contents borroloola kids in brazil mayor message 2 ceo ... · plenty of kids art and craft activity...

Roper Gulf Regional Council PO Box 1321 Katherine NT 0851 Phone: 08 8972 9000 Fax: 08 8971 2607 www.ropergulf.nt.gov.au

CONTENTS Mayor Message 2

CEO Message 3

School Attendance Ngukurr 4

Walaman Cultural Festival 5

Borroloola Kids in Brazil 6

Aerodrome Fence in Numbulwar 7

Yugul Mangi Festival 7

Barunga Festival 8

Adrian’s Story 9

Borroloola Kids in Brazil

JUN

E

TEABBA Training 10

Read more on Page 6

Employee of the Month 11

Employee Profile 12

Out & About Photos 13 & 14

Community Grants Program 15

Message from the Mayor

I can hardly believe we are in the middle of 2014 al-ready. The Dry Season is our fes-tival season and both Ba-runga and Ngukurr have held Festivals which were very successful both in terms of community and regional events. These festivals provided a fan-tastic opportunity for resi-dents in these Communi-ties to share their beautiful part of the world and cul-ture with the many visitors that attended. Congratula-tions to all Roper Gulf Re-gional Council Staff who did another great job work-ing hard to ensure these events were successful. Earlier this month Deputy Mayor MacFarlane, Coun-cillor Daniels and Lee and I had the pleasure of travel-ling to Canberra to attend the National General As-sembly of Local Govern-ment. The very cold weath-er did not stop us from get-ting to work on important business that affects all Local Government bodies across Australia.

This month we had the full Council of Roper Gulf Re-gional Council meet in Katherine. The meeting was full of big decisions including accepting the new RGRC Regional Plan and Budget for 2014-2015. Another milestone was to approve the Local Authori-ty membership nomina-tions from our newest Lo-cal Authority, Hodgson Downs. We are now pleased to announce that all 10 out of 10 Local Au-thorities as prescribed by the NT Government are established and up and running. Our “Youth Voice” Commit-tees from Ngukurr, Num-bulwar and Borroloola at-tended a Leadership Camp in Katherine to coincide with the Ordinary Council Meeting. The program in-cluded a day of workshops covering a range of topics including; Leadership, Governance and Meetings. Thank you to legendary footballer, Russell Jeffer-ies, who attended the day. As part of the program Youth Voice members at-tended a BBQ with Council and the formal Council Meeting.

At the Council meeting Youth Voice delegates were given an opportunity to share their issues with Council. I was very proud to see so many strong fu-ture Leaders we have in our communities that are being nurtured by RGRC. Until next time enjoy the festival season and stay safe!!

Message from the CEO

Well June has seen the cold weather arrive in our part of the world and for many (not all) this is a welcome change.

This month we had the Barunga and Ngukurr Festivals and both went very well. I was fortunate enough to go to the Barunga event and it was great to see so many communities there playing sport, music and enjoying the interactions with each other and the many visitors (tourists and Katherine folk). The highlight for me was the spear throw-ing competition where the quality of the spear throwers was outstanding. Con-gratulations to the guy from Beswick who hit the Kangaroo target twice. What an awesome sight that was. We now look forward to the Bulman Walaman Festival in July. The Council had their meeting this month and endorsed the 2014/15 Regional Plan along with the Budget. To note, the Budg-et process was a long and tedious pro-cess for all involved and unfortunately, as I alluded to in my previous message, we have suffered job losses in the process.

The plus is that we did achieve a bal-anced budget and we look forward to our next 12 months of service delivery to our communities in the best possible way. It is also worth noting the end of June saw us completing our sixth year of Council operations.

Till next time, Stay safe.

Remote Schools Attendance Strategy in Ngukurr

Community Round-up

Recently the Remote Schools

A endance Strategy com-

menced in Ngukurr with the

aim of increasing school

a endance and providing

families with support, mo -

va on and assistance in

ge ng their children to

school.

The team, which consists of 3

supervisors and 5 officers,

have done a great job by in-

creasing school a endance

and community support for

the program.

All of the Remote School

A endance Strategy staff

par cipated in First Aid train-

ing and gained their cer fi-

cates. This ensures that the

staff can provide First Aid

and improve community

safety.

Through excellent teamwork

and passionate staff mem-

bers they have been able to

improve school a endance,

create community awareness

and create a program that is

run by local community

members, giving the commu-

nity pride and confidence in

them and as a whole.

A special men on to Gwen

Rami for her con nual dedi-

ca on, commitment and the

wealth of knowledge and

experience Gwen brings to

the team.

Lastly we would like to thank

all the stakeholders involved

in suppor ng, assis ng and

mo va ng our RSAS team.

The team s ll has more posi-

ons to fill and have a vision

for the future where our

efforts and hard work not

only increase school a end-

ance to the best level possi-

ble, but also provide families

in the community with the

mo va on and incen ve to

ensure the future genera-

ons have a good educa on

and the best opportuni es

are available to them in their

lives and careers.

Bulman Walaman Cultural Festival

Borroloola Kids in Brazil

A trip to Brazil to see the Socceroos play in the World Cup might be the trip of a life-time for most people, but it’s something even more for a group of young players from Borroloola. Eight boys and girls who have never been out of Borroloola, are on the soccer trip of a lifetime to Brazil. The have spent their time watching the Socceroos train and also got to play a little game themselves on the field!

The eight kids are all part of a program called John Morjarity Football, named after the first Aboriginal man selected to play for Australia. We are very proud of these kids and wish them a great trip in Brazil!

Tony Berto and his Civil crew have been keeping busy in Numbulwar for the past 2 weeks! With the help of Numbul-war employees, they have built a new aerodrome fence in the community and have done a fantastic job in doing so. The job took the team about 13 and a half days and has dramatically im-proved the look of the aer-

odrome area. It is also pleasing to report that no injuries were sus-tained on the job! Roger McIvor, CSM in Numbulwar placed a bet with the crew that it would-n’t be completed in less than 2 weeks stating that “if these guys can have the job completed in two weeks I’ll eat my hat”. Numbulwar now have a well cleared fence line. All

the scrub and ant hills have been removed. It is now a priority of Numbul-war to maintain the new fence and fence line. Great job by the civil team and Numbulwar!

New Aerodrome Fence in Numbulwar

Yugul Mangi Festival is becoming a spectacular event on the Roper Gulf calendar, it grows in strength every year. Some of last years favorites returned this year with the spear throwing and tug of war competitions, the female rangers and language centers bush medicine and bush tucker stall, the art centers weaving area and Ngukurr markets on Sunday all due to some sterling efforts from the teachers at Ngukurr school. Plenty of kids art and craft activity and of course sport all weekend, AFL, and basket-ball to name a few. New on the program this year were the skills of a gymnast brought in to teach the agile kids of Ngukurr more daring skills and jumps. Junkadelic a Perth based percussion band came to teach percussion and how to make homemade musical instruments and performed an outstanding set on Sat night with lots of help from local kids. As always the highlights of the festival would have to be the 2 nights of local music, the traditional Bunggul and the fireworks on Saturday night, so much fun crammed into one weekend.

Yugul Mangi Festival

Lorraine Bennett is fifth from the left

Held annually during mid June, Barunga Festival presents the unique and amaz-ing opportunity to join several remote Indigenous communities annually to cele-brate the positive aspects of community life through sports, music and art, both contemporary and traditional.

The Barunga festival attract far and wide and garnered national and international media coverage.

This year, Barunga Festival delivered an incredible program of music, sport, cul-ture, art, dance, circus, kids activities, workshops, healthy food and many more festive treats.

More than 20 communities from across the Northern Territory descend on Ba-runga to show off their skills in contempo-rary and traditional sporting events such as Aussie rules, basketball, softball and athletics, spear throwing, fire lighting and didgeridoo competitions and demonstra-tions.

Ever since this much loved Territory event has seen people from all over the country descend upon the small indige-nous community south of Katherine where they camp and take part in a pro-gram of workshops, dancing ceremonies, traditional bush tucker gathering, didgeri-doo making, basket weaving and enjoy plenty of great music and sport from the region.

Roper Gulf Regional Council had a stall, with a lot of goodies for the kids and adults. Along with it, the RJCP team pro-vided a bouncy castle for the kids enter-tainment. Barunga Festival is an exciting time for the community as they reunite with family members and countrymen from all over the Top End, and welcome tourists from far and near to experience community life for the weekend.

Barunga Festival


We have a new permanent staff member here in Beswick. His name is Adrian Ashley. Adrian was working with our Municipal team when I first arrived here in Beswick back in October. He was working with them every day and I initially assumed that he was a staff member and a good one at that. It didn’t take me long to realise that he wasn’t, it was when I did our first pays and his name wasn’t on the list that I had to ask the question. It turned out that Adrian was an RJCP participant and CDEP before that and he was working with the Muns boys because he wanted to and it kept him occupied and he wasn’t getting paid. He just liked working with the team and the team liked having him around. As time went on we had movement up the chain and one of our Municipal blokes moved up to a Supervisors posi-tion and that left a vacant spot just right for Adrian. He went through the interview process and won the position. He is now a permanent staff member. He wears his uniform with pride. He is hard working, reliable and great fun to have around, nothing is a problem and he nev-er stops. He gets his first full two weeks pay next pay day. He is now in the process of getting his licence back, he lost it, really lost it. It fell out of his pocket and it’s been so long

since he had it he has to sit for it again. That’s his next goal. What a great bloke and such a good story. Story written by Helen Hawkins.

Adrian’s Story


Roper Gulf Students from Barunga, Beswick and Numbulwar Spent 3 days in the TEABBA studios training to become deadly RIBS operators in their communities. While training at TEABBA the students were shown a variety of areas involved in running a RIBS, like technical hints and how to’s, researching for a story / topic, Lin-ing up interviews, scripting questions, recording / editing / producing your story and finally going to air LIVE and presenting your produced material.

TEABBA trainer Kelly Baylis said “All of the students proved to be very capable and with more exposure could become accomplished RIBS operators for their communi-ty.

“It was great to meet and get to know them.” She said

All the TEABBA staff enjoyed the company and good laughs with the students and we wish them good luck broadcasting in their communities!

TEABBA Training


Employee of the Month Nominations and Winners—June 2014

Head Quarters – Nominations – Carole Orr and Brooke Margetts Winner – Brooke Margetts Barunga – Patricia Lee Beswick – Adrian Ashley Borroloola – Chantelle Johns Bulman – Jill Curtis Eva Valley – Robert Williri

Jilkminggan – Anne-Marie McDonald Mataranka – Johnoleo Huddle-stone Ngukurr – Margaret George Numbulwar – Cheryl Nundhirribala Congratulations to all Employee of the Month winners!

Two of the old originals move on

After a combined career of over 25 years with Roper Gulf and its preceding coun-cils, two of our longest serving staff are moving on. Alan Mole has been “a man in blue” working for the old Nyirranggulung Re-gional Council and for Roper Gulf as the SSM at Numbulwar and Jilkminggan for over 10 years. He is one of the longest serving SSM/CSM working for Roper Gulf Regional

Council. At Mataranka the legendary Eric Dodd, known as Gang Gang to his mates has celebrat-ed his retirement after 15 years of service in the Mata-ranka Municipal team.

The Deputy Mayor Judy Macfarlane joined Gang Gang’s friends and fellow workers last Wednesday to celebrate his work which started as a CDEP worker at Ngukurr. Alan says of his time at Roper Gulf, “…it’s a great thing when you are able to do a job that you enjoy and also get to travel and meet great people and see so much beautiful country.” Both men are highly regarded by their communities and fellow workers and will be greatly missed for their wis-dom, knowledge, sense of humour and hard work.

Alan Mole Eric Dodd and the Municipal Team

PHOTOGRAPH OF THE MONTH

Mayor Jack with Deputy Prime Minister, Warren Truss.

Out & About

National General Assembly

Out & About

Above: AFL Clash between Beswick and Tindal Below: AFL Clash between Beswick and Tindal. Final score: 111 Beswick - 56 Tindal

Left: Yugul Mangi Festival Below: Borroloola Kids in Brazil

Employee Profile

Jyoti Pudasaini Manager, Governance, Corporate Planning and Compliance

Reports to: Director of Corporate Governance Which departments do you look after? Governance, Corporate Planning and Compliance

As Manager of Governance, Corporate Planning and Compliance I am responsible to:

Ensure that Council and NT Government legislation and policies are followed during Councils operations

Council and Council Committees including the Local Authorities are properly run and that consultations with local communities are undertaken

We also prepare and publish Council Minutes and Agendas, Annual Region-al Plans, Annual Reports and other special documents

Maintain the Council website and ensure Council newsletters are compliant

Prepare draft policies

Support the Mayor and elected members in Council business including train-ing

Are responsible for complaints management and media communications Tell us a little about yourself:

My background is in Architectural Engineering and Commercial Law. I have previ-ously worked as a company secretary and for the Nepalese Government drafting policies and legislation. I am Nepalese and have lived in Kathmandu most of my life. Before coming to Aus-tralia I also worked and studied in the UK and Singapore. I have now lived in Aus-tralia for three years and have been in Katherine for two and a half years. In my own time I am very involved with my family and love listening to music and singing. I love living in Katherine which has such a lovely down to earth lifestyle.

Round One 2014-15

Applications are now being sought for community projects within the Roper Gulf Region that will benefit:

local community events and activities

economic development

the physical or natural environment Applicants may apply for:

up to $1,000 for minor projects

up to $3,000 for major projects. Applications for Round One Open 1st July 2014

Closing date for all applications will be COB 8 August 2014

Please contact Amanda Haigh – Grants Coordinator on (08) 8972 9038 or [email protected] for an application package.

Community Grants Program

Safety Focus

Upcoming Meetings of Council and Local Authorities

14th July 2014 - 10.30am: Beswick Local Authority Meeting - Beswick SDC

15th July 2014 - 10.30am: Barunga Local Authority Meeting - Barunga SDC

16th July 2014 - 10.30am: Bulman Local Authority Meeting - Bulman SDC

22nd July 2014 - 10.00am: Numbulwar Local Authority Meeting - Numbulwar SDC

31st July 2014 - 10.00am: Borroloola Local Authority Meeting - Borroloola SDC

2nd September 2014 - 10.00am: Jilkminggan Local Authority Meeting - Jilkminggan SDC

2nd September 2014 - 5.30pm: Mataranka Local Authority Meeting - Mataranka SDC

4th September 2014 - 10.00am: Borroloola Local Authority Meeting - Borroloola SDC

8th September 2014 - 10.00am: Manyallaluk Local Authority Meeting - Manyallaluk SDC

Please Note: Local Authority Meetings are subject to change

Contact Us

RGRC Mayor Tony Jack Phone: 0428 793 132 Email: [email protected] RGRC Council Deputy Mayor Judy MacFarlane Phone: 0437 918 115 Em: [email protected]

Chief Executive Officer Michael Berto Phone: (08) 8972 9002 Email: [email protected] Roper Gulf Regional Council Reception Phone: (08) 8972 9000 Fax: (08) 8971 2607 Em: [email protected]

Job Opportunities

For current jobs go to www.ropergulf.nt.gov.au or email [email protected]

Do you have a story to tell or a photograph to share?

Roper Gulf Regional Council would like to showcase your stories and photographs from our Region. Residents and RGRC staff are invited to submit their articles and original photos to be considered for an upcoming edition of the RGRC Newsletter and/or RGRC Website.

Please submit your material to [email protected] or phone (08) 8972 9000 for more information.

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