394 Cattleya Cookara Bill

My History Former Owner/Manager/CEO at Scholz Electrical Co. Former Senior Television Technician at QTQ9 - Channel 9 Former Electronics Technician at Nairn Audio Video Former Electrician/ Electronics Technician at PMG - Now Telstra Former Television technician at BTQ7 - Channel 7 Former Biomedical Equipment Technician at Royal Brisbane & Women's Hospital Trade Teacher at electro group training - teaching electrical & electronics Studied at PostMaster General's Dept.- PMG - Now called Telstra Studied at Accredit Training International. 2 From Atherton, Queensland, Australia Qualifications:- Electrical fitter / Mechanic - Electrician. Diploma in Industrial Electronics Diploma in communications electronics B.O.C.P. License Q 50 - allows me to operate / maintain Broadcast Transmitters. UEENEEF002 - Qualified to connect cables for multiple access to telecommunication services These competencies form part of UEE30807 Certificate 3 electrotechnology Electrician Course - including ability to connect fibre Optic cabling. I was born & schooled in Atherton N.Q. I started becoming interested in Orchids when at the age of 10, I used to go into the bush with my father to obtain firewood as he was the firewood man when everyone had slow combustion wood stoves. 3 As trees were felled, I would collect the plants with the pretty flowers (not knowing what they were) and often swap a yellow one for a white one with the kid who lived up the road as I think that his father did similar work. I had quite a collection when we were married in 1969 & these were all Australian Natives. Both my wife & I went to work one day & on returning I found that our Dog Brutus must have been bored or did not like orchids and had chewed all of my orchids up into bite sized chunks. And so my collection started again which slowly grew to about 4000 at last count . I used to look after the laboratories for a chap Derren Geard who used to do tissue culture in the bush where Sinnamon Park now is. I often purchased punnets of cloned plants off him for $50 a punnett which was a lot then about forty years ago. I labelled them with an indelible pencil & over the years, the labels were unreadable or had fallen off. I know where those plants came from but as I don’t know their names, you will find a lot in my collection just marked “Unknown.” 4 I have noticed over the years that a lot of commercial growers have shut down due to the cost of paying labour and a lot of the older growers are passing away. The younger generation do not seem interested in gardening or orchid growing as they cannot let go of their iPhone or iPad long enough to create or enjoy the passion that you will soon get from watching your collection grow & flourish. This is one of the reasons that I decided to teach orchid growing to “Beginners”. Orchid growers who have been growing for some time think they know everything about everything & at my age, after growing orchids for over sixty eight years, I don’t need someone on my property telling me that I am doing it all wrong. (Maybe I am, but what works for me may be totally different to another experienced grower.) So here we are today so that I can pass on some of my knowledge & experience. - Please enjoy the journey! Kind regards, Myles