About 8am, two Holden Commodores collided head-on along the Pacific Highway at Tabbimoble, 12km south of New Italy.

The couple, who were both aged in their 60s and travelling together in one of the Commodores, died at the scene.

The driver of the Commodore, a 17-year-old P-plater, who was travelling north and his male front-seat passenger, aged 17, were taken to Lismore Base Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

The road was closed until just before midday, while officers from the Ballina Crash Investigation Unit examined the scene.

They have taken the Commodore for mechanical examination and are also in the process of informing the couple’s next of kin.

Anyone who witnessed the crash is urged to contact investigators via Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

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Shortly after 8am, police and emergency services were called to the Pacific Highway, 15km south of New Italy.

Initial investigations suggest two vehicles crashed head-on on the highway.

As a result of the crash, two people died at the scene. Two others have been taken to hospital with serious injuries.

Investigations into the cause of the crash are continuing and a report will be prepared for the information of the Coroner.

The Pacific Highway is closed while investigations take place. Police are urging drivers to avoid the area where possible and take alternate routes.

The highway is expected to be closed for several hours. Local diversions are in place.

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The Alzheimer’s Australia NSW Memory Van is a mobile education resource that travels statewide to help raise awareness on the importance of brain health and dementia risk reduction.

The Memory Van provides communities with information designed to help educate and assist people living with dementia, their carers and health professionals.

Staff can also assist with enquiries about memory loss.

The Memory Van is fully equipped with Help Sheets, Fact Sheets, DVD and video resources and a Nintendo Brain Game.

The Alzheimer’s Australia NSW Memory Van and experienced staff will be at:

• Ballina District Community Services Association Community Centre, 20 Bangalow Rd (next to IGA) on Tuesday, 9 March, from 1.30pm – 4pm
• Mullumbimby Ex-Services Club, Dalley Street, Mullumbimby, on Wednesday, 10 March, from 1pm – 4pm
• Byron Bay Plaza carpark, Jonson Street, on Thursday, 11 March, from 2pm – 4.30pm
• Ocean Village Shopping Centre, Rajah Road, Ocean Shores, on Friday, 12 March, from 9.30am – 12.30pm

1300 new cases of dementia are diagnosed a week in Australia and 1 in 3 Australians with dementia live in NSW. Dementia is a fatal disease and there is, as yet, no cure.

The Memory Van visit has been made possible by Community Development Support Expenditure funding from the Mullumbimby Ex-Services Club.

Alzheimer’s Australia NSW is the peak body for people with dementia and their families and carers. It provides advocacy, support services, education and information.

Currently 257,000 people have dementia in Australia. This number is projected to double by 2030. 

National Dementia Helpline: 1800 100 500

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“This is especially important in times of emergency,” said Cr Jenny Dowell, president of the Northern Rivers Regional Organisation of Councils (NOROC).

“Although the new system will show roadworks and scheduled road closures on an everyday basis, it will come into its own during a flood or in other emergency event.

“It is the experience of most councils that the information people request most is ‘what roads are closed?’ and ‘how can I travel from A to B?’

“This new system will put that information at their fingertips.”

Travellers will be able to view a map of the Northern Rivers region, from Clarence Valley in the south to Tweed in the north and out to Kyogle in the west which shows ‘roads closed information’ with markers placed at the location of the closure.
This visual guide will indicate the most reliable routes for travel across the region.

The RoadInfo website, www.myroadinfo.com.au, will be launched at the NOROC meeting on Friday, 26 February at 11am.

The initial idea came up during the post-flood review conducted after the January 2008 flood.

Councils applied for and received $14,000 from the Natural Disaster Mitigation Programme courtesy of the NSW Department of Emergency Services in May 2009.

The past nine months have been spent designing and developing the website.

The development of the website has seen strong collaboration between Lismore, Ballina, Kyogle, Richmond Valley, Tweed, Byron, and Clarence Valley councils.

Cr Dowell said, “It is really good to see our Councils working together, especially to provide such a useful service. This project shows just what can be achieved by us working together.

“We have shared resources and kept the cost down to an absolute minimum. I would like to thank all the councils for their hard work.

“Giving people across the region easy access to road closure information will be a real benefit to the whole Northern Rivers community, and although during a flood people should keep their travel down to a minimum, this new website will help to keep people safe when travel is essential,” she said.

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The terms of the petition brought to the NSW Labor Government’s attention:

• That the mobile Breast Screen Units have been removed from many areas of the North Coast Area Health Service;
• This removal is disadvantaging women in these areas and reducing their chances of an early diagnosis of breast cancer due to the difficulty experienced in trying to get to a fixed screening unit;
• An early diagnosis greatly increases a woman’s chance of survival; and
• Already less than 50% of eligible women are being screened.
   
  Mr Page said it was important to keep the campaign for reinstatement of the mobile breast screening vans active because it would save lives.

“I’ve raised the issue many times in Parliament and I will continue to put this important issue before the State Labor Government,” he said.

The issue was first raised by Mr Page in March last year and the campaign to have the mobile service returned has been growing ever since.

“My office is consistently contacted by concerned residents who can no longer access the mobile breast screen service. Many of them have difficulty accessing the fixed services in Lismore or Tweed Heads due to lack of transport, work and family commitments,” Mr Page said.

One in eight Australian women will develop breast cancer, with over 12,000 women diagnosed every year. 

There is a rally today in Ballina and Byron Bay to protest against the loss of the mobile breast screen vans since June 2008. 

“Parliament is sitting, so unfortunately I can’t be there to support the rally today. I will be continuing to raise this issue in Parliament as I have this week,” Mr Page said.

Meanwhile, Greens MP Ian Cohen will ask Health Minister Carmel Tebbutt about improving access for all Northern Rivers women to the new breast screen machines that are at Tweed Heads and Lismore.

Mr Cohen supports the concerns of residents who are protesting the removal of mobile screening units that serviced Ballina, Byron Bay, Lennox Head and Casino.

Women in the area now have to go to fixed breast screening units at Lismore or Tweed Heads for a mammogram.
 
“I will be putting Questions on Notice to the Health Minister because I am concerned about a reduction of access to breast screening services,” Mr Cohen said.

“I raised this issue in Parliament during Breast Cancer Awareness Week last year. I also wrote to the Minister about the issue. She assured me then that the mobile units have been replaced by state-of-the-art breast screening machines at Lismore and Tweed Heads.
 
“I will be asking the Health Minister further questions to determine whether these new machines could be put into mobile units. Women would then have the advantage of the new technology and the increased access that the mobile unit provides.
 
“Not all women in the Northern Rivers area have a car; there is poor public transport in the area and many women will find it very difficult to get to their nearest screening centre.
 
“It is important to increase the number of women who are coming to be screened for breast cancer. I am especially concerned about women from Indigenous communities in less accessible areas such as Cabbage Tree Island, for whom travel to Lismore is quite an expedition.
 
“Local women report that when there was a van in Ballina, a mammogram was a quick examination that took around 15 minutes. Just to travel to Lismore from Ballina will take 40 minutes each way.
 
“The message of all breast cancer awareness campaigns is that early detection is of paramount importance in determining a woman’s survival and recovery from the disease.

“I will be asking the Minister if the return of the mobile BreastScreen units can provide better health outcomes for women by making screening easier to access.”

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After a very funny warm-up of the crowd by co-speaker, former Australian paceman Rodney Hogg, Richards shared his thoughts on a cricket career which saw him dubbed the Master Blaster for his aggressive and entertaining batting.

Some of it was funny, and some of it was serious.

He told how, during the apartheid years, he was offered a blank cheque to play in South Africa, which was organising rebel tours in an attempt to break an international sporting ban.

If he accepted the offer, ‘I would have to sell my soul. I’m a proud man.’

If he did accept, he was told: “You may have to become an honourary white.”

“I said, f… you,” Richards said.

“If I had gone, because of my tenaciousness, I could have been killed. Or I could have been put in that situation myself (where he would have hit back violently at the mistreatment of black South Africans).”

Richards also was offered the chance, like so many of the world’s best players, to take part in the World Series Cricket revolution which saw the introduction of one-day cricket, coloured clothing … and a good wage.

On World Series Cricket: Kerry Packer was one of the greatest things to happen to the game.

The $25,000 sign-on fee was most welcomed, but not the original choice for the West Indies’ coloured clothing.

“It was shocking pink,” Richards said.

“How can you put 6 foot 9 inch Joel Garner in pink!”

There was also the embarrassment of walking on to the field and copping a verbal shellacking from the Aussie crowd,with their taunts of ‘What’s up today sheilas’.

On the commentary of former England opening batsman Geoff Boycott:

Richards told one colleague that Boycott’s real occupation was an eye specialist.

“How do you know that?” the colleague asked.

“He’s always saying I-this and I-that,” Richards explained.

On his favourite cricketers: Whenever he was asked that question in England, he said it was Ian Chappell, because he knew how much the Poms loathed the hard-playing former Australian captain.

He also mentioned former West Indian quick bowler Malcolm Marshall: “He barked in the opposition’s back yard, and not just in his own yard.” – In reference to Marshall’s ability to take wickets in any country and on any type of wicket.

His favourite Australian fast bowler was Jeff Thomson – the most aggressive of our fast bowlers ‘but the nicest individual you could find’.

Best spinner: He didn’t play against Shane Warne, so it was another leg-spinner, the Pakistani, Abdul Qadir – a ‘very tenacious’ bowler who expected to get a wicket with every ball.

But the highest praise was for West Indian quick, the fearsome Andy Roberts. “He was the hitman of fast bowling. He ended careers.”

Richards told how during one fierce Roberts spell in England, a batsman who was next in to bat put his dentures in a glass of water. “These are pretty new and they’re not going out there,” the batsman explained.

Which batsman, from any era, would he liked to have batted with: “Rodney Hogg, if you wanted to look good.”

His most memorable moment in cricket: It was during a World Series match at Gloucester Park in Perth.

“I scored a beautiful hundred – a wonderful knock,” Richards said.

His batting partner, Roger Harper, interrupted Viv’s celebration. “Look behind you,” Harper said.

A strange thing to say, thought Viv, but he looked anyhow.

“There was this beautiful creature dressed only in her birthday suit,” Richards said.

“I thought, ‘Man, this is not cricket!’.”

The woman fronted up to Richards, held an exposed breast and said ‘Mr Richards, would you mind signing this please?’.

“So for the first time in my life, I dotted all my I’s,” Richards quipped.

PICTURES (from top): Members of the Ned Flanders Cricket Club made the trip down from Brisbane to meet one of their idols.

With Ballina ladies (from left) Lisa Diett, Helen Koellner and Tiffany Lane.

Signing an item of memorabilia purchased by John Casey, of Lennox Head.

Only too happy for a meet and greet session before speaking.

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Jodie Hewett from Ballina Shire Council said the two-hour Helping Learner Drivers Become Safer Drivers course offers parents and supervisors practical advice on how to provide effective driving practice.

“We recognise the important role parents and supervisors play,” she said.

“It’s not an easy task supervising a learner driver for at least 120 hours. They need to be alert at the same time as advising and supporting novice drivers.

“It’s a big job, so the RTA has developed this course to support and better prepare them for the role.

“The course covers topics such as how to use the Learner Driver Log Book, how to plan on-road driving sessions, dealing with difficult practice drives and the importance of giving the learner constructive feedback.

“It’s also a good opportunity to learn about current licence restrictions for novice drivers, which are vastly different from when we got our licences.

“People who have attended these courses found it boosted their confidence, helped them better plan driving sessions and allowed them to share their experiences with other parents and supervisors.”

The first workshop will be held at the Goonellabah Sports Club on Thursday, 11 March, and the second at the Ballina RSL on Thursday, 27 May, from 6.30pm to 8.30pm.
Bookings for the Helping Learner Drivers Become Safer Drivers courses are essential. For more information or to make a booking, phone the council’s Road Safety Officer on 6686 4444.

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Already, partner organisation Southern Cross University has 78 staff and student members registered with the scheme and using it regularly, following a successful pilot program last year.

The local government-funded, web-based scheme aims to create a network of NSW North Coast commuters, from the Tweed Shire to the Clarence Shire, who have similar travel patterns, so they can reduce their travelling costs and share their travel time with compatible people.

The Northern Rivers Carpool Project will be officially launched at 11am on Thursday, February 18, 2010, at the John Crowther Carpark on the corner of Dawson and Woodlark Streets, Lismore.

“Most cars on the roads have only a single occupant,” said Northern Rivers Carpool co-ordinator Gillian Edwards, “so it makes sense to share the journey by filling up the car seats. It’s also a great way to make new friends and even halve weekly fuel bills.

“Priority parking is available for registered carpoolers in many public car parks across the Northern Rivers and this is yet another great reason for people to get involved in this fantastic initiative.”

Southern Cross University sustainability officer, Kirsty Howton, said she was delighted with the take-up of the scheme among staff and students.

“An extensive pilot program was undertaken in 2009 and this was particularly popular with our staff and students as well as with staff from the North Coast Area Health Service. People involved in the pilot have already experienced the benefits of carpooling, with more than 220 members already registered on the website,” she said.

“Transport is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in Australia, so carpooling to work or study is an effective way to reduce our carbon footprint for the benefit of our community in tackling climate change.

“Additionally, with fewer cars on the road, we are reducing the resources required to maintain our roads and our cars – yet another win for the environment.”

Northern Rivers Carpool has been funded by NSW Transport and Infrastructure, six local councils (Lismore, Ballina, Byron, Clarence, Richmond and Tweed), Southern Cross University, North Coast TAFE and North Coast Area Health Service.

For more information on the Northern Rivers Carpool project please contact Lismore City Council, phone: 1300 87 83 87 or go to www.lismore.nsw.gov.au

The Carpool Project is a free and easy web-based service that matches travel details of like commuters. The website is located at www.nrcarpool.org

PICTURE: Southern Cross University staff carpoolers Sophie Kemm (at the wheel) and Kirsty Howton.

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The program offers grants of between $500 and $5000 to groups undertaking projects in areas of crime prevention, road safety, emergency readiness and the environment.

“The program started in 2003 and has so far provided $4 million in funding to over 1100 community projects Australia-wide,” Mr Page said.

Last year the Bangalow Community Children’s Centre was successful in obtaining funding for a road safety awareness campaign.

“I encourage all community and not-for-profit groups to participate in this worthwhile community grants program,” Mr Page said.

Applications will be open from 1st to 31st March 2010. Information and applications are available online at www.nrma.com.au/grants, by visiting their local NRMA office or by calling 1300 306 496.

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To that end, QSE’s Christina Koch (pictured) is currently touring northern NSW in search of budding public speakers and community leaders.

In a series of workshops from Armidale to Lismore, Christina will work with groups of business practitioners, presenters, and students of performance to develop vocal resonance, persuasive speaking, personal connection to text, and development of memory – all through a look at the life and work of William Shakespeare. 

Ms Koch is a theatre practitioner (voice coach, actor, director, producer) of over 15 years experience in Brisbane, working with the Queensland Shakespeare Ensemble, Queensland Theatre Company and the Bell Shakespeare Company during that time.

Since 2002 she has trained in the Linklater approach to voice training through the Queensland Shakespeare Ensemble with master teacher Rob Pensalfini, and internationally in 2008 at Shakespeare and Company in Massachusetts, where she was invited to return as a guest participant in a specialised workshop on Shakespeare’s Rhetoric.  

Back in Australia, she applied this learning to her direction of a cast of senior legal practitioners, including the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Queensland and the former Attorney-General, in a reading of Twelve Angry Men for the Queensland Shakespeare Ensemble.

Christina was assistant director to John Bell AO on Bell Shakespeare and Queensland Theatre Company’s 2009 co-production of The Alchemist, and was script writer for Kerry O’Brien’s Hypothetical at the 2009 Australian Public Sector Anti-Corruption Conference. 

Ms Koch said today that she is ‘looking forward to working with people who genuinely want to improve their connection to their audience, and to be more confident, ethical, and persuasive in their approach to public speaking – Shakespeare teaches us to be bolder in our willingness to make connections.’
 
After an enthusiastic reception by members of Armidale’s Chamber of Commerce and Dorrigo’s Dramatic Club, and calls for return extended workshops, the ‘Shakespeare’s Playground’ workshop now comes to South Grafton’s refurbished Walker’s Marina Hotel on 20 February, and to the Dorrigo Theatre on 6 & 7 March, with future workshops under discussion for Maclean/Yamba, Lismore and Ballina.

Participants in the recent ‘Shakespeare’s Playground’ workshop in Dorrigo described the session as ‘an easy introduction to the world of Shakespeare’ and expressed enjoyment of the workshop’s variety, pace and flexibility.

 Further information: Christina Koch on 0423 295 493 or christinakoch@bigpond.com

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