It hardly seems any time at all since the Dry set in and yet we’re already preparing for the Wet with the City of Darwin conducting its annual pre-cyclone season clean-up across the city. If you have items which may become a dangerous hazard in the event of a cyclone that you would like to be collected, you are asked to place your rubbish outside your property, but in such a way that you keep the pavement clear for pedestrians.

If you live in the northern suburbs (Alawa, Anula, Brinkin, Jingili, Karama, Leanyer, Lyons, Malak, Marrara, Moil, Muirhead, Nakara, Tiwi, Wagaman, Wanguri and Wulagi), you should place items for collection on the nature strip on 28 August.

For the rest of the city rubbish should be put out on 17 September. Items which can be left out for collection include furniture, carpets, timber, white goods (fridges, freezers, washing machines…..), waste building products (such as wood, bricks and steel), television sets and computers. As recyclable items will be separated at the time of collection for recycling or reuse, residents are asked to separate recyclables from other rubbish.

The clean-up teams will not collect garden refuse, flammable liquids, paint, asbestos or car parts. For information on how to dispose of such items call 8930 0300.

If you require assistance to move large items to the nature strip for collection, call 8930 0300 no later than the Friday preceding the collection dates given above.

Until 30 September, CDU Art Gallery is hosting Salon 16 (also known as the Salon des Refusės) which showcases some of the art works submitted for this year’s National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards (NATSIAA), but which just failed to make the cut.

The Gallery, which is situated in Building Orange 12 on the Casuarina Campus, is open from Wednesday to Friday between 10am and 4pm and on Saturday between 10am and 2pm. Meanwhile, the finalists and winners in this year’s NATSIAA are on display at the Museum and Art gallery of the NT until 30 October.

One of the (many) peculiarities of the English language is the multitude of names given to collections or groups – mainly wildlife, but also people and things. We are all familiar with a pride of lions, a mob of kangaroos or even a murmuration of starlings, but how about a confusion of guinea fowl, a journey of giraffes, an eloquence of lawyers, a bellow of bullfinches, an aurora of polar bears, a sounder of wild boar or a company of archer fish?

The tradition of creating collective nouns arose in the Late Middle Ages, and continues today; a parliament of owls, for example, was first coined by CS Lewis in the 1950s in his ‘Narnia’ stories.

Or a collection of interesting objects? Would you like to share your interest (passion) for ten minutes or so with other members? You have the chance to do so on 23 August whe n there’s another session of Collectibles. If you’d like to show and tell please call Gayle on 8945 5406 so that she can draw up a running order.

This year’s Census, which takes place on the night of 9 August , will rely heavily on the ele ctronic transmission of the data – more than two thirds of the population are expected to complete the census online. When contacted about the procedure to be followed by members preferring to complete a paper form, the Australian Bur eau of Statistics replied as follows:

For people requiring a paper form there will be an instruction to call the automated Paper Form Request System (PFRS) on the Census Instruction Letter which will be delivered to households across Australia in early August. If U3A member s would like to arrange for a paper form to be sent to them, they can call the PFRS on 1300 820 275 and follow the prompts. The 12 - digit Census Login Number provided in the instruction letter will be needed to complete the request.

If you or other members have any further inquiries regarding the census, please do not hesitate to call the Census Inquiry Service on 1300 214 531.

If you still have brochures from the federal election, the NT Library would like to receive these as well as those you will be shortly be getting in your letterbox in the run - up to the Territory election. You can send brochures, flyers and other election material, free of charge, to Election Material, Reply Paid 42, Northern Territory Library, GPO Box 42, Darwin, NT 0801.

As customary on Picnic Day – which this year falls on 1 August - there will be a traditional railway picnic at the Adelaide River Railway Heritage Precinct . There’ll be food, drinks, fairground train rides, guided walks of the precinct and games from the 1920 railway picnic. New this year is the WW2 exhibition and the recently restored 50 ton weighbridge. Festivities start at 10am and run till 3pm.

If you’ve recently upgraded you operating system to Windows 10 and are frustrated at needing to sign in every time you use your PC, you can eliminate this annoying feature by following these steps.

Click the start button on the left of the task bar; select ‘settings’, then ‘accounts’; click on ‘sign - in options’ and under ‘require sign - in’ select ‘never’ and then follow the prompts.

The Tropical Garden Fair takes place on 13 and 14 August (from 10am to 4pm) in the Botanic Gardens. There’ll be a great deal on offer: displays, workshops, plant and art stalls as well as specialist food and drinks. The Friends of the Botanic Gardens have persuaded international celebrity landscape designer, Made Wijaya, to come along and create a garden during the fair. I f you’ve seen any of his work in Bali, you’ll know this will be something rather special. Admission is free.

As part of this year’s National Trust/NT Historical Society 2016 talks, Kulumbiringin Elder, Tibby Quall will be speaking at 5.30pm on 29 July about the Batcho Family and its connections to land, customs and country. Tibby will also be launching an accompanying exhibition focusing on Batcho ancestral connections and genealogy, and the history of land claims in Darwin and on the Cox Peninsula. The exhibition will run until 10 August (10am to 1pm Monday to Saturday and noon to 4pm on Sundays).