'Camp Seaside' went bush this year.......................into the Dandenongs!

It was a great camp...with great facilities for helpers and guests alike.

Around 60 people were involved.....27 of them children. Other States and nationalities were involved, as well as Victorians.

Hats off to Straight Arrows and its CEO, Rebecca Matheson, and her team of helpers and volunteers, for another superb effort.

Its the only Camp of its kind in Victoria.....for people, especially families... struggling to live with or affected by HIV/AIDS...with the only othersuch camp...in Sydney...said to be struggling to survive.

The Australian AIDS Fund Inc has been the principal funding body for Camp Seaside since it initiated it some 10 years ago.

It's President, Brian Haill, has called on other Victorian HIV agencies " to start pulling their weight and to make some kind of meaningful effort to support this initiative. It's so easy to simply sit back...and do so little or nothing at all, especially when other such agencies have far more significant funds at their disposal. It's a very mean attitude.

"The smaller agencies are already considering their futures...with the Department of Human Services likely to call for mergers or amalgamations in the near future. They'd do well to support practical, helpful initiatives like this instead of pouring monies into endless talk-fests, seminars and the like. We'd challenge them to ask themselves what difference it'd make if they didn't exist.", Mr Haill added.