FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER
28 April 2013
Graphics and cartoons & liturgical material appear only in the printed version
DAVID AND GOLIATH
A little fellow ventured recently into a bikers’ bar at Cessnock, the scene of many a turf war between rival gangs. Clearing his throat he asked the hulking figures sitting at the bar, “Which one of you gentlemen owns the Rottweiler that’s tied outside?” The biggest of the blokes, wearing biker leathers and with every visible inch of his epidermis covered in tattoos, said, “that’s my dog. Why?” “Well, sir,” said the little fellow, very nervously, “I’m afraid that my dog has just killed your dog.” The giant bikie roared in anger and disbelief. “What kind of dog could kill a Rottweiler?” “It’s a Jack Russell. A four-week-old puppy.” “How could your poncy little puppy kill my Rottweiler?’ “Sir, he choked on it.”
THIS AND THAT (82)
Andrew Neaum
On Saturday afternoon Beryl Bonfitto, Diana and I made our way to “The Vault” off Maude Street for the Presentation of the Greater Shepparton Cultural Heritage Awards 2013. Having put forward St Augustine’s Gardens and Building for a possible award,(Category 4: Best Maintained Place) we went along to see how we had fared.
It proved to be a lovely and imaginatively run occasion, with a fine and really substantial afternoon tea, including champagne, a pair of flautists (playing classical music rather than ubiquitous pop) and, best of all, there were all sorts of folk present whom we knew. Not least among these were folk from St Mary’s Katandra, Marg Earl being very active in this whole heritage project and the first to suggest that we enter St Augustine’s. Also present were a good number of folk from Christ Church Murchison. Dr Blackburn, the head of the National Trust of Victoria was also present.
Although there were a variety of very different categories, the judgement for awards was made overall. Of the seven top award winners, the Tatura and District Historical Society, for its splendid Museum, garnered the most votes, the Shepparton Heritage Centre with its fine publication “Water: The Vital Element, 150 Years of Shepparton’s Growth” was next, and St Augustine’s was third.
Well done indeed to Beryl Bonfitto and her team of dedicated gardeners. The two bottles and other goodies from the presentation basket were enjoyed at their working bee on Saturday. Congratulations as well to all who contribute to the beauty and maintenance of our buildings in so many ways.
The contribution to Heritage made by Warwick Finlay of Murchison was also recognised and applauded. He has been President of The Murchison Heritage Society for 28 years and has published several notable books. He has now retired from his position but is succeeded by another Christ Church regular in Kay Ball. Congratulations to them both.
RETURN TO
TRISTAN DA CUNHA (17)
Thursday 4 October, 2012
....... It is now ten minutes to seven in the morning. Soon after seven we should hear about going to Nightingale Island.
I look out to a calm sea over a dry stone wall upon this side of which grow nasturtiums in more yellow than orange flower and arum lilies which seem to grow with ease in all sorts of remote places. They are as much a feature of St Helena as Tristan.
The insides of windows on these cold, still mornings are heavy with condensation. It makes me wonder how low the humidity ever falls on the island. On the internet forecasts it has never been lower than the mid sixties.
Later 3.35pm. Well we made it to Nightingale after all. We first rang the Kerrs, at about a quarter to eight, and Susan said she presumed it was off, but before heading to mattins we rang up Dawn from the Tourist Office and she said she thought it was on and that we should soon receive a call, as indeed we did, telling us to be on the wharf by half past eight, as indeed we were. The boat we were to travel on was a RIB (a Rigid Inflatable Boat) with two large outboards. As we waited I wandered around and behind some containers and discovered a big piece of pumice, not the pale and delicate variety, upon lumps of which we used to scrape smooth our calloused feet after a bath, but coarse black rock, like aerated chocolate. Then walking out on the wharf I noticed that in the central gap of the base mountain, from out at the wharf’s very end, I could just see the snow covered peak of the island. Always invisible from the settlement proper.
We eventually clambered down into the boat and I went up to the front. Diana, very sensibly, sat in the rear where there were a few seats. It transpires that the trip had indeed been called off because the boat’s owner and captain wanted a day off to have a barbecue. However, Francoise, the visiting psychiatrist’s wife, questioned with some asperity those responsible and insisted, the day being perfect, that it would be iniquitous if we didn’t go. So we went, the amiable brother of the boat’s owner at the wheel!
There was an elderly Norwegian man with us. He had come on the Baltic Trader and was due to leave on it. Disappointingly, because it was to sail for Cape Town at three o’clock, our visit would have to be curtailed, though he did indicate that he could if necessary return to Cape Town on the Agulhas. He is doing a story on Tristan all to do with a Norwegian expedition to the island in 1937, which apparently mapped the island most efficiently. The curtailing of our trip didn’t please me at all until I realised that he had probably been relegated to the Baltic Trader having been squeezed off the Agulhas, as we very nearly were, and so I ought to be charitable. He was cumbered with huge cameras and took a lot of time to take photos and on our departure from Nightingale, when getting onto the little dinghy from the rock to go out to the RIB, he simply left us holding his socking great cameras so that we had to take the risk of dropping them into the sea during this tricky manoeuvre. I would like to look up the article he eventually produced and critique it severely, but as it will be written in Norwegian and for a financial magazine, this is unlikely.
The voyage to Nightingale on the RIB was like nothing I have ever experienced. Simon and I had the worst of it because we were the furthest forward. The boat went like the clappers, but the price paid for this is not riding naturally with the swell, over and down the waves, but rather blundering and bouncing forward in spite of them. The front of the boat cracked down with force enough to shatter your spine. Truly awful, especially as I had no cushion or anything soft and so sat on the flat, hard bottom. Ideally you would sit on the boat’s side which is air-filled and springy, but this appeared too risky. The sea was in fact fairly calm, but as always out in the great ocean, there was a good swell and we were jarred every minute of two. I eventually learned to deal with this in a way that spared my back. Instead of sitting on my backside, I squatted on my hunkers, riding each fall of the boat with my thigh muscles. Clever and adaptive of me, but when I got off the boat my ham’s were so strained I could hardly walk for a while and I still feel week in the legs.
It was the most exhilarating of trips though. The view of Tristan as we roared past Burntwood in bright sunshine was glorious. The snow covered peak shone brilliantly in bright sunlight and the livid greenness of the mountainside contrasted impressively with the blackness of gorge and shadow.
The crossing is twenty five miles and the waters are deep. Apparently Nightingale and Inaccessible, the two uninhabited islands that are close to Tristan and make up its archipelago are far older than Tristan and not as closely related geologically as used to be thought. There being no shelf between Tristan and the other two islands, the water is immensely deep.
The weather on Nightingale is more benign than Tristan. This is because it is so much lower and so less cloudy with less orographic rainfall. There were plenty of birds skimming the waves and we stopped by a fishing boat to watch them pull up a pot of crayfish, it being a fishing day today.
At last, after about an hour or more of exhilarating but bone-jarring travel, we arrived at the island, a tussocky fragment in the middle of nowhere, with an attractive, small, conical peak, and a guano-whitened, rock shoreline.
I was glad to be there. When boys on Tristan my brother and I were considered too young to make the trip, but my sister Susan, with a couple of friends, did. In those days they sailed over in longboats and stayed several nights. They went to collect guano or birds eggs, or bird carcasses to eat or render down for fat. I can still remember frying albatross eggs, a single one filling the pan, and eating boiled rock-hopper penguin eggs, their whites a pale translucent blue. As with the aborigines in Australia, the islanders are granted certain rights to some traditional practices and so they can still harvest sea bird eggs, though in a carefully monitored and sustainable fashion. However with the wreck on Nightingale of the huge soya bean laden bulk carrier MS Olivia in 2011, and its devastating oil-spill havoc, which led to insurance claims asserting loss of livelihood, the harvesting of eggs at this time is suspended. So no fishy egg yolk gobbling for me on this trip. Thousands of oil-damaged penguins were rescued, penned and fed by islanders.
As we approached the island it was almost impossible to take photos because until right into the lee, both my hands were occupied in keeping myself from harm. There is no beach to land on. Access to the island is by way of a sloping slab of rock, less than ideal even in calm weather, impossible in just moderately bad. On the slab were three or four seals. The young islander with us on the boat leapt out as we drew near the rock and then we backed off until he got help from the naturalists who are at present camping on the island, to drag down the small dinghy that is pulled up high on the rock. We transferred from the RIB to the dinghy in two trips and then were helped out onto the slippery rock. Diana got a foot wet but otherwise our precautions to protect ourselves from a predicted dousing (sou’westers and waterproof trousers) were not necessary. Spray even on the way across was minimal. However it was cold enough for a beanie, jersey and my wind proof jacket.
As soon as we were ashore and in sheltered sunlight we realised that it was going to be warm. We left a lot of gear down at the landing place, high above any likelihood of it getting wet, but took my haversack with its lunch, not realising then that we would be back almost before lunch because of our kill-joy Norwegian. It meant we never got to the island’s ponds or had a comprehensive view of the place. On the way to where we turned back however, we did pass lots of Yellow nosed albatrosses on their nests, beautiful birds, nesting serenely on or next door to the path, unperturbed by human proximity. The path was littered with the carcasses of little “night birds” a type of prion that burrows to nest. They are killed by the skuas which abound and dive bombed us whenever we passed by their great green eggs laid in the grass with no nesting material at all. We also saw the endemic buntings and the starchies, a fairly vicious little thrush-like bird that feeds off the prion carcasses and apparently is not beyond killing them itself and their fledglings.
The whole island appears to be honeycombed with nesting burrows and has the unmistakable smell that such seabird colonies always have. When I was Rector of Skipton and Ararat we nearly always holidayed at Koroit between Warnambool and Port Fairy and on the last evening would take fish and chips to eat in the shearwater rookery as the birds silently plopped out of the sky in the dusk and dark and scurried down their nesting holes. The scent on Nightingale took me right back to those happy occasions.
Before we headed up the pathway we passed a smallish colony of rockhopper penguins which were delightful to behold. They have golden tassels and looked sleek and healthy.
All too soon because of the Norwegian cuckoo in our nest, we had to return, though the doughty Francoise did try and persuade the island lads that he was well able to return on the Agulhas, but to no avail. So we ate our three day old sandwiches in bright sunlight on the landing rock and made our way back into the dinghy and then the RIB. Diana had repacked our haversack in a way that I could use it as a cushion and so I settled myself down with my back against the wheel house. Unfortunately two of us were urged forward to provide a better ballast, so I was back in the position that I occupied on the way to the island, though thankfully on the other side and so exercising different muscles and with a haversack to sit on. The return was certainly better, I didn’t use my hunkers and leg muscles except when I anticipated a truly shocking drop.
Best of all though, we were taken straight back to Tristan, not to its west and so came upon another fishing boat for which we stopped for a short period, watching them pull in a fair number of crayfish. We then turned east and so in fact circumnavigated the whole island, approaching it at its southernmost tip, Stonyhill Point. There, there is a black lava flow not at all dissimilar to the 1961 extrusion of lava at the Settlement. We then were treated to close views of the forbidding Tristan cliffs and the great and sometimes cavernous gulches of the island all the way round to the Settlement. Because the island was for the most part under cloud and not in sunlight, the cliffs appeared more than usually black and forbidding though we did pass some stony beaches and small areas of pasture at sea level with grazing cattle on them.
Sandy Point was especially interesting because there was a really good stand of tall conifers, and a green roofed hut. Apparently the cattle got in and ruined all the apple trees whose fruit that we used to go by boat to collect in the fifties. We passed some thin but flowing waterfalls and truly awe inspiring gulches, evidence of frequent and heavy rain, though the two thousand foot cliffs are proof of the sea being more effective at erosion than rain. So we rounded the Bluff and into sight of the Settlement, passing the Agulhas and the Baltic Trader and so into the harbour, glad to have made it to Nightingale and to have circumnavigated Tristan.
Birthdays:
Elizabeth Woodyard. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 April
Anniversary :
Aileen & Viv Parry. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29April
Harry & Heather Nichols. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 May
CONGRATULATIONS
To: Ryan Bhat:
to be baptised today at 10.30am
OUTREACH- DEADLINE TODAY
28 April Sunday- Helen’s deadline for material
To day is your last chance to submit material for the next ‘Outreach’
TATURA ANGLICAN GUILD
28 April Sunday at 2PM at 20 Francis Street Tatura
Wonderful Winter Wear
If you would like to join the fun of the fashion parade by ‘Tiger Lily’ at Tatura you can obtain tickets ($10) from Dorothy Cook or the Office.
ARISE 255 YOUTH GROUP
6 May Monday 5.30pm
Looking at what Jesus says -
Jesus’ philosophy about teaching
GV HEALTH EXTENDED CARE AUX.
‘THE HELP’
9 May Thursday 11.30-12.30pm
Film and Boxed Luncheon
Village 4 Cinema Shepparton
Pre paid tickets $20 at Mimma’s Hairdressing or via Lolene 58219182
DOLL AND TAPESTRY DISPLAY
All Saints Guild 20 Francis Street Tatura
9 May Thursday At 1.30pm
Entry and Afternoon Tea $6. Contact Phyl Bramley 58 242 633 for more details.
A FAREWELL MEAL
An “Elegiac Banquet”
10 May Friday 6.00pm Church Hall
A Farewell to the Neaums will be held on the date above. If you do not have an invitation please ask at the Office.
INFORMAL ‘BRING & SHARE’ LUNCH
12 May after 10.30am Eucharist
Sunday May 12 happens to be Mother’s Day and so many folk will be celebrating en famille. However, because it is the Neaum’s last Sunday in the parish those who are not committed to family celebrations are invited to bring along to share a light lunch after the 10.30am Eucharist. Tea and Coffee will be provided (plus anything else still edible from the twelve baskets left over from Friday’s Elegiac Dinner). Murchison and Rushworth folk will be joining us at St Augustine’s and we are hoping that Dookie and Katandra will too.
HOSPICE TEA AND HARMONY
14 May Tuesday 1.30pm
Eastbank Centre
Guest Speaker: Peter Roberts from Geelong
Guest Artist: Kathryn Bradbury, nee King, from the Gold Coast. All funds to the GV Hospice Care Service. Tickets:$30 available from Pat 58313080 or Heather 58299418
INDUCTION
2 June Sunday 4.30pm
Our new Rector, The Revd Des Potter, is to be inducted at Choral Evensong on 2 June at 4.30pm, followed by excellent food and drink.
DIARY DATES
April 28 Sun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Deadline for Outreach
May 6 Mon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Arise 255 Youth Group
May 10 Fri. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rector’s Farewell 6.00PM
May 15 Wed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Parish Council
May 16 Thur. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Ladies Guild
May 21 Tues. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Friendship Group
May 23 Thu. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4pm Raffle sub Committee Roz’s Room
May 31 Fri. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Synod (and Sunday June 1)
June 2 Sun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Patronal Festival & Induction of New Rector
June 8 Sat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Martyrs of Uganda Service and Breakfast
June 13 Thur. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4pm Fair Planning Group Roz’s Room
Oct 19 Sat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Parish Fair
Oct 26 Sat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Murchison - Boot Sale
REQUESTS FOR PRAYER
At the beginning of each month this list is cleared and ALL names need putting down again on the list in the narthex and signed in. No names should be listed without a person's permission.
Dulcie, David, Warren, Philip Ackland and Families, Hilary & Alan Akers, Shirley Bartlett, Liam Bognar, Joyce Cavill, Frank Harder, Bruce Hodgson & family, Katherine Holt, John Justin & Cheryl, Edwin Johnson, Dos King, Elsie Lieschke, Bob & June McKellar, Colin McKenzie, Coral Prosser, Lynda Saville, Sandra Simonis, Suzanne Singh, Nicole Sleeth, Patricia Sparkes, Leslie Warren, Gloria Wayman, Ray, Vanessa, Simon, Joy, Adrian, John, Dawn, Kent, Scott, Win, James & Rachel.
Rest in Peace: Bonnie Howard, Fr Lauri Allot
Anniversaries: George Hardwick, Hock Stonehouse, Eunice Earl (28 Ap), Christine Brown-Shepherd, Elizabeth Raleigh (29 Ap), Donald Oliver (30 Ap), Leonard Mitchell (1 May), Mildred Cochran (2 May), Frances Hobart, Bill Auldrige, Doreen Farrow (3 May), Alfred Probst, Mary Campbell (4 May).
READINGS EASTER SIX 5 May
Acts169-15, Psalm 67, Revelation 21 10-14,22, 221-5
Duties for Fifth Sunday of Easter 28 April 2013
Readers 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gwyn Cowland, Liz Gyles
Intercessor 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bev Condon
Servers 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Soibhan, Michelle, Beth
Euc. Assts 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Joe Pearson, John Griffin
Sidespeople 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Norm Mitchelmore, Heather Pearson
Welcomer 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anita Saville, Cecily McDonnell
Welcome Tbl 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dorothy Cook
Tea 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Val Bambrook
Reader 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Chris Swain
Intercessor 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .none
Servers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Jenny, Ella, Jordan,
Euc. Assts 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Joe Fernandez,
Sidespeople 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Pleming, Irene Crawford
Welcomers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anne Hall, Kylie Milsom
Welcome Tbl 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dorothy Cook
Projector 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Charlotte Brewer
Children’s Church10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Diana Neaum
Monday Office 29 April. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jenny Mintern, Jan Phillips
Mowing 4 May . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Marg and Brendan Carroll
Duties Sixth Sunday of Easter 5 May 2013
Readers 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Wellman, Jeanette Smith
Intercessor 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Heather Pearson
Servers 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .John Horder, Soibhan, Michelle
Euc. Assts 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barbara Schier, Bev Condon
Sidespeople 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Norm Mitchelmore, Joe Pearson
Welcomer 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dulcie Ackland, Shirley Dean
Welcome Tbl 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Dorothy
Tea 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Gwyn Cowland
Reader 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chris Jones
Intercessor 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Joan McCann
Servers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Veila Gatu
Euc. Assts 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jenny, Joe
Sidespeople 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .John Pleming, Rob Gilbert
Welcomers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Frank Steen, Beryl Black
Welcome Tbl 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dorothy Cook
Projector 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Black Family
Children’s Church10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mary Pearson
Mowing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .none
Monday Office 6 May. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rosemary Moore, Jeanette Smith
THIS WEEK IN THE PARISH
Sunday 28 April 5th Sunday of Easter
5.30pm Evening Prayer- Lady Chapel
Monday 29 April Catherine of Siena
Rector’s Day Off
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
Tuesday 30 April
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
10.00am Play Group
5.00pm Evening Prayer
Wednesday 1 May Philip & James
7.45am Mattins - Lady Chapel
10.00am Eucharist - St Augustine’s
4.00pm Banksia
5.00pm Evening Prayer
6.30pm EfM
Thursday 2 May Athanasius
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
9.30am Tarcoola
11.00am Harmony
Hospital
5.00pm Evening Prayer
5.30pm Choir Practice
Friday 3 May
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
5.00pm Evening Prayer - Lady Chapel
Saturday 4 May
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
9.00pm Jacobite Mass
6.00pm Vigil Eucharist
10.30pm Orthodox Easter Vigil
Sunday 5 May 6th Sunday of Easter
8.30am Sung Eucharist - St Augustine’s
10.30am Eucharist & Children’s Ch - St Aug
9.00am Eucharist -St Paul’s Rushworth
11.00am Eucharist- Christ Church Murchison
8.45am Eucharist - St Luke’s Dookie
5.30pm Evening Prayer