ANALYSIS – Carol Altmann

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A5CECD;”] H[/dropcap]eritage Victoria has finished a three-week investigation into missing and damaged artefacts at Flagstaff Hill Maritime Village in Warrnambool and found it has no case to answer.

Instead, any responsibility for the missing artefacts and damage to relics from the wreck of the Loch Ard (1878), has been sheeted home to former management of the village.

As first reported in Bluestone Magazine, Heritage Victoria launched a formal investigation into the cutting of copper sheets from the Loch Ard, with a 10x10cm piece taken from one, while another had a large slice removed, allegedly for use as a sculpture or trophy.

Such damage to relics is an offence under the Commonwealth Historic Shipwrecks Act.

In addition, Heritage Victoria was investigating how the museum had lost track of at least 129 items from its collection, including the brass ship’s bell from the wreck of the Newfield (1892) that was once displayed in the Great Circle Gallery, and more than 200 lead ingots from the Loch Ard.

A spokesperson for Heritage Victoria today issued a two-sentence statement to Bluestone Magazine, saying the investigation was finished and there would be no further action, as “most” of the issues had happened more than a decade ago.

Here is the statement in full:

“Heritage Victoria has completed its investigation into suggestions of problems with the management of the collection at Flagstaff Hill Maritime Museum and determined that no action is required.

“Heritage Victoria noted that professional systems highlighting collection management and an internal audit process had been instigated under the present management and that most of the issues raised had occurred more than a decade ago under previous management.”

No other information was available and is unlikely to be available in the future, as Heritage Victoria does not reveal the details of its investigations.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A5CECD;”] S[/dropcap]o what happened to the copper sheets and who cut them?

And where is the missing Newfield bell, among other items?

Even after this investigation we are none the wiser and, from the sound of it, probably never will be.

The outcome of the investigation is not a surprise, however, in light of comments by Warrnambool City Council chief executive officer Bruce Anson to the February 2 council meeting.

At that time, and in response to questions from Cr Brian Kelson who first raised concerns about the missing artefacts, Mr Anson said “we are confident that our discussions with Heritage Victoria will not find any significant issues at all.”

“We have an ongoing and very positive relationship with Heritage Victoria,” he said.

When asked directly by Cr Kelson who cut the copper sheets, Mr Anson said one had been pierced by a nail, while on loan, and another had a corroded edge from lying in water.

The nailed sheet was in fact a drill hole, added to a sheet now on display at the Port Campbell Tourist Information Centre, so that it could be secured to the wall where it was formerly housed (the people responsible apologised to Flagstaff Hill in 1993 for their mistake.)

Mr Anson made no mention of the sheet that has had a large slice removed, or the sheet with a missing 10x10cm piece, but did say some of the cuts were “hearsay”.

Perhaps more will be ultimately revealed by the council, with Mayor Michael Neoh telling the same meeting that he would be happy for Director City Growth Bill Millard to do a full and formal report back to the council on these issues.

Let’s hope so, because as it stands we still don’t know what happened to precious artefacts that were given to our city by the Federal Government for safe keeping.

  More Analysis can be found here…

Veil of secrecy over salary of the WCC’s top job

The changing landscape under Midfield Meats

Abbott actions reveal toxic culture in council

Investigation launched into Flagstaff Hill

When scrutiny is sub-standard, democracy suffers

ANALYSIS – Carol Altmann

Exactly how much do we pay the Chief Executive Officer of the Warrnambool City Council, Bruce Anson?

And what does his salary package include?

A fortnight after Cr Peter Hulin stood up at the first council meeting of the year and stated that it was “about $1000 a day”, we still don’t know.

This is despite Mayor Michael Neoh telling ABC radio two days after Cr Hulin’s comment that he could give an exact figure and “it’s no secret”, when it appears that it is, in fact, very secret.

The closest you can get to a figure is to delve deep into the council’s annual reports – and I mean deep – where there is a listing of salary packages for “responsible persons”, of which Mr Anson is one.

In the list for 2013-14, there is a band of $280,000 to $289,999 which one person received and we can of course guess that it must be the chief executive.

So, did Mr Anson receive $280,000 or $289,999 or somewhere in between?

And how much of this is made up of salary, how much is a vehicle allowance and how much is a performance bonus, if any?

Despite the CEO being a public servant and the public being the one that pays the salary, you are not allowed to know.

This level of secrecy is strange on so many levels and here are just two of them:

First, some councils – you might even call them progressive councils – are completely transparent.

Melbourne City Council, for example, not only lists the salary package of its CEO in its annual report, but all of the other senior officers as well.

I can tell you that CEO Dr Kathy Alexander (until she resigned last December) was on a total remuneration package of $460,000 in 2013-14.

The Melbourne City Council Director of City Business Martin Cutter received a total employment package of $346,967 and Director of Community Development Linda Weatherson received $341,231. I could go on, but the point is made.

Second, there is a clause within the Local Government Act which says that if a CEO is reappointed without the position being advertised, then details of the proposed total remuneration package must be made available for public viewing within 14 days.

Mr Anson was first appointed to replace CEO Lindsay Merritt in 2007-08, when the position was advertised, but was then reappointed before the council elections in 2012, without the position being advertised.

A council spokesman said that, as per the Act, full details of the proposed salary package were made available in 2012.

Great, could I see those details now?

After a few more days of too-ing and fro-ing, I was told that the information was available for public viewing at the council, so I visited the council office and asked at the information desk for the documents.

They had no idea what I was talking about, so they called down the council spokesman, who said the document was held in the office of the Chief Executive and I could make an appointment to see it.

Surely, I argued, I could wait in the foyer while he retrieved it?

He obliged and soon returned with a thin, bright-pink manila folder which contained the same list as in the council annual report, stating that up to March last year, the CEO was paid between “$280,000 and $289,999”.

We had gone full circle and there was certainly no breakdown – as is usually provided under the Act – for what part was salary, car, super or bonuses.

What is even more puzzling about this level of secrecy is that Mr Anson’s package is on par with the average for other “large rural” councils with budgets between $60m and $100m, according to an annual remuneration survey produced by McArthur consultants that is used by councils to negotiate their CEO packages.

*McArthur National Remuneration Survey, 2012-13, p3.

Having trawled back through the annual reports, I can tell you that since being employed in 2007-08, Mr Anson’s salary bracket has increased by between 3.5% and 9.5% a year, except for one year, when it stayed the same.

And, just by way of comparison, the Warrnambool CEO package for 2013-14 ($280-290k) was higher than that for Ballarat ($270-280k), Shepparton ($260-270k), Glenelg City ($250-260k) and Latrobe Valley ($210-219k).

Why aren’t we told all this as a matter of course?

The second part of the mystery is: who determines the CEO’s final salary package and measures his performance?

Again, this proved extraordinarily difficult to nail down.

The council has a performance development review committee led by an independent chair, but unlike the council’s other advisory committees, I could find no details about it on its website or in the council minutes.

What the council spokesman could reveal was that the committee meets in confidence quarterly, including a main annual review to which all councillors are invited.

“The outcomes of all four stages are formally reported to Council, which provides councillors with further opportunity for input into the committee’s assessment report and to debate any recommendations put to Council,” the spokesman said via email.

From my understanding, the current performance review committee is made up of Mayor Michael Neoh, Cr Jacinta Ermacora and Cr Peter Sycopoulis, but who is the independent chair and how is he/she selected?

“Because the appointment of the independent chair was resolved at a confidential meeting of Council, the appointment is confidential,” the spokesman said.

Why?

We believe the independent chair is retired business academic Rod Coutts who also sits on the council’s Audit and Risk Committee and the Flagstaff Hill Advisory Committee.

While nobody expects the CEO’s performance review to be thrashed out in public, there is room for much more transparency, as happens across the border in South Australia.

In two councils I looked at, Tea Tree Gully and Streaky Bay, the public is notified when the performance review committee will meet, together with the meeting agenda and the minutes of these meetings are released after 12 months (you can read them on the web).

By comparison, the WCC has adopted a bunker mentality, where the letter of the local government laws are upheld, but not the spirit.

In such an environment, it is not surprising that Cr Hulin’s “$1000-a-day” comment brought gasps of disbelief: the ratepayers have never been encouraged to know how much they are paying their chief executive or why.

By Carol Altmann

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] I [/dropcap]f you want to see Mark Brightwell animated, get him talking about coffee.

Together with his wife, Katrina, Mark operates the highly successful Brightbird Espresso in Warrnambool (founding partner Henry Bird has since moved on to other ventures) which has developed a reputation for not just serving great coffee, but taking coffee drinkers on an adventure.

This means urging customers to not only try different coffee styles that go beyond the normal latte, cappuccino and short black, but to experiment with and learn about the beans themselves.

“We are pushing the boundaries and it is a big risk, but it is one we wanted to take,” says Katrina.

“That’s right,” adds Mark, “it’s about talking with customers about the coffee and educating them, teaching them, about the coffee.”

And there is much to learn.

As Mark explains, coffee drinking in Australia has followed a similar trajectory to wine, with a growing awareness of different coffee regions, the ethical and organic origins of the coffee beans, how they are roasted, brewed, and the ever-expanding range of flavours based on all of these elements.

Take, for example, this description of the cup character of the Yirgacheffe bean, grown in the Rift Plateau of Ethiopia: “Raspberry! Crisply but lushly sweet and fruit toned. Flowers, blueberry, peach. Softly crisp acidity: full, lively mouthfeel.”

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] Y[/dropcap]irgacheffe is one of the many varieties supplied to Mark and Katrina from Cartel Coffee Roasters Australia, a boutique coffee roaster based in Geelong that sources ethically grown, small-batch coffee direct from the farmers and their families in Ethiopia and Columbia.

Brightbird hooked up with Cartel Coffee Roasters about four months ago and Mark has been relishing the opportunity to bring a dash of inner-urban coffee culture to the country.

“Coffee bars are huge in Melbourne and we love to get down there, see what is happening and bring it back here to try,” he said.

“It is what keeps us interested and inspired because it is always changing and evolving. It keeps us fresh.”

[box] Mark’s four essentials for a great coffee in a cafe:

1. the quality of the beans

2. the quality of the equipment ($15,000 for an espresso machine; $3000 for a grinder)

3. the maker – well trained, passionate about coffee and able to work consistently well under pressure. [/box]

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] A [/dropcap]s part of the educational experience, Mark occasionally hosts “cupping” sessions on a weekend with the team from Cartel Coffee Roasters who give participants the equivalent of a wine tasting, except with different coffee beans and brews.

Coffee connoisseurs can sample and sip and savour the flavours that run from chocolate to fruit to spicy and earthy. They can also learn about different ways of brewing and serving coffee, from 12-hour, cold-brewed (delicious served chilled on an ice-cube) to slow-filtered coffee served in a tall beaker.

It is not surprising to find that Mark, who is British-born and has worked in hospitality his whole career, was once a sommelier and also worked in a wine store.

“I have done lots of things in my time in hospitality, but this is a new challenge for me – the focus has become the coffee and I find it fascinating,” he says.

It is also a way to keep Brightbird Espresso from ever becoming predictable. The cafe started four years ago when Mark and Katrina moved from Melbourne to Katrina’s hometown (she grew up as a Malseed, in Woolsthorpe) to raise their children.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] N[/dropcap]ot only has the cafe built up a loyal following in that time – including a couple of elderly gents on zimmer frames who have been customers for years – but its expansion into speciality coffee has attracted a whole new clientele.

Pairing the coffee with gourmet donuts, created by chef Jimmy Buscombe and served only on Thursdays, has also created somewhat of a frenzy.

“We have people almost elbowing each other out of the way to get to those donuts before they sell out,” Katrina laughs.

“There is no doubt that we are even busier than we were before…and there is still not a day that I don’t love coming to work,” Mark says.

[box]Brightbird Espresso is at 157 Liebig St, Warrnambool. Find them on Facebook here and the web here. Also keep an eye out for their small barista training classes. (The February class is already full.)[/box]

You might also enjoy…

Tea-totallers welcome at Panmure pub

Buffalo cheese a Shaw thing at Yambuk

Thriving on flower power at Naringal

Small is beautiful at Newton’s Ridge

Dip into the fishy world of aquaponics

Words and photos: Carol Altmann

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #ABCCAB;”] T [/dropcap]he most famous “online” shoe display in south-west Victoria is strung out along a farm fence in Tyrendarra – but how did it start?

Bluestone decided to take a detour while returning from the gannet gawk-and-talk in Portland to find out and, despite turning up unannounced, was given a cheerful welcome and the full rundown by owner Katrina Maybery.

Katrina and her husband Heath live on the Princes Highway property with their two daughters Tahlia and Madeleine, and it is with Tahlia and Madeleine that the story begins.

“We were travelling in New Zealand and saw a fence like this, with shoes tied right along it, and I thought it would be a fun thing to do,” Katrina says.

“So we started it about four years ago, by tying four pairs of worn out shoes owned by our girls.”

The four pairs of shoes became a sort of Pied Piper for passers-by, silently urging them to follow suite and tie up one of their own pieces of footwear.

And they did: by the hundreds.

“I think we would have at least a couple of thousand,” Katrina says with a laugh as she surveys the layers of dangling shoes.

“I know that we have to keep mowing the lawn further and further along!”

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #ABCCAB;”] I [/dropcap]n only the way that shoes can, the fence captures a thousand stories behind the boots and heels, thongs and sneakers, slippers and gumboots. They are in all shapes and sizes – from steel capped work boots to a child’s slipper – and together form a piece of art that is always changing.

“Some people have decorated theirs before hanging it, others leave messages on them for someone they know will be passing by,” Katrina says.

Even as we talk, a man pulls over to take a snap of the fence before waving a cheerful “hello” and driving on.

From the hundreds of shoes that have been donated, there have been some standouts.

“We had a pair of cowboy boots once. They were beautiful, but somebody stole them off the fence,” Katrina says.

“And there was fellow who was closing his shoe store in Port Fairy and he bought out boxes of shoes and boots that he couldn’t sell because they were a bit dated, but he also didn’t want to throw them out – that’s some of them over there,” she says, pointing to a pair of women’s boots with pristine soles.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #ABCCAB;”] I [/dropcap]n a lovely twist, Katrina once ran a home-based, online shoe store specialising in children’s shoes but life became too busy to keep it operating. The sign for her business now hangs on the fence as quirky joke.

The shoe fence, which is directly opposite the turn-off to the road that leads to the Fitzroy River campground, is part of Katrina’s push to better promote Portland to tourists.

Just recently, a huge promotional road sign for Portland has been erected on the Maybury property, with their blessing.

“I think the Portland area has so much going for it and I am doing what I can to promote it to visitors,” Katrina says.

There is no doubt that the shoe fence is doing its bit to get tongues wagging.

You might also enjoy…

What is holding Portland back?

A cafe that feels like coming home: Tea Tree Gallery

Pick a Pickled Pelican in Portland

River camping is a shoe-in

Secrets of an old shoe: unearthed from Timor St

Reviving classic Australian furniture by hand: Be Seated

By Carol Altmann

I last saw Warrnambool photographer and painter Jack Wilkins about 25 years ago when he had long hair, a moustache and an inimitable sense of humour.

Today, he is balding, clean shaven and riding the rollercoaster that comes with a recent diagnosis of prostate cancer – but the sense of humour is still very much intact.

Exhibit A:

(Me): “You have spent a lot of your life documenting your fellow artists, haven’t you?”

(Him): “Yeah, all the freaks, art students, art lecturers and weirdos – actually they’re all weirdos – all of those weirdos I have been hanging out with for years.”

Jack, whose name is actually John but nobody calls him that, is a hybrid of the late gonzo journalist Hunter S Thompson and Vogue photographer Annie Leibovitz, with a spritz of Ricky Gervais thrown in for good measure: a heady mix of story telling, mimicry, sardonic humour and huge artistic talent.

For almost 50 years Jack has been capturing the faces and places of the Warrnambool art scene – from its infancy in the late 1960s, when a two-year art certificate was offered at the technical college that would become the Warrnambool Institute of Advanced Education and later TAFE, through to the heady days of the 80s and 90s based around the School of Art & Design at Deakin University – and into its current, some might say, more subdued phase.

“I was very interested in the strong personalities and the social scene of Warrnambool at the time, which was huge and based around places like the Western (Hotel), and the Lady Bay hotel,” Jack says.

“It was a very big scene; there were about 300 young people around Warrnambool who all hung out together, who all knew each other, made art, had sex, played pool.

“We would all pile into the Western (across the road from South-West TAFE) and when that closed at 10pm, someone would yell out ‘where’s the party?’ and we’d all move on to someone’s house, or head down to the beach and light a fire.”

Jack then launches into two or three side stories about some of the big personalities of the time, complete with gestures and voices that make you laugh out loud.

“That’s all gone now. We still have artists doing their thing, and young people doing their thing, but it’s very fragmented. Student life is a very different life.”

Jack’s images of this time and now, which he collectively calls Art Land, have always been theatrical.

In the early days, he and his art colleagues would create scenarios, complete with costumes, that were part spaghetti western, part Woodstock and part colonial Australia.

“We would have a lot of fun, staging gun fights and all sorts of weird scenarios, just for the hell of it,” Jack explains.

Today, the theatrics are more in establishing the “set” for a portrait, using settings or objects to capture the essence of the individual.

To date, Jack has self-published two books, each of 100+ pages, featuring special friends like Jenny Claven, Peter Clayfield and Mick Sirriani, with one copy held by the Warrnambool Art Gallery.

He is now working on two special projects that, he says, will draw a line under a photographic career that started when his father, the late photographer Alex Wilkins, gave him his first camera.

The first is a book of 28 portraits of artists with strong connections to South-West Victoria, with words by WAG director John Cunningham.

At the time of our meeting, Jack had photographed 26.

“It’s been intriguing and absolutely fascinating.

“What a privilege to be able to meet artists in their private spaces, their homes and studios, talking and photographing what they are on about. It has been very rewarding,” he said.

(Slideshow: a sample of Jack’s Art Land portraits from across the years.)

[slideshow_deploy id=’12254′]

Alongside the book is a survey exhibition at WAG scheduled for later this year, which is a retrospective of sorts, capturing the different themes in Jack’s work over the years.

While Jack has embraced the technological changes in photography and some of his latest work is an overt display of digital manipulation, he believes modern photography has lost its magic.

“Nearly everyone has a camera now and the quality of images is getting better and better, so it has made it easy for Mr Average to – at times – do some amazing work because the technology allows it to happen.

“You can be a great photographer today without knowing much about photography at all,” he said.

It is perhaps not surprising then to see Jack turning his attention back to his first love: painting.

“My photography is coming to an end as I come to the end of my life, so I am devoting the time I have left to painting.

“I have always loved painting. It is hands on. At this stage of my life I find it very enjoyable and very therapeutic.

“I have always got more out of painting than photography, so much more. There are no pixels, just paint.”