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National Healthy Bones Week, 1-7 August 2010, provides a wonderful reminder that consuming three serves of dairy, such as milk, cheese and yogurt every day helps build and maintain strong, healthy bones whether you are a child, teenager, parent or grandparent. National Healthy Bones Week is a joint initiative between Dairy Australia and Osteoporosis Australia to highlight the important role of calcium rich foods in the development and maintenance of healthy bones and prevention of osteoporosis. According to the Children’s National Nutrition Survey conducted during 2007, the majority of Australian children do not consume enough calcium. Let us try and encourage everyone to increase their calcium intake and keep healthy bones.

Harold Waldron - Community Service Award 2010

Harold Waldron is 81 years old. He came to the Bellarine Peninsula from Melbourne as a boy with his family for holidays, and moved here permanently as a young man.

Initially, Harold was busy as a builder of at least 57 houses in and around Portarlington, all with lifetime guarantees, but found many ways of contributing to the community. Maintaining his integrity has been an ongoing priority in his dealings with the public.

His service to the community includes assisting with the reconstruction of the Portarlington Pavilion, member of National Trust, Chairperson of the Committee for the opening of the Portarlington Mill, voluntary maintenance of various community facilities such as the Old Mill and the Senior Citizens Centre, involved in the Kindergarten at Portarlington, member of the Bellarine Historical Society for 25 years, supervised the construction of the Parks Hall at Portarlington and a member of the Alcoa Community Consultation Committee.

Harold is the current leader of the SpringDale Pole Walking Club. He has managed to rejuvenate the enthusiasm of the group, and has actively recruited new members to swell the ranks. He also successfully completed a First Aid Course in 2009 to fulfill the legal requirement of leading such a multi-aged group. He swims and rides his bike following a double knee replacement. As if this wasn’t impressive enough, Harold’s unfailing friendliness, cheerfulness and encouragement, humour and interest brightens people’s day. He has plenty to occupy his time at home, but prefers to spend productive time with people. He is only happy if he is helping someone.

Lucky us. Thank you Harold.

Dear Friends

It’s hard to know what to highlight this month as so many things have happened. You might have noticed our new door at the west end of the building. This door will allow for better egress during the day and allow this room to be accessed in the evening by groups for meetings or trainings without affecting other users of the building.

An event sign has been installed near High Street. This sign will allow us to promote events, classes, groups, facilities, meetings and even good messages. We thank the Bendigo Bank for providing the funds for the sign and also for their patience as this project has taken 3 years to come to fruition. Thanks also to the Community Development department of City of Greater Geelong for their assistance in supporting us through to the completion of this project.

We are working on the Business and Services Directory again, which will be delivered in late November this year. If you are a new business or an existing one that would like to be in the new Business and Services Directory please ring SpringDale to have a form sent out to you. If you are a club or a group who would like to be included in the directory please ring SpringDale for a form.

Our last Business Breakfast was well attended and it was great to have Keilly from the Business Development unit of City of Greater Geelong. She shared with us information about businesses in the Geelong area. She also spoke about the World Cycling race in Geelong in September/October this year and the opportunities and the challenges that will be faced during this period. We look forward to the next Breakfast Meeting on 23 August and hope you might be able to place that date in your diary.

The Adrian Mannix Community Service Award dinner was well attended by 96 people and went very smoothly again this year. Jonathan Harris, President of SpringDale Neighbourhood Centre, hosted the evening and Councillor Rod MacDonald presented the trophy to Harold Waldron. This annual event helps to strengthen the partnerships between the Lions Club of Portarlington/Drysdale, the Rotary Club of Drysdale and SpringDale Neighbourhood Centre. We thank Claude Stanley and Wayne Myers, who were both nominated this year, for attending the dinner and for the thousands of hours of service that they have given to our community.

Congratulations to our Homework Group for gaining a grant of $2,500 from Youth Foundations Victoria to help provide resources for the program. On any Wednesday evening there can be up to 14 students from years 7 to 10 having small group or one to one tuition from our volunteer teachers and community members. We would appreciate help from other patient, caring, skilled community members who would like to help our young people gain confidence in their studies. Please ring SpringDale to arrange an interview.

We also gained a grant from NEC to provide an Internet Kiosk, which means that use of these computers will be free for the next 12 months and the computers are so much better than what we have had there in the past.

Lastly, I’d like to mention another SpringDale initiative. We have scheduled a couple of sessions to help organisations and clubs to be able to write grant applications and to have the documentation to support the whole process. We have scheduled these sessions for two Sundays in August, the 8th and 22nd, from 1pm to 4pm. Hoping that representatives from each group will be able to attend.

Hoping to see you at SpringDale soon.
Warm regards
Anne Brackley for the SpringDale Team.

2 sessions Sunday 8 & 22 August 1pm – 4pm for all Community Groups and Sporting Clubs.

How to write effective grants and create a strategic plan to support the grant application. For more information phone SpringDale Neighbourhood Centre (03) 5253 1960