Children drown quickly and quietly.

I write to urge all parents with pools or visiting homes with pools or spas to make sure they maintain constant supervision of their children around water.

I strongly encourage all swimming pool owners to check their pool gates and barriers and take action to repair and/or replace any faults to ensure their pool and spa are safe and help save lives.

Backyard swimming pools are the most common location where toddler drownings occur. 

In 2014-15, over half of all toddler drowning incidents in Australia occurred in a backyard pool (14 incidents - 54 per cent).

In 2014-15, 26 Australian children aged 0 to 4 years drowned, an increase of 30 per cent from 2013-14.

The tragedy of a drowning or near drowning can have a lifetime impact on family and friends.  

For every drowning death involving a child aged 0 to 4 years in Victoria, there are approximately 10 non-fatal drownings, which can result in a child receiving permanent brain damage.

The Closing the Gate on Backyard Pool Drownings campaign calls on pool owners to check the safety of their pool barriers and gates at the beginning of daylight saving on Sunday, October 4, in the lead up to the warmer months.

I encourage all pool and spa owners to visit www.kidsafevic.com.au/water-safety/pool-fence-safety and utilise the online resources, including the home pool safety assessment tool developed by Life Saving Victoria, to check the safety of their pool areas.

The “desecration” of Golden Square Uniting Church by the removal of its pews is a testimony to the degradation of Protestantism in Australia.  

For a church that no longer has need for pews is a church that no longer ministers to people filling those pews.

This once mighty Methodist church had seating for hundreds over two levels.  

But like so many other mainline churches, the real desecration of this building took place in the mid-20th century, when it gave up the beliefs of its founders, to merge with other churches that originally held to vastly different teaching themselves.

Now the result is not only an empty and closed church but also a priceless facility offered to the highest bidder.  

A building constructed by the founders of this city, bought and paid for 140 years ago.

A prime location, which because of the watered down theology of its owners, is now nothing but a commodity to clear debt.

And now the stripping of the pews is the final humiliation for this once strong bulwark of Bendigo Christendom.

Whoever is responsible, they undoubtedly had assistance.

The act almost certainly was witnessed. Do the right thing by your city folks and call Crime Stoppers.

Send a letter to the editor to addynews@fairfaxmedia.com.au, or PO Box 61, Bendigo, 3552.