A bit of a discussion going on now.

What to think?

"The Men's shed making a difference

In Santa Teresa, participants can choose between five different activities.

One involves tending to the community garden. Another is cooking as part of the Terrific Tucker program.

And on the outskirts of town, beyond its 100 or so houses, an old power station has been converted into a men's shed"

""This would be one of our better attended activities, and it's about 70 per cent attendance," Mr McKinley said.

"They can work at their own pace, and they can develop their own projects that they want to do."

link


The fellow who turns an old pallet into a beautiful piece of work that's a lacquered bench. That's the sort of Pride of Achievement that makes the work-for-the-dole scheme out there a positive for himself and the community.

There's nothing more true than that "the Devil makes use of idle hands" ... it's better these lads are doing things creative and prideful than that they're sniffing petrol or in jail.

What the government needs to do is spend the money to set up small but efficient factories in these remote communities where products can be made to be collected by truck and sold in the towns. Every big city should have a designated warehouse which is filled exclusively with artifacts and various products produced in remote communities where people can wander through and shop as we do with the large Salvo warehouses.

The young fellow who made the bench should know his creation is off to the city to be sold as valuable to someone, and he should receive a financial reward for that. 

The problem with the work-for-the-dole scheme in these outback communities is that there's no outlet for what they produce. Stuff piles up in their own little communities that never gets shifted out to shops in the towns and cities, and after awhile the sheer inertia of it all would start to work negatively on their sense of motivation.

We've got idiots in Canberra spending $120 million on SSM with meanwhile positive improvements to these outback communities need funding and planning.

Captain Caveman wrote on Sep 30^th, 2017 at 7:31am:


A revolution ~ most definitely.

There's something systemically very wrong with the government in Canberra.

Like a computer's confused and chaotic hard-drive the whole political class down there needs a *clean-install to be replaced by a whole new system and a whole new type of person.

*Clean Install. A clean install is an operating system (OS) installation that overwrites all other content on the hard disk. A clean install removes the current operating system and user files during the installation process.

I have a new job working with one of these groups, start Monday.

Will keep you posted on progress if you wish.

The authorities must stop these schemes from being so inward-focussed and incestuous. Get their product out there into mainstream Australia.


OK, a week on.

The group I am working with are doing a range of activities in search of viable options.

They are doing a great job with the WFTD people producing fantastic produce for a town that has bugger all other retail outlets, and the food price for the tiny bit of stuff available is astronomical.
So we have good fresh produce, year round.

The best thing is we have a hort crop, grown on winter rain that is the best product I have ever seen.
We are going to bulk up our planted area and our product will be produced at a profit,,, and will create real jobs.
So that is one winner, we are still searching for more.
I have thrown in a few ideas for our project manager to look at.

There will be disasters, with these schemes, but there is also the chance of some winners.

The veg growing enterprise has been in operation for 25 years now and its still going OK.

The team of people working there seem pretty happy.

I would say overall its worthwhile.

miketrees wrote on Oct 7^th, 2017 at 5:50pm:




mike even if it doesnt work out   you tried... we have to keep plugging away to give people a reason for being.. and work is one of those reasons....

get in and have a go   well done...you will get so much satisfaction from this..

this is what we lack today... satisfaction...even food has no smell or taste..I do hope you keep the smell alive  whatever we are doing today with farming    our food is losing something....maybe its the pesticide I dont know.. but something is sucking all the taste and smell out...

What are they going to do?  Count kangaroos?


Well that is a job that gets done by some government department,,, they do it with planes, no reason that could not be contracted out.

Not what we are doing tho.

I am keeping quiet on our hort product until we have a shirt load of it and do an organised marketing for it.

Just like any commercial grower I dont want other people going into competition for a while.

this is what we lack today... satisfaction...even food has no smell or taste

Well Cods our tomatoes taste like tomatoes, they are fantastic.

We are growing lettuce, zucchini, tomato, broccoli,silver beet,cabbage,snow peas.

As we come into warmer weather we are planting Eggplant, capsicum, more tomato,beans,cucumber, more that I forget already
We have another site growing melons outside of the hothouse.
We are developing a range of bush tuckers,,, lots of work to be done there to find viable ones for our sites.

In the past one of the managers grew flowers, and they sold quite well,,,, must get back into that.

I also think our site may be warm enough to grow a decent flavoured pepino, going to trial that this summer.