[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DDCE8D;”] A [/dropcap]mid all the arguing about whether Warrnambool City Council should send a delegation to Miura, Japan, for Sister City celebrations, a simple question is yet to be answered: what do we gain from our two Sister City connections?

And, more importantly, what do we expect?

Trying to answer the first question is harder than you think, as there is no single, easily accessible reporting mechanism that documents the achievements of the Miura link that dates back more than 20 years (our Sister City link with Changchun, China, began last year).

Instead, you have to trawl through two decades of council minutes and newspaper archives to discover that our Sister City relationship with Miura has pretty much done what it set out to do, which was to build “friendship, cooperation and understanding” between two very different cultures.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DDCE8D;”] I [/dropcap]n a pre-Internet world, it was considered money well spent to invest ratepayer dollars in building harmonious relationships with cultures so unlike our own as to be exotic. School kids have a chance to visit another country, and to host international students in return. We have a lovely, if hidden, Japanese friendship garden, and Miura has some Norfolk pine seedlings. Funds have been used to host and attend civic functions, both here and in Miura.

That’s what a Sister City relationship used to be about and what ratepayers’ money has been spent on, although whether – in the wired, highly mobile world of 2013 – it is still money well spent, is open to debate.

Which brings us to the second question: what do we expect?

This is where things have shifted.

 

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DDCE8D;”] T [/dropcap]he July edition of the Council’s newsletter, C2C, was almost breathless in its description of our newest Sister City, Changchun, as a place of 7.5 million people, spread across 20,571sq/km, and pumping out 2.8 million and 2500 train carriages a year. Who wouldn’t want a piece of that action?

Indeed, the newsletter cover gave a tantalising taste of what we might look forward to, with a mock image of a Chinese bullet train speeding into Warrnambool railway station. Wow, this would be so much better than the current V-Line service that is one of the poorest performing in the state because of its breakdowns and delays.

This new Sister City relationship is not only about friendship and goodwill, but promoting “common prosperity and development” – in other words, business – and this takes a lot of time, and we can expect, a lot more money before we see any concrete results.

The council minutes of September 9 make this clear:

“If the Council and the Great South Coast elect to use the relationship with Changchun to leverage business opportunities, further costs will accrue in hosting visits to Warrnambool from Changchun and staff resources in preparing and supporting business and projects to the benefit of the region, matching funding with state government grants etc. These are unknown at this stage.”

 

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DDCE8D;”] W [/dropcap]hile we might be flattered by the intentions of a major city, we certainly don’t have Changchun all to ourselves. Changchun has 19 other Sister Cities: Warrnambool is number 20. In this regard, it is a bit like being married to a polygamist – you have a seat at the table, but the love is being shared around.

Still, the recent business delegation to Changchun, led by Mayor Michael Neoh and CEO Bruce Anson, reported that they found the trip invaluable as an entrée to potential new markets.

No doubt their efforts to build on this introduction will dovetail with the work of the Great South Coast Exporters Group, and similar state and federal bodies that work to build international trade relations.

But is this what our Sister City relationships should be about?

And should ratepayers’ money be directed to this purpose, or could it be better used to fund, for example, more tangible and immediate projects such as improving the restaurant end of Liebig St, installing more public art, or buying more books for the library?

The little sister has grown up: now is the time for an open discussion on where she fits into the family.

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AS one of South-West Victoria’s most successful and prolific artists, Glenn Morgan could have easily become pompous and aloof, but instead he remains refreshingly down to earth and committed to his home town.

Glenn’s quirky style is instantly recognisable, with many of his paintings and sculptures exuding a whimsical, cartoon-like quality that belies the often serious political or social message within.

Others capture our national obsession with sport – an obsession Glenn shares when it comes to the Geelong Football Club – and many are witty or off-beat, like Glenn himself. But while Glenn’s talent has been well documented, Bluestone wanted to ask him about the importance of inspiring and supporting emerging artists.

It is a topic for which he is well qualified, as in addition to his own art career, Glenn taught art at both secondary school and tertiary level in Warrnambool and encouraged dozens of students to develop their artistic talents.

As a result, rarely do you meet an artist from South-West Victoria who has not been taught by Glenn, knows him as a friend, or used his story as inspiration.

“I have always considered teaching to be a privilege. Not just because it was a job – and you can’t take that for granted – but because it sharpens your brain as an artist,” he said.

“When you are working among students, solving problems, it soon makes you realise that you are learning as much from them as they are from you.”

Glenn, who was born in Allansford, remembers his own student days at the Warrnambool Institute of Advanced Education (now South-West TAFE) when the art class would do some of their best thinking and sharing of ideas in the pub across the road.

“It is that communal thing. My best classes, as a teacher, were the ones where we were all jammed in a classroom, sharing ideas, talking about ideas: that’s where the good stuff happens.”

Watching students being “bitten on the arse by the art bug” was one of his greatest pleasures as a teacher.

“Art is medicine. It gives people something to do with their head. To work things out.

“I remember my father-in-law would make furniture. He would disappear into the shed and be completely lost in it. We all need something like that.”

One of the critical elements of Glenn’s teaching was to urge students to step out into the world and take a show to Melbourne.

“By getting out there and seeing that your work is just as good, if not better, than anybody else’s…it makes a huge difference. I wanted my students to see Melbourne as just another place.”

Glenn lived in Melbourne for three years, as a post-grad student, but secured his first teaching post back in Warrnambool and has never left. He loves the lifestyle and the friendliness of the community.

The community, in turn, loves him back.

In 2009, one of Glenn’s favourite works – Banjo’s Funeral, which captured the funeral of local Aboriginal elder Banjo Clarke – was being sold by a Queensland couple who had bought it several years earlier.

A public fundraiser was held to try and buy the piece for the community and so many people made donations, some of the money had to be returned. The work is now held by the Warrnambool Art Gallery.

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[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #8F9F59;”] T [/dropcap]his week’s image for Mum’s Drawer isn’t from Mum’s Drawer at all, but we couldn’t resist sharing it with you.

The photo was taken in the 1960s and is from the collection of Ivan Berndt who used to work at the Warrnambool Drive-In and who still works as a projectionist for Warrnambool’s Capitol Cinema.

Do you remember nights at the Drive-in?

A product of the vehicle boom in the 1950s, drive-ins were once the ultimate in cool, what with their kiosks, speakers that hung from the rear window and the freedom of watching a film in the cosy capsule of a car (although, of course, not everyone went to the drive-in to watch the movie…)

Drive-ins survived the arrival of television, but succumbed to the rise of the VCR in the 1980s: people could watch movies of their choice in their own homes.

The Warrnambool Drive-In was on the corner of Rooneys Rd and Raglan Parade, where an (empty) hardware business now stands.

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Bowlin, bowlin’, bowlin’….

Lunch order, 1975?

signed, Fletcher Jones

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[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #8F9F59;”] T [/dropcap]urning old quarries into beautiful places and spaces is something of a Warrnambool speciality: the late Sir Fletcher Jones did just that with Pleasant Hill outside his Raglan Parade factory.

About a kilometre up the hill from his masterpiece is another, equally impressive transformation of a former council quarry into the Warrnambool Community Garden and Hub.

Instead of taking things from the land, the Warrnambool Community Garden has spent the past six years putting life back into it.

The 2 acre site on the corner of Grieve St and Grafton Rd is a shining example of organic and permaculture gardening, with the site divided into areas of raised vegetable beds, more than 50 fruit and nut trees, a herb garden, bush tucker area, communal garden and 56 individual garden beds, all of which appear to be thriving.

 

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #8F9F59;”] T [/dropcap]he individual plots are planted and maintained by group members who are assigned a patch of dirt for their own enjoyment. When Bluestone visited last week, the spring crops were booming, with beans, snap peas, rhubarb, spring onions, several varieties of lettuce and thick clumps of silverbeet among the delicious produce.

Incredibly, there was barely a weed to be seen.

“We have a flag system,” explained Convenor Geoff Rollinson.

“That means that if your plot is looking a bit neglected, a flag goes up on it…but we have never had a flag. It is the thought of being flagged that is the deterrent,” he said, laughing.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #8F9F59;”] T [/dropcap]he garden is home to several employment scheme projects and works in closely with other like-minded environmental groups around the area, who can also make use of the Hub: a retro-fitted portable classroom that showcases energy efficient building.

This weekend (October 12-13 from 10am), the garden is hosting its annual Dirty Weekend full of gardening and sustainable living-related activities, including composting, permaculture techniques, learning about edible weeds and indigenous foods, cooking with ‘ugly’ vegetables and various stalls, exhibits and competitions. A dry stone wall building workshop will also be held with expert David Long ($88 – bookings 0429 928 511).

[box type=”bio”] For more information on the garden, or how to become involved, visit its website here.[/box]

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“My friend the wind will come from the hills
When dawn will rise, he’ll wake me again
My friend the wind will tell me a secret
He shares with me, he shares with me…”

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] G [/dropcap]rowing up in Warrnambool, we had one “ethnic” record in the house and that was Demis Roussos’, My Friend the Wind.

This was a fitting choice, as Warrnambool can be very windy. We all know this. We all talk about it, occasionally even obsess over it, and it is usually the first thing that people mention when you say you are from Warrnambool: “Oh it is such a beautiful place, but boy, it is so WINDY!”

Last Thursday, it was incredibly windy.

It was the kind of wind that scoops up the fully laden recycling bin from the kerb and dumps it three doors down. As I retrieved a fortnight’s worth of wine bottles from the neighbour’s verge, I thought, “boy, do we really drink that much wine?”

I then had another thought: why don’t we make the most of our wind?

Granted, a Festival of the Wind would need to be delicately titled, but there is potential for Warrnambool (and the South-West coast) to embrace what has hitherto been considered one of its drawbacks.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] T [/dropcap]asmania – or more particularly, Hobart – has done this very thing with its long, dark, cold winters.

Last year, it held its first mid-winter Dark MOFO art festival which included spectacular light installations around the city and, in one widely televised event, a group of hardy Tasmanians stripping off to dash into the Southern Ocean for a dip.

Tasmania is incredibly fortunate to be the home of philanthropist David Walsh, who has spent large chunks of his gambling fortune transforming Hobart into the vibrant, artistic, brave little capital city that it has become in the past decade.

Imagine if some of Warrnambool’s wealthier families – you know who you are – plunged some of their fortune into creating a funky Festival of the Wind (okay, we really do need to work on that title). It could be held during the September school holidays when, it seems, the wind blows its hardest.

The events could be wide-ranging and include such things as a kite competition with large-scale kites like those found at Semaphore Beach, Adelaide, where they already hold a kite festival every Easter (they cottoned on early).

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] W [/dropcap]e could also host a kite surfing competition like Townsville (damn, they cottoned on early too), hold concerts featuring wind ensembles, encourage people to make and hang wind-chimes in public spaces, bring windmills onto Warrnambool’s civic green as part of a wind-power demonstration, create a ‘Second Wind’ dance party, organise kid’s boat races on Lake Pertobe, launch a competition for hairdressers to demonstrate their best ‘wind-swept’ designs, host a Gone with the Wind theme night at the Capitol Theatre…and on we go.

If nothing else, I think such a festival would put the wind up those who dismiss Warrnambool as being too windy.

And here, of course, would be the opening act:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTgloMcGh7k

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