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In the extension arena, we often talk about managing change.  We talk about capacity and resilience and making changes to improve our own lives and our communities.  It’s not just about taking the latest technology and applying it – but to have thoughtfully learned from our experiences and training and weighing up what to apply across our social, economic, environmental landscape.

My father, Keith Coutts, died recently.  It is a time of change in our extended family.  Someone who was always there – back in my ‘home town’ – is there no longer.  And somehow, the rest of us fit back into normal life and move on to take his place in life’s march.

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Having finally set foot on Fiji – I thought I would revert back to my international theme for this update!  Even though I had lived and worked in Papua New Guinea (see my earlier blog) and had projects in Asia, I longed for the opportunity to do something in the Pacific Islands.  Many years ago, I had to choose between a poultry-based job in Fiji – and one in PNG.  I chose PNG but often wondered where life would have taken me and my family had I chosen differently.

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One of the factors that has prompted us to launch our specialised rural survey service has been the survey workshops that I developed with Kerry Bell – a whiz with numbers and statistics!  Kerry and I had been co-running the University of Queensland’s ‘Evaluation of Projects and Programs’ Masters course for a number of years.

We had about 2 hours during the one week residential to devote to survey design and analysis and were always left frustrated at the end that we could not do it justice – and it was an area that students were very interested in. So we finally developed a course where we could devote 2 days rather than 2 hours to helping people understand the whole survey process!  And we’ve been pretty satisfied with the results and the feedback from participants.

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It’s not exactly ‘overseas’, but Tasmania is separated from mainland Australia by Bass Straight!  So maybe it ‘almost’ fits the travel theme of previous blogs.

It really is a beautify island sate – and I have been fortunate to have had some good project work in Tasmania over recent years.  For a number of years, I worked with my colleague Gordon Stone in evaluating the Stronger Learning Pathways project in the Cradle Coast (North West region). This project was attempting to address the low standing of continuing education in the region.  This gave us lots of reasons to travel to that part of the state – Burnie, Smithton, Wynyard and heaps of other coastal towns – to enjoy the tulips (yes there is a tulip farm just outside of Burnie!) – and look out for fairy penguins on the beach in the evenings.

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I seem to have started a theme about experiences in other countries – and as I am freshly back from a holiday in South America, I thought I would continue the theme.  Robyn and I teamed up with a group of mainly Toowoomba-ites, and marshalled by our common travel agent (Wendy), headed off to South America just after Easter.  We had not been there before and it was all a bit of a mystery to me.

We started in Argentina – Buenos Aeries.  I found a country that seemed very much like a version of Australia – just with the Spanish background rather than the British influence in Australia.  In both countries the original inhabitants were forced out to the more inhospitable areas – and you are left with quite a transplanted culture in the cities and agricultural parts.   Flying over the agricultural land was just like flying over NSW and SW Queensland.  Even our visit to a local tourist ranch reminded me of the early Australian era as well (well, except for the more colourful clothes and dances!).  A highlight was the large cemetery where Eva Peron was buried!  More like a city than our traditional Oz plots.

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