

The vast majority of them are volunteers and without them there would be no one to fight the fires. Our volunteer brigades need your help to meet the challenge when it’s our turn to face the fire season.

Will you answer the call like a true Aussie or leave it to the next bloke?

Don Burchill has been recognised in the Australia Day honours list for his services to surf lifesaving at a state and national level.

The Hervey Bay Regional Gallery wants to hear from Fraser Coast motoring buffs who have photographs they would like to display and stories they would like to tell.

The Gallery is inviting local people to submit photographs and stories about the best or most unusual vehicle they have owned in their driving lives.

The photographs will be displayed from Australia Day through to February 18.

For further details you can contact the Gallery on 4197 4210

2005 saw the formation of the Hervey Bay Camera Club. The club meets on the second and fourth Wednesday nights of each month at 7pm at the Tavistock Centre in Tavistock Street Urangan. The club is open to film or digital photographers and the first meeting of the new year will be held on January 11.

Contact Bruce Butler on 4194 6404 for more details.