Guest Speaker April General Meeting

Dr Stephen Ives is a Senior Teaching Fellow in the Division of University College and a Research Fellow at the Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture. He is interested in integrated cropping and livestock systems within a value chain context, together with understanding drivers of practice change within local and international agricultural communities. Stephen is an advocate of clear education pathways into Agriculture, the interaction of industry, education providers and the learner.
(Ref https://www.utas.edu.au/profiles/staff/tia/stephen-ives, 3/5/2022)

Stephen currently leads research projects in Vietnam and Laos in conjunction with local universities that are focussed on improving livelihoods for smallholder cattle farmers through innovative methods of forage production and soil management. He discussed the challenges in creating sustainable change in cultural traditions of farming. One initiative was to establish a school based learning program into forage production for the next generation of farmers.

Hamish explained that he is leading a professional team as well as numerous volunteers and local historians to digitise, clean, code and link historical record groups relating to convict transportation and the convict landscape in general.

In recent years the team has put together over 78,000 individual records as well as 1.6 million digitised Tasmanian records in order to explore the factors responsible for influencing life course and intergenerational outcomes.

Various correlations and patterns between punishments of solitary confinement and lashes given, outbreaks of disease, life expectancies and even labour market forces were put forward in a dazzling and slick interactive presentation. The ability to link and expand on digitised data was truly incredible and indicative of the massive work that has gone into making this mind blowing achievement.

Malcolm is Board Chair of the Royal Flying Doctor Service Tasmania & Director of RFDSAustralia.

The Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia is one of the largest and most comprehensive aeromedical organisations in the world. It is a not-for-profit organisation and provides emergency and primary health care services for those living in rural, remote and regional areas of Australia. Malcolm emphasised the work of the RFDS in Tasmania, particularly in the provision of dental health services, primary healthcare and vaccination services. Currently the RFDS has a fleet of 79 aircraft and employs over 2,000 people.

Christopher Walkden is the secretary of the Tasmanian branch of the Australian Electric Vehicle Association. He brought with him a 1992 Subaru Brumby which he has converted from petrol power to electric.

A fascinating presentation on the history of electric vehicles and insights into why you next car is likely to be electric from an ecconomic persprective. Even today there are 17 charging sites in Tasmania with 12 more in planning. So now you can travel anywhere in Tasmania with an EV with a 200+ km range using fast chargers.

Peter King is the facility manager of the Autonomous Maritime Systems Laboratory, University of Tasmania. He is a computer engineer who has spend the past 12 years working with underwater robotics, specifically autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs).

Peter’s talk explored the challenges of working in Antarctica and showcased the work that has been done over the past three years and is planned for this upcoming season. Deploying a robotic submarine beneath the ice of Antarctica is a daunting challenge, but the information returned is critical to our understanding of how glacial ice melts and changes.

Brian, who was inspired by a teacher at Launceston Grammar, qualified as a lawyer and commenced a career of sports administration. This led to him being named  Athletics Australia Official of the Year for 2016.

Brian is a member of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) Technical Committee and has drafted many policies for world sport.

We all saw Brian at the Tokyo olympics on the athletics track adjudicating false starts, where athletes careers ended without argument, respecting Brian’s supreme global Authority.

Anecdotes of Olympics and athletes, current concerns with shoe design, gender re- identification and testosterone levels of athletes were presented.

A fascinating first hand insight into the behind the scene workings of sports administration.

The Tamar has long been a source of pride and controversy.

Clearly it is wilting under intense and conflicting pressures. From ‘Do Nothing’ to ‘Build a $500 million barrage and the future will be golden’ – with many a variations in between.

Andrew discussed some of the complex and conflicting historical issues with mud in our estuary.  Tamar Lake has invested in comprehensive independent research that they use to highlight bias in local govemental reports. But complexity is confusing the public. The Tamar action group is growing public awarness and participation by simplifying the message to-  “If  you want to fix the mud you can Team up for the Tamar.”

You can sign up at  the Tamar Action Group on facebook or go to https://tamaractiongroup.org.au/

Andrew has enjoyed 35 years as Marketing, Operations and as General Manager, Director and shareholder

With the aid of numerous historical slides, Mark outlined the development of the early Tasmanian Gunners in the 1850s which later became the Southern Tasmanian Volunteer Artillery with the departure of the stationed British troops.

With Federation in 1901, the safety of the nation became a Commonwealth matter and universal military training for males aged between 18 to 24 was established in 1910.

Mark then described the development of artillery guns including shrapnel bullets, timed detonation of shells, the range of various armoury and even the type of horses required to transport the artillery.

Detailed description of the Gallipoli campaign followed which included artillery usage, maps showing troop deployment, strategies employed and lines of defence.

A fascinating and wide ranging talk which was much appreciated by members.