[box] As part of our Treasures section, we will make a monthly visit to Tony and Luke at Ozone Bazaar in Warrnambool (who are great supporters of Bluestone Magazine) to see what intriguing items they have picked up locally.[/box]
[dropcap style=”color: #a5cecd;”] T [/dropcap]hese somewhat ghoulish little heads caught our eye, especially as there was a whole basket of them staring out into space.
Ozone Bazaar co-owner Tony Turnley picked these up from a secondhand dealer in Edenhope and believes they date from around the 1950s. The cardboard heads were attached to a bag of sweets and, after the sweets were all eaten, the heads could be saved and used as puppets.
Hmmmm….
Not sure if these faces would bring fun or fear to a child, but they are certainly now very collectable and sell for between $5 and $10 a pop.
If you know any more about these creatures, or perhaps you even owned one, please let us know!
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The Greens have pre-selected Thomas Campbell to challenge for the seat of Great South Coast…maybe he has one or two surprises up his sleeve (or inside his coat)….
[dropcap style=”color: #a02f2f;”] W [/dropcap]hy did I decide to run in this election?
Our politicians take responsibility for representing our community values, infrastructure needs, future investments and the economy.
One of the most important aspects of our governments, local, state or federal, is whether or not they are profitable. From this, we have a Liberal party who pursue nothing but profit, showing no community values, selling off all investments and public assets, purely to afford grand election commitments in marginal seats.
Our “alternative” government, the Labor party, repeatedly show their willingness to waste public money. The Myki system and the Wonthaggi desalination plant, both initiated by the previous Labor government, were both economic disasters. Myki blew out by $1 billion and the desalination plant, costing billions to build, will cost Victorians $1.8 million a day for the next 26 years, even if it never supplies water.
My greatest concern, beyond this mismanagement, is that neither of the major parties seem interested in supporting the entire state, but instead fight elections in marginal seats.
Living in a Liberal safe seat here in the South-West Coast has its drawbacks. We all know it takes a contestable seat to have the two major parties actually invest a fair share of public taxes into the community. Here in the South-West our trains are a joke, our TAFE has been marked as high risk by the Victorian-Auditor general and the East-West link threatens all infrastructure funding for years to come.
Plans to untangle Melbourne’s traffic jams by building an East-West link will do nothing but create an expensive white elephant, say the Greens. Image: www.topgear.com
[dropcap style=”color: #a02f2f;”] S [/dropcap]winging back and forth between Liberal policies of “sell it all” and Labor policies of “waste it all”, we find ourselves heading towards the 2014 election.
We’re still endlessly searching for fossil fuels to exploit, trashing our TAFE system for a quick buck, watching our public roads crumble and investing in the next white elephant infrastructure project that will deliver nothing but congestion and pollution, the East-West link.
I’ve mentioned the East-West link twice now, this is because when the Liberal party was elected in 2010, they correctly stated that Melbourne couldn’t build its way out of its congestion problems and had no plans to build the East-West link. It seems that statements made before an election mean nothing to political parties.
I also seem to remember a pledge that Victorian teachers would be the best paid in the country, though in fairness, that was a whole Premier ago.
I won’t deny it’s easy to throw dirt at political parties. It’s easy to point out the mistakes, the flaws and unfortunately, the corruption of political parties and politicians (Geoff Shaw, Aaron Lane and leaked tape recordings come to mind).
But still, I want to support my community. When I moved to Warrnambool I initially worked two casual positions, one at the Warrnambool Cheese and Butter Factory, the second at Murray Goulburn, before taking up a Bachelor of Education at Deakin University.
Through my jobs, education, joining and creating various clubs and speaking to the public, I truly believe that the Greens can achieve great things for Victorians. Our Upper house candidate Lloyd Davies, a qualified engineer and previous councillor for Queenscliffe, is a caring, optimistic, compassionate and intelligent person. He not only exemplifies community values, but was also my inspiration for running in this election.
The Greens have been among those opposed to unconventional gas exploration and fracking. Image: ABC online.
[dropcap style=”color: #a02f2f;”] B [/dropcap]ut what impact can the Greens have in Parliament? What does it mean to vote Green?
Over the past four years, the three Greens members in the Victorian parliament have been fighting to ban unconventional gas and fracking, to give firefighters fair access to Workcover and to support ambulance paramedics for pay parity.
We’ve been bringing forth policies to encourage investment in renewable energy, standing up to a government that’s trying to push through an $18 billion toll road and fighting for our public TAFE system to be fully restored from the major parties failures.
The past four years have been characterised by bad policy and a lazy government. Thousands have lost their jobs while the state government just stood by, no fight, no plan, leaving thousands with an uncertain future. A vote for the Greens will start re-investing in Victoria to solve these problems and create new jobs.
That’s why I joined the Greens and that’s why I’m standing for this election.
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Simon Greening decided the only way to fix the problem of their being few funky shops for young people in Portland was to open his own with his brother, Jason.
By Carol Altmann
[dropcap style=”color: #dc943c;”] I [/dropcap]f you are young and living in the country, there are two ways to approach a lack of groovy shops in your town: either keep feeling depressed about it, or try and do something to change it.
Simon and Jason Greening are two Portland brothers who are taking the latter approach and have decided to pursue their long-held dream of owning a business, while also catering for a clear gap in the town by opening a very cool comic and art-based gift shop, Culture Kit.
“We grew up here and wanted to stay in Portland, but a lot of the younger people here say there is nothing to do, so we decided to create something a bit different,” Simon explains.
“At first we thought about an upmarket bookshop, but we can see how hard it has been for The Little Bookshop (which closed at the end of last month), so we went for the comics and graphic art,” he says.
Simon, 27, has a graphic art and design background, and it shows in the shop’s interior decorating, which has transformed a former florist on the corner of Julia and Percy streets into a uber-cool space with bright yellow walls, marine ply display cases, a stack of empty milk crates and two couches on either side of a communal jigsaw puzzle.
Add some chillout tunes fresh from the ipod and the space is just the sort of place people would like to linger. At least that is the plan.
“We are ready to do the slow, hard climb,” Simon says.
“We have tried to keep our overheads as low as we can, and our level of debt as low as we can, so it stays manageable while we grow.”
Part-owner Jason Greening tries the chillout lounge in Culture Kit which specialises in comics and art-inspired gifts.
[dropcap style=”color: #dc943c;”] J[/dropcap]ason, 30, has accountancy skills and worked in a variety of jobs before joining his brother with Culture Kit. Both he and Simon continue to work in low-pressure jobs elsewhere in Portland, just to keep the income ticking over while the business builds.
Jason, who was unfortunately away at the time Bluestone dropped in for a spontaneous visit, has a night-time cleaning job, while Simon works at the local IGA supermarket.
Eventually, of course, the pair hope to be living off their comic sales and what Simon describes as “short run, high-quality, hand-made” gifts, such as screenprinted cushions, art magazines and personal care products aimed at discerning men.
Culture Kit took its first risk by opening at the start of winter – on the Queen’s Birthday long weekend – but despite the often challenging weather, it is slowly building a loyal clientele.
Some of the characters that can be found hanging around the building, reflecting the changing face of comic culture.
[dropcap style=”color: #dc943c;”] C[/dropcap]omics, in case you hadn’t noticed, have come a long way from the days of the being a disposable read that would keep the kids quiet on the train.
Now there is an entire industry aimed at the late-teen or adult reader, with many based on television shows or movies, some from Asian (particularly Japanese) culture, or simply a niche market – like zombies – that has its own cult following.
And then there are those comics that are purely for collecting.
“Some people buy them to read, while other people order in a particular comic and don’t even open them,” Simon says.
Serious comic buffs will also buy the same comic several times if it is released with alternate covers.
“We try and look after everyone, from the comic nerds to those who just want the more traditional stuff like Superman and so far that seems to be working,” Simon says.
[box] Culture Kit is at 40 Percy St, Portland. You can find them on the web here or follow them on Facebook here. [/box]
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[dropcap style=”color: #a02f2f;”] T [/dropcap]here is a ticking bomb under south-west Victoria called a lack of education and it is set to blow up in our faces unless we start to do something about it.
For a variety of reasons that are still being nailed down, hundreds of teenagers in the south-west are dropping out of school and either doing nothing, having babies, drifting, or falling into a nasty, destructive spiral that – once they have tumbled in – is extremely hard to climb out of.
The numbers are chilling.
The six councils that make up the Great South Coast Group (stretching from Corangamite to the South Australian border and up to Hamilton) have reported that only 57 per cent of all school kids in our area are finishing Year 12 or its equivalent.
In some areas, such as in and around Portland and Heywood, is it a lowly 51 per cent.
For boys, the figures are like those from a bygone era: 44 per cent in Glenelg, 46 per cent in Corangamite and 48 per cent in Moyne.
As one member of the Great South Coast Group put it, we are teetering “on third world standards”.
Teenage pregnancy is among the issues facing the south-west community that are connected to school drop out rates. Image: onemilwaukee.org
[dropcap style=”color: #a02f2f;”] T [/dropcap]hese dreadful figures come amid news that youth unemployment among 15-19 years olds is at its highest level in Victoria since 1997, with 20 per cent of kids in this age bracket having absolutely nothing to do when they get up every day.
In short, we are failing the next generation by selling them the great lie that if they don’t finish secondary school, they can still have a good future.
They won’t, because the sort of jobs that we might have picked up with a Year 9 or Year 10 education are going or gone.
Thousands will be left out and condemned to an under-class that struggles financially, emotionally and socially for their entire lives.
And if they fall behind, south-west Victoria will fall behind and become a welfare-basket backwater that can no longer cut it on a national, let alone international scale.
If this all sounds grim, it is because it is and it is happening right before our eyes and we, as a community, are contributing to the problem unless we help to fix it.
Jobs that once filled the gaps are now going or gone. (Fletcher Jones factory floor, Warrnambool. Image: Ralph Illidge, via David Owen, Save the Silver Ball and Fletchers Gardens.)
[dropcap style=”color: #a02f2f;”] T [/dropcap]he Great South Coast Group set up a working party which has spent almost three years trying to get their heads around the enormity of the problem and what to do about it.
At times, one member said, it felt like an almost overwhelming task and no wonder, because in order to really make a change, everything has to change.
After months of research, thinking and talking, the working group has come up with a broad-scale plan that challenges us to do things differently and to step away from our old ways of thinking.
Take, for example, the thinking that “the government” will step in and fix it. We have tried that, and it is not working.
What has happened, instead, is that multiple government departments are all tackling the same problem, in their own ways, without talking to each other, without being allowed to talk to each other and some kids end up with 12 separate case workers and no long-term solution.
(There is a great anecdote from a homelessness program in Woollomooloo, Sydney, where 52 “service providers” were all helping the homeless without knowing how many homeless they were helping. It turns out there were 90 people sleeping rough and this turned the issue on its head to become the “90 homes for 90 lives” project.)
While sporting prowess is highly valued in our community, academic ability attracts far less comment.
[dropcap style=”color: #a02f2f;”] T [/dropcap]ake, as another example, our thinking that the problem starts in early primary school, when kids learn to read and write and do sums.
Wrong. The working party argues that it begins at conception.
The minute that little sperm penetrates that egg, a whole suitcase of potential – or lack of – flips open for that child: is the mother an addict? Is the father? Are they comfortably well-off or poor? Literate or illiterate? Supported or isolated?
And what about the community mindset that worships all forms of sporting prowess, especially football, above academic ability?
This needs to change too.
The working party has based its approach on what is called a Collective Impact model – snappy title, right? – but it is exciting and has worked very successfully in places like Sweden, Canada and the US, but is only now catching on in Australia.
In a nutshell, it involves motivating the community as a whole – politicians, parents, teachers, employers, philanthropists, business owners, the elderly, service clubs, sporting clubs, you and me – to work for real change.
Instead of operating in our own little corners, or doing nothing at all, we are urged to work collaboratively and collectively. “That is not my area,” or “that is not my problem,” won’t be part of the language.
[dropcap style=”color: #a02f2f;”] T [/dropcap]he first step, and it is happening as we speak, is the Great South Coast Group setting out a community action plan for each council area, because each has its own challenges.
Beautiful little Mortlake, for example, is doing its best not to become a welfare ghetto in the face of low-cost housing, poor services, poor public transport and the sheer boredom of those who have been located there by “the system”.
The action groups aim to get people talking about the problem – like we are now – and set down steps for change that we can all be involved in, even if it is something as simple as listening to a child read.
It will take years to turn around a mind-set that has been years in the making, but I think this is the best approach I have seen in a long time and I can’t wait to see it unfold.
Are we all prepared to help?
[box] The Great South Coast working party members include: Helen Bayne (South West PCP), Helen Durant (Great South Coast Early Years Network), Karen Foster (Great South Coast), Toni Jenkins (South-West LLEN), Marcus McCormick (South-West LLEN), Vicky Mason (W’bool City Council), Anne Murphy (Glenelg & Southern Grampians LLEN), Mary Pendergast (Dept of Education and Early Childhood Development) and Kaye Schofield (RMIT Hamilton). You can read more about the project here.[/box]
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[dropcap style=”color:#A02F2F;”] T [/dropcap]o celebrate our first birthday we have given away some sensational prizes each week for the past four weeks. We love to reward our supporters!
All of these prizes were available thanks to the generosity of some of our wonderful business supporters and local artists – thankyou to each of these people for believing in Bluestone Magazine and helping us continue to grow.
Below is the list of winners for our final week. If you would like to be part of future competitions, please subscribe and join the ever-growing Bluestone Club.
[box]
Week 4: CLOSED – winners: Colleen Rentsch, a $40 voucher Whale Bone Gallery, Port Fairy; Philip Trigg, a $40 voucher from Brightbird Espresso, Warrnambool; Rebecca McGrath, a unique ‘softie’ babbit (child’s soft toy), by W’bool artist Megan Nicolson (value $45).
* *
Week 1: CLOSED – winners: Kylie Oates($100 Merrijig voucher); Rose Pritchard (Lana’s Garden hamper); Ondrea Howie (Warrnambool: This is Home, plus a limited edition Bluestone Magazine mug!).
Week 2: CLOSED – winners: Heather Armstrong (bag, matching wallet and purse (valued at $165) from Lizzie’s Labels of Love,); Bronwyn Lane ($40 voucher from Brightbird Espresso); and Lori Cameron (handcrafted ceramic noodle bowl by Clare Fennessy, value $50).
Thank you to all those people who support Bluestone Magazine by being either paying subscribers or business supporters or both. We would not have made it this far without you.
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