Ferny Grove State School fete this Sunday

Update: Thanks to @peterwiseman for pointing out that this fete is actually at Ferny Hills State School, not Ferny Grove.

Ferny Grove State School has their fete this Sunday June 19th between 9am and 3pm. I don't have any further information about what activities or attractions will be present (I only found this page - thanks to Nappy Cakes by Lynne for tipping me off)

State budget highlights for Ferny Grove

Geoff Wilson (Sitting Labour member for the seat of Ferny Grove) has posted a short video of highlights from the State Budget for the electorate of Ferny Grove. Its not the longest video in the world and I suspect the only really new announcement is the approval of the cycle path between Ferny Grove and Samford Village.

PS. Geoff also now has a Facebook page.

Ferny Grove train line closure this weekend and next month

Translink has posted a notice that trains will not be running this weekend (7:30pm Friday 17th June to last service 19 June) and will be replaced by buses between Ferny Grove and Bowen Hills. A similar service disruption has also been announced for the weekend commencing July 22. No road closures were mentioned.

Ferny Grove Line Timetable to be reviewed 'Later this year'

If you were wonder when the Ferny Grove train timetable will next be reviewed, Queenland Rail tweeted (in response to davematthews86):

The Ferny Grove line will be reviewed in stage 2 consultation starts later this year. Will review waiting times at same time

There you go.

'Ratepayer Action Group' Denied Stall at Carnivale

The Westerner reports that the Ratepayers Action Group was denied a stall at the recent Hills Carnivale festival. The Ratepayer Action Group is an association of citizens that (from their website):

will highlight apparent council and state government inefficiencies and wastage in the Moreton Bay area.
We want to represent every ratepayer in the Moreton region whether you are a homeowner an investment property owner, a retail, industrial or other business premises owner, a unit owner, bed and breakfast property or motel owner or even a renter.

 To be honest I had trouble finding a succinct purpose of the group on their website, and had to pull the above quote from their history page.

The Westerner goes on to quote a Moreton Council representative defending the exclusion of the Ratepayer Action Group, saying that it was not an appropriate place for a political platforms or campaigns.  Of course, current elected representatives were welcome, as long as they did not display political signs.

Opinion: Public Information

In my previous post I discussed the Year 12 outcome results for 2010 released by the Queensland Studies Authority. The night I wrote that post I asked QSA whether more readily consumable formats (such as spreadsheet formats, for example) were available. Today I received a very brief and definitive reply:

The data supplied on our website are not supplied in any other format. This is to prevent the data being manipulated into league table type formats.

Taken along with their FAQ, QSA is unambiguously against the construction of school league tables. Similarly, the national My Schools website is completely structured around preventing any mass comparison of schools.

Are we really leveraging public information as effectively as possible?