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Out in the shed with Ted

Ted McEvoy

Medicare levy.

There seems to be some confusion within the ex-military DFRDB community with regard to the Medicare levy exemption.

I have just checked with the DFRDB people for clarification. There are 6 categories of exemptions - see below. I would think that Category 2 would be the most applicable to us. There is more detail in the "instructions” document available HERE. If you consider you are applicable, print the FORM, fill it in and send it to the DFRDB people at:- 

 DFRDB

PO Box 22

BELCONNEN  ACT 2616.

Medicare levy exemption categories

 You are in an exemption category if:

• Category 1 - You are a blind pensioner or you receive the sickness allowance from Centrelink

• Category 2 - You are entitled to full free medical treatment for all conditions under Defence Force arrangements or Veterans’ Affairs Repatriation Health Card (Gold Card) or repatriation arrangements.

• Category 3 - You are not an Australian resident for tax purposes

• Category 4 - You are a resident of Norfolk Island

• Category 5 - You are a member of a diplomatic mission or consular post in Australia (or a member of such a person’s family and you were living with them) and you are not an Australian citizen and you do not ordinarily live in Australia.

TPI Update

Click HERE for the proposal concerning the use of GP practice nurses for home visits that was discussed with Minister Griffin during March. Aged care is a big issue in the veteran community but unfortunately there is not enough focus on it amongst veterans not in that category. We need to be aware of our responsibility to be across all issues regardless of age.

Birthday Paradox

If you could get a random group of people together, what do you think would be the minimum number you would need to ensure that at least 2 of them shared the same birthday?? 100??   150??   200???

Well, surprisingly, the number is 23. With 23 people, the possibility of 2 people sharing the same birthday is 50%, and rises to a massive 97% when you have only 50 people.

Don't believe me, well here is the formula, work it out for yourself. 

Barcaldine Caravan Park

It seems there are a few blokes from the Vietnam Vets community who, for reasons better known to themselves, are bad mouthing Barcaldine’s Homestead Caravan Park saying it is not a good park at which to stay. Nothing could be further from the truth - Ben and Thanh, the owners of the Park, go out of their way to greet veterans and ex-service people and are very welcoming and supportive.

Barcaldine is the home of the “Tree of Knowledge” (the dead stump) and is 1,150 km North-West of Brisbane, on the intersection of Matilda Highway and Capricorn Highway. It is about 520 km west of Rockhampton.

The site cost is $20.00 per night but internet is free (including wireless) and Ben knows his IT! Each afternoon you are able to join in for Billy Tea and Damper as well as hear the free live music from our entertainers and listen to the one and only bush man Tom Lockie.

So, if you’re about to hook the van onto the back of the Tojo and head off for a while, make it a point of calling into the Homestead, tell them you’re ex-service and you’ll be completely satisfied.

A special day is being organised for Veterans Day (18^th August 2008) with live performances from several country and western singers together with a special performance from the Barcaldine State School. That evening will also have a free BBQ for all veterans and ex-service people.

Mexican Food??

Like Mexican food?? - I found an advert for a good restaurant – click HERE to see it (speakers up)

Telephone etc

If you currently have a landline with Telstra on which you pay nearly $30 per month line rental, as well as that you pay for your local and interstate phone calls plus an additional charge for your Broadband internet service, and you’re sick of paying out all that money for an average service, then there is an alternative.

My ISP (iiNet) has a new product which can save $$$heaps. You cancel your landline service with Telstra, saving $30 a month plus calls $???

You install NakedDSL from iiNet - gives you DSL2 (a heap quicker than Telstra’s broadband) – plus you get free local and interstate phone calls and you keep your old phone number – and you use the same handpiece. There is a conflict if you have one of the 2.4GHz cordless phones, though the older 900MHz and the newer 1.8GHz and 5.8GHz ones are OK

Want to know more???  Click HERE 

Analogue music??

If you’ve got a bunch of old vinyl records, or cassettes, that you would like to keep, but don’t want to use your old players, you can convert the analogue music into digital format and burn the lot onto CD.

The software to change the format can be downloaded free from HERE.

Once you’ve downloaded the program, you can download the manual from HERE.

Products and Services

The Australian Defence Organisation has numerous suppliers of products and services at concession rates, available to serving and retired ADF members, Service Pensioners, serving Defence civilians and Defence contractors. This brochure offers an outline of these. You can download your copy HERE

Caps Lock

Have you ever started typing in Word only to find that you forgot to turn the caps lock key off and now you’ve got a bunch of text in capital letters. What do you do??  Do you have to retype it all??

The short answer is NO!!  All you’ve got to do is highlight the text in question then press Shift-F3 and this will toggle the text to “lower case” to “Every Word With A Capital” and back to ALL CAPS.

At Ease

The Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Alan Griffin, officially launched "At Ease", an initiative designed to raise awareness and improve mental health in the veteran and service community.

The Minister said “Mental health for veterans and serving Australian Defence Force members is a high priority for this Government. We want everyone to recognise the importance of mental health and its effect on people's overall health."

At Ease provides simple and relevant self-help information for veterans and serving members, their families, mates and carers. It encourages them to recognise the signs and take the initiative to maintain and build their mental health and wellbeing.

At Ease has been developed with the Australian Centre for Post-traumatic Mental Health and endorsed by the National Veterans' Health and Wellbeing Forum, representing Australia's peak ex-service organisations.

The At Ease website can be found at HERE

Long Tan

Long Tan vet, Dave Sabben, has produced a 50-slide animated Powerpoint presentation on the battle at Long Tan.

It can be downloaded from the net, and Dave would like it sent as far and as wide as possible.

The contents are suitable for school teachers and students as well as Viet Vets and others who are just interested, not to forget serving members of all forces, including those overseas and in Allied forces.

It's a PC version only (a Mac version may follow, if funded), and runs on Powerpoint version 2003 and later. (Don't try to run it on earlier Powerpoint versions  - eg, 97 - it uses features not available before the 03 version.)

It's large - about 5.6Mb - but it's paced to the viewer.  Maybe an hour or more of viewing/study.   Click HERE for the presentation.  Dave's website is  http://www.dave-sabben.com/, it's worth a visit.

(I suggest you "save to disk" so you can run it whenever you wish, rather than opening it in Powerpoint?)

Wanted

Wanted – family members of ex-service personnel who served from mid 1960's to the mid 1970’s to join a health study - click  HERE  for the form.   

The Dept of Veterans Affairs wants to invite about 20,000 family members of ex-service personnel to participate, however, they cannot directly contact the family members of veterans due to privacy laws, so it's vital that family members register their interest in participating in the study.

Children, step-children, partners and ex-partners of ex-service personnel all are encouraged to register.  

Physical Health

Why DVA is not shouting this from the roof-tops we have no idea but to us it seems a real winner.

If you are trying to maintain your physical health, possibly after having completed other Men's Health programs supported by DVA, then there is help available for you. This program allows you to work one on one with a qualified exercise physiologist to develop an exercise program that works for you. How good is that?

Click HERE to download a PDF file which we have obtained from the DVA web site. This explains who can access the program, and tells you how to go about it.

You will need a referral from your GP stating that you are physically able to undertake mild exercise.  The programs usually run twice per week, and I believe will give you access to a Fitness Centre gym.

A minister decided that a visual demonstration would add emphasis to his Sunday sermon, so he placed four worms into four separate jars.

The first worm was put into a container of alcohol. The second worm was put into a container of cigarette smoke. The third worm was put into a container of chocolate syrup. The fourth worm was put into a container of good clean soil. 

At the conclusion of the sermon, the Minister reported the following results:

The first worm in alcohol - Dead. The second worm in cigarette smoke - Dead. The third worm in chocolate syrup - Dead.  The fourth worm in good clean soil - Alive.

So the Minister asked the congregation - What can you learn from this demonstration?

A little old lady in the back quickly raised her hand and  said, "As long as you drink, smoke and eat chocolate, you won’t get worms!"