Another goal kicked with Lights4Lake win
Graham Gorrel’s Friday On My Mind
Opinion, February 26, 2016, Daily Advertiser:
The Committee4Wagga has kicked another goal with its Lights4Lake project, one of the best community projects undertaken in the city for many years and provides a terrific hat-trick for C4W following the installation of CCTV in the CBD and the New Year’s Eve event, Wagga Live.
Everyone has a chance to get involved in L4L from individuals, families, businesses to sports and service clubs. The Daily Advertiser has media partner rights in the lights project which will enhance the tourist viability of Lake Albert, improve its aesthetic and that of the 5.5km walking track, making it safer and extending its use into the evening.
The idea came from the C4W’s Emerging Leaders program, another of the organisation’s assets that helps advance the leadership, organisational and community aspirations of the city’s future leaders.
Council contributed $75,000, State Government $40,000 with the remainder to be raised from community sponsorship which is in two forms _ community contributor ($1990) and business sponsor ($2400) allowing, as CEO, Chris Fitzpatrick, puts it, “for each contributor to have their name or organisation etched into the city’s history” through a plaque that will be attached to each of the 104 solar light poles around the lake.
There’s been enough depressing publicity about the city on the crime front that some good news is not only welcome but perhaps the council, and other authorities, can also see the light and find ways to ensure the lake’s water level remains constant.
With a top-notch golf club, a resurgent boat club, Apex Park’s general purpose facility, the completion of the L4L project is an exciting concept.
Women lead
THE foremost development in Australian sports journalism and the media generally in recent years has been the emergence of women; a belated recognition of the dramatic increase in the attraction of women’s sport, particularly team sports, but also that female journalists are now accepted for their professional and refreshing take on men’s sport.
Last weekend provided a timely example of their expertise. ABC’sOffsiders program featured two top women journalists, The Age sports editor and cricketer writer Chloe Saltau, with visiting BBC sport commentator Alison Mitchell, always a delight to listen to and observe.
It was Saltau’s different approach to the no-ball controversy which has seen Australian male Test bowlers losing wickets through over-stepping and the failure of the coaches to stop it, that caught my attention.
Saltau said our bowlers constantly over-stepped by a large margin at every practice session. She said it can’t be that difficult to ensure that someone (on the coaching staff) polices the bowlers to ensure they meet the rule. She pointed out that former coach, John Buchanan, had a zero tolerance ban on over-stepping. Her male colleague, Richard Hinds, said cricketers and coaches had to get rid of the notion that over-stepping was bad luck; “it is simply, bad cricket”.
ABC television provided three women – England’s regular visitor, Kate Burton, Sandy McKenzie and Jane Crafter as co-commentators with Wagga’s Quentin Hull for an invigorating and accurate call of last week’s women’s Australian Golf open.
Hopefully, Channel Nine will get the message and overhaul its tired, male-dominated back-slapping commentary team and find a few female commentators.