[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #8F9F59;”] R [/dropcap]egional universities are vital to the small communities they serve, in terms of providing quality education, but especially for the continued economic development of those regions.

They educate local people, mostly young people (and in so doing help keep them in the towns they know) and provide many jobs.

Students have to work hard (there is a huge drop off rate in the first year) and most try to balance study with part-time paid work, often difficult to secure in regional areas. Indeed, trying to encourage young people to stay and study in Warrnambool was a key topic in the recent election for Wannon.

Most students struggle financially during this time, so it seems unbelievable that a regional university would choose to make going to university any harder.

Deakin University’s Warrnambool campus, despite being on the outskirts of town, charges students the same fee to park their cars ($6 a day or by the hour rates) as students at its Melbourne and Geelong-based campuses. To make matters worse, it provides a solitary ticket machine at the Warrnambool campus which leads to long snaking queues of cars (backing up to the railway station 500m away) at peak times.

[box] There is little argument in city campuses charging for parking, as there is limited space and the public transport system is usually close at hand: there are viable and cheap options for students who do not want to pay.[/box]

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #8F9F59;”] T [/dropcap]he Warrnambool campus offers free parking of a sort (when it is not raining)! It allows students and staff to park for free around the edge of its football field. It is currently closed because of wet grounds, causing another spike of complaints and a return to long lineups for the single ticket machine.

You might ask, why don’t students just use the train service?  After all, it is cheaper and better for the environment.

The $1.15m train station, built in 2006, is only useful it you want to turn up to the campus at 5.35am or 5.20pm (from west to east).  Practically useless. A bus service is scheduled to arrive at the campus from its W’bool rounds at 8.45am, but our contacts say it is often late and therefore students are reluctant to take the risk.

[box] It’s important to know that not all regional universities charge their students for the ‘privilege’ of parking a car to attend lectures or study.[/box]

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #8F9F59;”] M [/dropcap]onash University in Gippsland, where I recently worked, did not charge students a cent to park at its regional campus in Churchill,despite there also being a bus service to the campus. Staff and students at that regional campus were provided with free and plentiful parking.

Parking has been an ongoing issue at the Deakin campus for two years. There have been protests since 2011 about the university’s money grab.

In 2011 the Vice Chancellor Professor Jane den Hollander said in an email to staff that she knew the pay to park arrangements would “upset some students and staff but subsidising car parks was costing the university’s core business”.

“I trust that you will take some time to consider these new arrangements in the light of the need to reduce Deakin’s carbon footprint, to release more funds for Deakin’s teaching and research activities, and to keep pace with other institutions who are also working hard to reduce the demand for on-site car parking,” she wrote.

[box] She said the changes also aimed to reduce demand for parking on campuses and encourage staff and students to adopt “sustainable transport alternatives” like public transport.[/box]

Clearly, that position has not changed, even though the VC would now know of the poor public transport options for the Warrnambool campus. We are not the first to call for the university to act and support it regional staff and students, and do away with its pay-to-park farce.

My mother kept everything…and I mean everything. This used to be a source of great embarrassment, but now I am grateful.

Each week, I will upload something from Mum’s drawer – bits and pieces from Warrnambool’s past.

This week is a hand-signed Christmas note from the late Sir Fletcher Jones, given during the height of the Second World War.

Despite the rationing and hardships of the time, Sir Fletcher always made sure his staff still received a Christmas gift and a gift card.

This small card epitomises his famous generosity and respectful attitude toward staff who were treated as part of a big family, rather than as mere workers.

Like many of Sir Fletcher’s former employees, my Mum has long forgotten the gift, but never the gesture.

At its height, legendary shoe store Rauert’s, in Warrnambool, employed seven shoe repairers. Now they have just one. Bluestone went to meet her:

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] T [/dropcap]here are so many witty one-liners that can be used about a shoe repairer, so let’s start with one: Heather McVickers saves soles.

In fact, she has saved so many in the past 12 months that a priest is known to have quipped that she was doing far better than he was.

Heather has also helped the down at heel, worked on several annoying wagging tongues and proven to be a deft hand at nose jobs.

“There is always a different challenge that needs to be solved, and that’s one of the things I really love about my job,” Heather, 46, said while cutting a piece of rubber with what looked like a very sharp paring knife.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] H [/dropcap]eather began as a shoe repairer for Rauert’s a little more than a year ago after seeing the position advertised. She had no shoe repairing experience, but she could sew.

“I was a sewer from the age of seven, when Mum bought me a hand-driven Singer sewing machine.

[quote]I would ask Mum to make me something on it, but she would say ‘no, you make it,’ so I would work out how to do it. Sewing taught me how angles work, how to draft patterns and how you need to cut to make things fit together,’ she said.[/quote]

Despite a flair for sewing, Heather spent most of her adult life working as a dairy farmer and calf rearer and only revived her sewing skills for a living after she moved to Portland about 12 years ago.

There, she started an alterations business, but it was so successful that the number of people needing help with their hems, buttonholes and seams became overwhelming.

“I was working on my own and, I know it sounds a bit funny, but I got burnt out. I would have piles of jeans next to the sewing machine and the pile never seemed to get any smaller,” she said with a laugh.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] H [/dropcap]eather left the business and, after another stint back in farming, spotted the vacancy for a shoe repairer. Skilled shoe repairers are hard to find, with few young people taking on the trade.

“I thought I might enjoy it, so I applied and I got the job. Ken (Brown) was retiring (from Rauert’s) and he spent seven weeks training me up, which was wonderful,” she said.

The workshop at Rauert’s is full of character with some of the equipment used to repair shoes little changed from that used by cobblers a century ago: metal shoe lasts, pots of glue and industrial strength sewing machines.

It is heaven for someone with the skills of Heather.

“I can honestly say that I haven’t had a bad day at work since I started,” she said.

“I am one of those lucky people who can say that they love their job.”

My mother kept everything…and I mean everything. This used to be a source of great embarrassment, but now I am grateful.

Each week, I will upload something from Mum’s drawer – bits and pieces from Warrnambool’s past.

This week is a receipt from George Swinton and Sons Furnishings, which still forms part of the Swinton’s complex in Timor St, Warrnambool.

I am not sure, however, if they still sell tray cloths.

Does anyone remember what a tray cloth was used for?