Daylesford Wombat Forest meetingMay 1st 2004Steve, Gillian & Jasmin Nicky, Greg, Travis & Kasey We met Nick at the BP service station on the South Eastern about 7.30 and headed off for Daylesford. When we turned off the freeway at Ballan we were in quite a convoy of 4wds and were encouraged about the numbers that might actually show up as we were quite disappointed to be only going with 2 members from VAT. So we followed the convoy to and through Daylesford and had to park about 15 mins from the school and it was only 9.30. We then walked past 4wd after 4wd in high hopes to get to the school. The good news was that the turn out was fantastic. The bad news was that it was too good. Despite 4wd Victoria telling the organisers that their would be over 1000 representatives for the Recreational Users Group, the hall it was to be held in could legally only hold just over 600. The left the dilemma of what to with the other 600 odd people who had attended the meeting. Things got a bit heated when it was suggested that a postal vote be used for all who had registered and that only 600 representatives remain for the presentation, so it was decided to hold the meeting in the quadrangle with a PA system in the rain. Good move. NOT. We had 3 kids in the pouring rain under umbrellas and could hear nothing, so we made an executive decision to head home and put in a complaint if we were unable to vote. We left about midday. 15mins after the meeting started and 1.5hrs after it was supposed to start. We stopped at small pub just the other side of Daylesford for lunch and just as we were finishing up all these people from the meeting started showing up. The meeting had been called off and everyone who had registered to vote will be posted details at to what is to happen from there. When we left there were 20 odd 4wds parked in the pub car park and the restaurant owners really had their hands full. I want to say though, that with what was at stake, it really was disappointing to have only 2 Vat memberships registered to vote at the meeting. Fortunately there are a lot of people out there though who are keep to make sure the forests in Victoria stay open for our use. Gillian |