Adding purpose to a boys weekend

Every year since 2007 my best mates and I get together for a boys weekend. We all grew up playing footy and cricket together in Canberra, and these days we are spread from South Australia to Queensland. The weekend (over 3-4 days) generally involves a day at the races, or some other form of sporting event, a lot of laughs, and a few too many beers.

This year we had planned a camping trip on the beach in Bundjalung National Park in northern NSW, however, much of the park has been devastated by bushfire so we decided to camp in nearby Evans Head instead. Given the scale of fires in the area we started to wonder whether there might be something we could do to help out.

I’ve been doing some work with the Leadership Team at Richmond Valley Council (RVC) recently. Over 40% of the total land in their Shire is fire damaged, and many of those fires are still burning. RVC General Manager Vaughan Macdonald made the arrangements for us, and on Friday morning we headed to the BlazeAid camp at Casino showgrounds.

We spent the day at a couple of properties just outside of Rappville, pulling down and putting up fences, and clearing fallen trees. The scene is difficult to describe. The odd house still standing, others reduced to a scattering of bricks and warped corrugated iron. Paddocks without a single blade of grass, and pencil thin blackened trees as far as you could see. We spent just the one day there. The temperature hovered around 40C, the air a combination of smoke haze and dust. Some of the blokes had been working there for 7 weeks.

We were glad to be able to help out if only for one day, it brought a sense of purpose to our time together. If you can lend a hand or a few dollars to BlazeAid.com.au I strongly encourage you to do so.