Members, what a great turnout to 18eightyseven on such a cold dry morning .. not an umbrella or
Driazabone in sight.
Hugh Christian our young Guest of Rotarian [Dad] Nick, and pleased to see our cluster AG Greg Noonan.
A nervous few minutes as the Chairman Stand Hendy looked to George and then, Past President
Paul Henderson arrived, to act as our President.
Stan’s Toast was to those rural folk experiencing a wet drought and doing it tough.
A sergeant would have fined Liz Commadeur for being an excellent Welcoming Rotarian, and then,
forgetting to pay the cashier.
And, George searching for our banner last week, for the photo shoot below, was advised by Ronnie
that he was looking in the wrong place.
Bendigo Addy sold out today .. George’s photo in the sports section donating our $2,000.00 to AFL India.
Credit to Bendigo Advertiser, promptly emailed today:
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Our man in Berlin, Kevin Reade, brought back some images from INNOTRANS to prove that
he was not at OktoberFest:
{Ray Carrington and our guest speaker both taught Readey at White Hills Tech}
Guest Speaker James Lerk is well known to readers of THE WEEKLY, as author of Discover Bendigo.
Born in the Dutch province of Friesland, his family migrated to Australia and found their way to Bendigo by 1954, via Rennie NSW and Yarrawonga,
A dyed in the wool Bendigonian, he earned his stripes at Camp Hill PS, Junior Tech and the School of Mines Art School.
The Netherlands captured his expertise at a design studio for two years, and then, teacher training in Australia, to rural Tech schools.
Seconded to Bendigo Trust to develop educational and historical displays, he found his raison d’etre for twenty years.
Today, he rather shocked us by stating that Bendigo has no water supply, as Eppalock weir roars and Rochester trembles.
Only to lead us into an entertaining and fascinating account of the development of our present water supply:
Our goldfields could not survive, especially when miners wanted water for sluicing, on the trickles and puddles in the Bendigo,
Sheepwash and Bullock creeks.
Ambitious businessmen lost their coin attempting to have gold retrieved from water infrastructure diggings pay for that venture.
A one armed Thomas Hustler, seeking water investors for his new crushing plant sold out eventually to two venture capitalists who literally hit gold.
The, along came the astute Melbourne to the Murray River railway surveyor, Joseph Brady, well aware of the topography,
realising that damming the Coliban River at Malmsbury and digging water races, tracking the contours, would engage the interest of lower country,
thirsty Bendigo miners.
However, he had to wait for one Angus Mckay, entrepreneurial campaigner and editor of the Addy, and thence State Minister for Mines:
This bloke talked the Premier into including Water in the portfolio, and after a wee hiccough fixing a leaking Malmsbury Dam wall, Bendigo
celebrated in style as the liquid gold flushed into town.
Bendigo could rise to the engineering challenges of the reticulation system. Imagine Roberts Foundry, fire, smoke, soot,
ash, heavy industry, and the clip clop of draught horses, on the corner of Wills and Mitchell Streets.
Strath Shire were rather on the dry fringe and agitated for a secondary Upper Coliban Dam. The “Grassy Flat” creek name did not meet
the proprietary of the era, hence “Kennington” Reservoir.
Latterly Rob Hunt twitched nervously in his Bendigo & Adelaide bank office as we eked down to six weeks water for CoGB.
And a Don Erskine pointed out the obvious: Drop a pipeline into the Goulburn system. Few polis pinched his idea and now we’re online.
Next week is RIDE TO WORK DAY … 07:00 for 07:30 Meeting in Hargreaves Mall .
James Lerk.....
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