Alright. That's a good start.

Thanks everyone for putting your hands up.

I will email over the weekend and we can catch alight.

With Michael as Chair, I am happy to undertake tasks as needed.

I am on [email protected]

Michael, take the lead..DK is ready on the sideline to cheer you on

Great, Daniel.

You were already on my list.

Michael, thanks for bringing up the subject to resurrect the Crocodile Prize.

And yes, I agree there are good mumu stones in Simbu.

The food down by the riverside was good too during the 2016 presentations of the CP.

And I can remember Mathias Kin talking about the need to establish a 'home' for the CP.

Michael and Mathias, can we talk more about the Simbu mumu stones please.

That makes three of us.

Trust the good Doctor Dom, poet extraordinaire, to put up his hand to help revive the ailing Pukpuk.

Pigs his specialty may be, but the Doc is nothing if not versatile, and talented, and dogged.

But the good Doc, like most/all other previous (and forthcoming, hopefully) volunteers is not a free agent entirely: many others have demands on his time and talents, not least his employer and colleagues and clients and family and friends.

He will need all the help he can get.

There is, as Chris has reminded us, great virtue and value in volunteering and, until this year at least, volunteers from all walks and many regions of PNG life have sustained the Pukpuk – at, in many instances, considerable personal inconvenience.

Indeed, as we all know, the genesis of the Pukpuk was the inspired coupling of two esteemed and highly talented volunteers, Keith and Phil.

They, however, unlike many, if not most of their Papua New Guinean successors, had, by virtue of their ‘retired’ status, more time than most to devote to nurturing their progeny – which is why, for a time, the Pukpuk became and remained a robust literary beast.

As their successors have found, the Pukpuk is a hungry beast that eats into time, and energy and commitment and needs discipline and leadership and ongoing, continuous sustenance to remain viable.

I’ve no doubt whatsoever that the good Doc has the capability and commitment to lead the Pukpuk’s revival – or that other capable Papua New Guineans will also contribute to the cause.

I also agree, wholeheartedly, with Phil that some form of commercialization to underpin and sustain the Doc’s volunteer brigade will be necessary.

Commercial sponsorship is an obvious necessity – but not just for prizes or events.

The volunteer brigade needs a dedicated, preferably salaried executive officer who can, among other duties, co-ordinate meetings and correspondence, secure sponsorships, manage the website, events and such.

Perhaps the likes of Air Niugini, Oil Search, Steamships, MTV et al could be persuaded, as part of their corporate social responsibility endeavours, to assign one of their suitably-qualified and experienced people to take up this role on a part-time basis?

And, as Phil has noted, don’t let any government or quasi-government entity anywhere near the Pukpuk ….

Caroline, and anyone else with this good thinking, I'm on [email protected]

Let's do this.

Hi Phil, I'm on that schedule.

The Breaker. Message copied.

This year the Crocodile Prize should be on PNG Attitude.

For many years the Crocodile Prize relied largely upon the voluntary efforts of Keith and Phil. Of late, it has relied inordinately upon the energy and enthusiasm of a handful of Papua New Guineans.

Like many volunteer driven activities, it seems that the Crocodile Prize has run out of steam, in part at least, because it lacks a "champion" with the energy and commitment to make it happen.

Out of curiosity, I checked Volunteering Australia's most recent fact sheet on volunteering to see how much volunteer effort is being reported for Australia.

While there are a few issues about what data is counted as volunteer work done each year and how it is valued, it would be uncontroversial to say that around 800 million hours are worked each year by volunteers and that this work can be valued at about A$25 Billion.

There is a respectable argument that the true value is many multiples of this, so the figure I have given is very, very conservative.

Even by the most conservative method of counting, the value of Australian volunteers' annual input to the economy equates to roughly the GDP of Papua New Guinea.

There are many services across this country that rely almost exclusively upon volunteers, notably Fire and Ambulance services in rural and remote areas. There are also heavy volunteer inputs to organisations like the Royal Flying Doctor Service, hundreds of Surf Life Saving Clubs and a myriad of smaller organisation such as the Council on The Ageing and Red Cross.

My point is that PNG does not seem to have a well developed volunteer culture outside, of course, of what happens at the village level.

In a traditional setting the principal of reciprocity is regularly invoked in seeking the help of wantoks for a diverse range of reasons.

Whether this is strictly voluntary is perhaps debatable, but I assume that simple altruism is at least part of the process.

So the Crocodile Prize can only flourish if one or more volunteers is willing and able to the do the hard and frequently thankless organisational and other tasks that are necessary to make it happen.

The rewards are not monetary: they are the quiet satisfaction derived from seeing the Prize flourish and knowing that your efforts helped make it happen.

A great complaint in the western world is that much of the world's ostensibly great literature has been written by dead white men, with women and people of colour not being given adequate recognition.

If this is true then activities like the Crocodile Prize are all the more important in enabling the world to hear the voices of people other than those dead white men.

Crocodile Prize in Port Moresby has been a group of volunteers. It is hibernating and will wake up if there are more volunteers who can put in some shake into their doing to and fros.

I have written and called up people who indicated some desire to come to CP's aid but have not put in the yakka to do so. Another group in Port Moresby Writers Association is in operation so the volunteering base in Port Moresby may be limited.

The last two years ran on Emmanuel's enthusiasm and Gretel's fuel of burning the hours with my occasional mauswara and busybodyness. We had one or two who showed interest but could not attend committee meetings.

So first up, those in POM put your hands up and roll up or get on the website to say yes to being a volunteer for the organising committee and get to avail yourself for the committee meetings and tasking.

Those outside of the province can be members of the editorial group looking at the writings and pieces submitted for the various prizes.

The other bottom line is that the committee generates no funds to operate. All sponsor money is used for the prize money.

Mr Dom, Mr Awagl, Mr Davidson and any other person who wants to put int their two bits, your views are appreciated, please let us all rally the Port Moresby crowd around to the Crocodile Prize Organising Group.

Michael -Thanks for the elegant piece. Writing is the vent through which our sweetest thoughts are poured out.Writing is also therapeutic.

Regarding the Crocodile Prize, Emmanuel Peni and the team of volunteers did a marvellous job in 2017.

But last year, it was in hibenation. This is a new year. Can the Crocodile Prize be resurrected this year? This is the premier literary competition in the nation; it electrifies the imagination of writers to write.

We cannot afford to let it disappear from the literary landscape.