12/11/2021
A PACK OF BARDS COME OUT TO PLAY— SAT, NOV 11
A little insight into Pack of Bards member, Ian Mackay ... what a great story. Followed by a vid of The Cuddliest Poet in the World doing what he does so well.
----------------------------------------------------------------
'Our President Ian Mackay received a Sunshine Coast Environment Council Life Membership award for his services to the Environment and SCEC.
Mark Ricketts, who has worked with SCEC and has also been the Vice President of CRC for many years, presented the award. He enlightened us about Ian and some of his environmental achievements.
“Ian Mackay has been a stalwart of the Sunshine Coast environmental movement for over 25 years. He is President for life of that auspicious body, the Conondale Range Committee, who have styled themselves after a bankrupt banana republic where elections for office bearers resonate with the same groans that accompany those of Nth Korea.
President Kim..sorry Ian...has tried to rid himself of this troublesome group but we continue to follow him around..like love-struck puppies singing “ if you leave us, can we come too?” I suspect he isn’t the messiah but just a naughty boy.
SCEC has always been a benevolent big brother to the CRC – helping us through our self-created crises - the blockades, the libel suits, the battles with bureaucracies. Throughout the last couple of decades, the kind Father Time-like visage of Ian Mackay has smoothed his spiky minions more abrasive sides and presented an image so benign and sensible that none could not love him and so, in turn, us.
Ian’s sense of humour is one of his greatest weapons. Its not at the expense of individuals, though it has made many look incredibly foolish. The lack of malice and undeniable good common sense make his enemies smile as his juggernaut rolls over them. I remember his classic line about the Labor Government’s Traveston dam abomination. It was in the drought of all droughts, and Ian said, “Building Traveston dam to solve a drought is like giving a beggar a wallet.”
Ian takes his role of Mr Nice Guy of the environment movement very seriously. Many years ago, the two of us headed to see the Minister for Mines, the formidable Tony McGrady from Mt Isa. Now McGrady was not known for his love of greenies, particularly ones who had been sticking it to his beloved mining industry and department for the last five years...and..crime of crimes....kept getting it right.
Ian and I were going up in the lift to the Minister’s office to hammer him about the toxic dump his dept had left in the Conondales when I said “ El Presidente...I’m a bit hobbled by my job with Jim Soorley...how about we reverse our usual Bill and Ben and I’ll be the good cop and you can be the bad cop?”
Ian looked like I’d spat on his mother’s grave. “Me.. the bad cop...” he stammered. “But everyone loves me.” “Yes, I know..but imagine the element of surprise," I cleverly replied, “and you are so good at everything you do.” You don’t survive in the shadow of the mighty without picking up some North Korean survival skills.
So we frog-marched into the Minister’s office – me trying to smile and look ingratiating and Father Time practising his “vengeful god” look, hoping that Tony McGrady’s Catholic up-bringing would bring him to his knees.
And....so it was...one look at Ian in his 'St Peter won’t let you in' visage, and McGrady gave us more than we had intended demanding. Mind you, I’m not sure if Ian will ever trust me again.
So Ian has kept the ragtag bunch of misfits that pass for the Conondale Range Committee together and talking to each other for all this time, and when the Regional Forest Agreement looked like delivering wood chips to employ Bill Ludwig’s mates, was able to rise like the living dead and help defeat the evil AWU shock troops. In his time he and his happy helpers have stopped that bloody gold mine and got it all cleaned up, delivered a national park equal to Lamington, a good working relationship with the Mines and Forestry Departments and still everybody likes him. Just like Comrade Kim.
Ian has also taken his natural wit and performance skills and turned them into a formidable cultural force for good. We all give lip service to the three pillars of sustainability while still focussing on the environment. Ian doesn’t – he has taken his cultural skills as a poet, performer and MC to many non-greenie functions, and, through his skills, made people who wouldn’t normally be affected by a tirade from Ian Christesen or a reasoned argument from Narelle (SCEC), think about the environment and our impact on it. Even better, he does it while getting them to smile.
I went into the lunch room of the Luggage Point sewage treatment plant one day and there, up on the wall, was a copy of a poem by Ian about the plant. Some worker had come across it somewhere and they had taken it on themselves to post Ian up high.
I think Ian has made our region a richer place for that approach, and in the same way that we take our hat off to the Noel Gardners, Mark Gilletts and Barry Charles who put our message into song, we dips our lids to Ian Mackay, and thank him for his enormous efforts over the years by asking him to become a life member to match his president for life title and if you are really nice to him, he’ll recite his Luggage Point poem.”
- Mark Ricketts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-ihh_spQsw
THe art of Spooner applied to the famous children's tale by Ian Mackay at the 2013 Maleny Music Weekend's Poets' Breakfast.
