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To All,
A couple of weeks ago
after the bushfires ripped through various regions of Victoria, l
put forward an idea that as a club we could volunteer ourselves for
one day to assist in the clean up or any other job that could
utilise a bunch of fit guys. Dean Walton then placed this offer of
assistance on to the Vic Gov bushfire website. On Monday the club
received an email from a gent who was a friend of a family affected
by the fires in Kinglake. (See his email below in pinky/purple
highlight). I then spoke with the senior players on Monday night and
asked what day would best suit them to assist. We all agreed
Saturday March 7 would be ideal as it was a long weekend and we
would still have Sunday and Monday free for our families. I have had
several discussions with the gent who contacted us and this date is
suitable for the Kinglake family affected, l said to him that we
would be turning up in big numbers to assist. My estimate was up to
100 people from our club would make themselves available for this
great charitable cause.
I am asking everyone involved with the club to get involved in what
will be a life building day for all as individuals and as a
club! Anyone is welcome to come, Fathers, Mothers, brothers,
sisters and friends. Lets show ourselves exactly what our club is
made of. It is a wonderful opportunity to get to know each other
more and unite as one in a time of need!
It would be great if we could all hop onto two buses and make the
journey to Kinglake together. With that in mind l approached Glenda
Buslines with a letter to their marketing manager asking if they
would be generous enough to offer up two buses and drivers for this
charitable effort. The attachment above is their amazing response,
considering they have provided $50k to the fundraiser already and
$65k in services provided to transporting CFA volunteers around the
state. They have said that they will provide one bus and driver free
of charge if we can cover the other one. The cost of each bus is
$1180 and l am overwhelmed at their generosity of providing one
bus. We now need to raise this amount between us all and l believe
we will come up with this total easily considering the cause.
To get the ball rolling l am donating $250 dollars on behalf
of my family which now leaves $930 to go.
I look forward to seeing us all respond to this call for help by
offering our assistance
on Saturday March 7 and perhaps a small donation to ensure we travel
to Kinglake united in two buses ready to assist people that are
desperate for our help!!!
Regards
Ant Agius
Senior Coach
Seaford Football Club
Letter to Grenda Busline
Hi Sarah,
My name is Anthony Agius and l am the Senior coach of the Seaford
football club. After the recent devastating bushfires throughout
Victoria l came up with an idea to volunteer our club to provide
assistance to anyone in the affected areas who might require some
manpower. We registered our offer on the Vic Government website and
received a response from a friend of a family in Kinglake who have a
Blueberry farm that was destroyed by the fires.
Please read email response below:
Hi. My name is Craig Lester.
I read your kind offer of
assistance for bushfire victims on ‘vicbushfiresgivehelp’.
I have just spent the weekend at Kinglake assisting friends who own
a blueberry farm, ‘Blueberry Hill’. It is just a family business, 2
adults, 2 kids and itinerant fruit pickers.
They were right in the
path of the firestorm but through good luck and good management
saved their house. Their crops and equipment were not so lucky. They
had a bumper crop ready for harvest that was destroyed, so have no
income to offset their investment over
the last year. One third of
their bushes were destroyed, a further third seriously damaged and
another third should recover. Their tool shed was seriously damaged
by fire and
many hand and power tools were lost.
Whilst there are obviously people who have done it much harder and
have lost everything, in this case there is an opportunity for a
timely input of labour to prevent losses.
All the straw and woodchip mulch around the bushes was consumed by
fire, along with
19 km of drip irrigation. Every one of 9,000 bushes
was fire damaged and requires pruning back of damaged limbs within a
2 week timeframe. On the weekend we got through about 3,000 plants
using chainsaws and hand shears. They have rolled out cheap
temporary irrigation tubing, but ideally need proper drippers that
allow distribution of liquid fertiliser (the cheap stuff clogs up).
If their bushes are to survive, it is essential that pruning and
irrigation takes place inside the next two weeks. Best case it will
take them 4 years to get back to where they were last month, worst
case they will have to plant new root stock
(a huge job) and it will
take them a decade.
If this is a project you feel you would like to be involved with,
please contact me and I will contact our friends, Nina and Rowan
Francis to sort out the logistics. They were featured in an ABC news
interview last week about damage to local businesses, and it would
make a fantastic follow up story to feature Seaford footy club
lending a hand. Rowan is a playing member of the Kinglake footy
club. To summarise basic activities that would be involved ~
chainsawing / hand pruning of bushes (so if you have people who own
a chainsaw and can operate one competently, that would be great);
removing prunings from fields and cartage to nearby dump; rolling
out irrigation tubing; installation of drippers.
I have been in contact with the respondent and we have worked
through all of the finer details and the Seaford football club will
send up to 100 people to Kinglake (Blueberry Hill) on Saturday March
7.
This is where l am hopeful that Grenda could be of assistance. We
will require 2 buses to transport us from Seaford to Kinglake at the
crack of dawn and return on the same day at nightfall. I am
understanding that your company might be inundated with this type of
request at present and it would be difficult to offer your services
free of charge to every request. I am hopeful that we could be the
recipients of your extraordinary generosity and we as a club would
be most grateful if approved.
Thanks in advance for taking the time to consider our request.
Kind regards
Anthony Agius
Senior Coach
Seaford Football Club
Grenda Responded
Unbelievable response from all thus far, it is also great to hear
that we have got the ladies
on board as well. For those that aren't yet aware, Dean W has been
arranging supply of food and beverages in the background from some
more generous businesses and individuals. The ladies will put
together lunch for all of us and assist with the job at hand. A big
thanks to all the ladies!
John Keenan has sent through a message offering up a donation of
$150 on behalf of a couple of members. He has also arranged a whip
around on Sunday morning at the Seaford RSL after their AGM to asist
our cause. A huge thank you to you John and the other members who
contributed, and also to the RSL for their magnificent gesture and
offer of support!I
would like to nominate
Dean Walton as the receiver of all donations so everyone is aware of
where their money needs to go. Dean l hope this is okay with you?!?
l am looking forward to rubbing shoulders with everyone next
Saturday and
getting the job done for the Francis family of Kinglake!
Regards
Ant Agius
Senior Coach
Seaford Football Club
Hey Ant,
Is there any mention of any equipment that we need to bring up.
Obviously they will need clippers to prune the bushes back, if
there's a large number of us we will need a large number of
clippers.
Also, with the irrigation, being a plumbing company, we may be able
to help get the right equipment.
I can see that the friend has mentioned that they have some 'cheap'
irrigation tubing in at the moment which gets clogged up. Are they
looking to replace this with better quality tubing? Frank, Drago,
Chalky and Jai (frank's son) are all either involved in the club or
former players, and are all plumbers, so may be able to come and
help as well. They will have the right tools and know how for the
irrigation and we might be able to get some of our suppliers to
donate some better quality irrigation pipe (can you find out what
they are after and we can look into it)
Edgo
To all concerned,
Just a quick note to let you all know as of 8:30 am this morning we
had covered the funds for
a second bus, what I would like to now propose is to keep the
donations coming which I will keep a register of everyone
that has donated and any further donations I would like to
propose
we put towards 2 charities Wildlife Victoria
www.wildlifevictoria.org.au
and
Victorian Bushfire Appeal Fund
www.redcross.org.au,
Wildlife Victoria has received a lot
of funding
from families that have lost everything in the bushfires, so if
Seaford Football Club
and all its members can contribute to both that would be my
proposal.
Regards
Dean Walton
Secretary
Seaford Football Club
posted 1st March 2009
Seaford RSL
Hi John Keenan,
Called into the RSL after golf but just missed you, according
to Wayne Fisher and a couple of the boys, the morning was quite a
success. Whilst
there, I was approached by a gentleman by the name of Ian Blain, a
driver for Peninsula Bus lines who are owned by Grenda, Ian told me
that he had a chat with you and was willing to donate his time and
drive one of the buses free of charge, he just needs to ok with his
bosses, if this happens the bus may only cost $600-$800.
I also had a chat with a John Biles, John, Butch and a few of
the boys from the RSL are taking up a couple of trailers decked out
with BBQ, eskys etc, just to make sure the boys don't get thirsty or
hungry. Thanks
for your time and effort today.
Anthony,
There's a few boys from the RSL
asking if there's any room left on the bus, if so, can we let
Wayne (Fish) Fisher know by Thursday at the latest, they would
love to come up with us and help out.
Regards,
Arnold Ebert
President
Seaford Football Club
posted 1st March 2009
To all
concerned
I can confirm Butch rang me on Thursday night, he and a handful of
his Vietnam Vets mates have a fully equipped BBQ and ice chest
fitted to a trailer and will be coming up to Kinglake
to cook a BBQ
lunch and provide drinks to all volunteers.
They will cover the full
cost of what they provide and
they have asked to do this as their contribution. We will still have
sandwiches that will be provided all day from the ladies
of our club, through the generous support of various business.
I will be meeting with Butch on Monday at training to discuss the
finer detail.
Regards
Dean Walton
Secretary
Seaford Football Club
posted 2nd March 2009
To all concerned,
This is the story so far,
our visit to Kinglake as a community service is something we can all
be proud of,
the generosity shown by all is simply amazing and this is what I can
confirm thus far;
Donations (initially to cover cost of bus, balance to go to 2
charities
www.wildlifevictoria.org.au
and
www.redcross.org.au )
Goodall family $500.00
Agius family $250.00
John Keenan and RSL friends $150.00
Shaw family $100.00
Underwood family $100.00
Walton family $100.00
Edgerton family $100.00
Ebert family $50
Confirmed to help out with lunch and supplies
for our volunteers.
Grenda Bus Lines donation of a bus for
volunteers.
Simplot (via Daniel (Normie) Clarke).
·
JW Tuna 425g SW or Brine x 2 cartons.
·
JW Tuna Spread 120g Plain x 1 carton.
·
Edgell Beetroot Sliced 425g x 2
cartons.
·
Edgell Corn Kernels 420g x 1 cartons
·
Edgell Veggie Mixes – Corn & 4 Bean x 1 carton
Bakers Delight - 30 loaves of bread.
Jason Marsh looking to help out with drinks via Coca Cola.
Majestic Cellars - 3 blocks of beer for the end of the day.
Butch Date and his Vietnam Veteran mates will provide a BBQ
lunch and drinks.
Mums of players have offered to provide sandwiches all day
for volunteers.
Helen Shaw (Mum of Kieran & Tom Shaw)
Jo Walton & Emma Walton (Mum & Sister of Aaron Walton)
Sue Hunt (Mum of Reece Hunt)
Shelly Turner (Mum of Aaron & Ben Turner)
Sandra Griffiths & Sister (Mum of Ollie Griffiths)
Any Mums, Wives, Girlfriends, Sisters that would like to help out on
the day
please call Jo Walton
Tel No: 9786 7605 or 0438353254.
Bohler Uddeholm - supply of protective gloves.
Moorabbin Cabinets - supply of dust masks.
Couple of items to be confirmed - fruit and roasts for
sandwich lunch meat.
Ant has worked hard behind the scenes organising the players
as volunteers and
will be able to give us the finer detail during the week of how,
when and what so
we are organised and ready to go come Saturday.
Thanks to all for a fantastic response.
We should all be proud of what we are about to undertake as members
of
Seaford Football Club.
" Putting It All On The Line "
Regards,
Dean Walton
Secretary
Seaford Football Club
posted 3rd March 2009
To All,
Peter Kirk, Director of “Longbeach
Tree Services”
has offered his equipment for use @ the farm.
Grand Hotel Mornington, General Manager Pir Taylor-Price has donated
3 slabs of water
Dale O'Neil
Senior Vice-President
Seaford Football Club
posted
5th March 2009
Hi Anthony.
Things are progressing at ‘Blueberry Hill’ and Nina is
planning how best to make use of the services of Seaford FC next
Saturday. I see the forecast is 24C which is great.
The brief
list of things you will need to bring is:
Leather work gloves for everyone
Eye protection goggles and ear muffs (some people, but not
all – you can get a pack of cheap ear muffs and goggles in the
outdoor equipment section of you local Bunnings)
Tools such as mattocks, shovels, a wood splitter,
pinch bar (for dismantling damaged fencing), crowbar
Permanent marker to put names of owners on tools!
There is
some damage to buildings that requires removal of roof sheeting,
so a couple of power drills with tek-screw driver bits would be
useful.
Nina is keen to know if any of your group has building skills to
address these tasks.
Kind Regards
Craig Lester
posted 5th March 2009
To all,
Everything is now finalised regarding transportation and l have
received confirmation of Saturday
as all clear from the Francis family ( Blueberry Hill owners).
Listed above are a list of things that are required for us to assist
in the rectification works on the farm. There are a couple of sheds
that have been damaged and require the removal of the roof sheeting
and if all goes well there will be new sheeting available that
hopefully we can install as well. There will be lots of jobs that
everyone will be able to assist with, l have informed Rowan Francis
that we are at his mercy!
The two Grenda buses will depart the Seaford football oval on
Saturday 7/3 at 6.00am
and will arrive at Kinglake at approx 7.30am. The buses and
following vehicles will need to be escorted through a road block
located on the Melba Highway at the turn off to Kinglake.
Rowan will meet us at this location to inform the police guarding
this roadblock, what we are doing, and then escort us to his
property.
The buses will depart the Kinglake property at 6.30pm and return to
Seaford football oval
at approx 8.00pm. The buses combined will seat 100 passengers.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank everybody who has
assisted in ensuring that this exercise has gone from an idea to a
reality!! It truly is an honour to be involved with such a
wonderful, caring and extremely generous group of people.
Thanks again
Ant Agius
Senior Coach
Seaford Football Club
The Seaford Football Club Community will always
remember Blueberry Hill.
" Out of Devastation and Despair "
comes
" Hope, Future and Friendships "
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