THE CAMEL THAT BROKE THE STRAWS BACK

This is the article which set off all the kafuffle with the Linton News.

They rang the Woady Yaloak Herald and the gutless, spinless and brainless mob there pulled the column.

Imagine Rupert Murdock ringing James Packer and telling hi, to withdraw a story.

WHAT A BLOODY HIDE ...................

Anyway the Linton Ewes is on the way out.

The publication has become so mundane that it prints only Press releases sent in by other organisations.

Even the Progress Association is trading 'insolvent'.

Anyway this is one of the few remaining stoires before I set up a new page for

'THE LINTON ASTONISHER'.

This new paper has already set a cat amongst the pigeons.

TOWN TO BECOME TOURIST TRAP

This reporter is a syndicated columnist and would like to let people know that part of this particular story originated in 'The Linton Astonisher'.


Over the last several months Golden Plains Council have instigated a series of meetings about 'How To Attract Tourists To Our Town”. They've been getting their heads together here and there with residents and organisations to come up with ideas of how we might attract tourists and visitors to our little towns. Several meetings were held and many ideas positive and practical were put forward in brainstorms. You could almost hear the air crackle with excitement over some of the more silly ideas.

These signs of course would have place names changed to protect the innocent. But lets look at some of the better ideas that flew around the table at the Linton meeting.

An idea that we construct a giant Water Fountain outside the Take-away. One suggestion was it be a dog cocking it’s leg over the Rotunda another was that as we were in sheep country that it be a huge ewe having a polite pee which, if there is enough water available, could double as a Free Drive-Through Car-Wash.

Of course there is always someone worried about the type of people the town would attract. Do we really want geriatric Trailer Trash or Bikers from Bunningyong.

Someone from Happy Valley suggested that we re-forest a property with trees that form a ginormous four-letter word that could be seen from space. People examining 'Google Earth' would be attracted to the town and the property to ask 'Why is it so?”

Public seating was a good suggestion. We could recycle the dozens of second-hand seats secreted away by Council and place them outside every business in the town. They might even do it free of charge considering how much shop-keepers pay in rates. With the majority of Townies being in the 50-69 age group it will not be many years before shoppers would have to sit down every 25 metres or so and have a 20 minute chat to themselves.

Five suggested sights were outside the Grocer Shop, the Post Office, Pioneer Memorial, the War Memorial on the Avenue of Honour and the Hairdressers, they being places a lot of gabbing goes on. The stupid idea that they (old people) could be also used to inflate hot air balloons was quickly dismissed.

A brilliant suggestion was that we install Coin-operated Power Outlets on various posts around town so that Grey Nomads could plug themselves in for the night. Naturally only level ground would be suitable.

Another suggested the same thing could be done near the Recreation Reserve with suitable toilets and showers. The City of Goulburn in NSW once boasted that it had the most modern dunnies in Australia so they would attract people to drive through town instead of the highway by-pass. We are not sure how many people had to go and see someone about a dog as a result of that.

It was added that there are not that many Caravan Parks that allow pets like Dogs, Horses, Sheep or Giraffes so we could construct special cages (possibly recycled from Guantanamo Bay) to house pets and other things overnight.

There was a couple of half-hearted attempts to involve GP Council such as the suggestion they maintain the roads better. The pothole in Standpipe Road might be a deterrent to tourists.

With only the Cemetery Trust and Two Businesses represented (the Progress Association doesn't count) the turn out for meetings was pretty poor. I was only there because I'm a bloody stickybeak. Just as an aside if you look at a map of Linton it appears that the Cemetery is as large as the town itself. Is there a significance in this? Could it be used to attract tourists who have already passed on but would like a better view?

So I have taken on the task of coming up with some ideas of my own to put to you, the people of Woady Yaloak, to either praise or mock. Some of us sheep think that you humans shouldn't have it all to yourself when it comes to the thinking up of things.

Folgenderer Monat, Butch

I thought that I might put in a picture of the Executive of the Linton and District Progress Association as illegally elected.

LEADING UP TO PISSING OFF THE PUBLISHERS

Firstly, as I travel around in the back of Mr.Man's Ute, I have been studying a lot of little towns around the country to see what they do and where our town might pick up a tip or two. There's the Big Gumboot at Tully, the Elvis Festival at Parkes, Cow Patty Bingo or a Poop Pool.



I even attended the Big Ute Muster up near Deniliquin with my wool dyed Gun-metal Grey and pretending to be a Blue Heeler. There are Fringe Festivals for those with pony tails and Pyramid Festivals for those who believe only in the esoteric like Madoona. There are Art Festivals that feature such world famous artists as Usha Seejarim and Bongi Bengu. There is Nude Olympics at Maslin Beach, Tuna Tossing at Port Lincoln, Gumboot Tossing, Midget Tossing and Wife Swapping somewhere. If these under-developed villages can do it so can we.



To get myself up to speed after being transported to Golden Plains I even attended a local Marketing Seminar last year at Scarsdale Pub sponsored by our beloved Council. That in itself was a remarkable experience. You may have met the type, marketing people like me I mean. Extreme extroverts constantly smiling and never sitting still for more than a few seconds, talking ten to the dozen and, if they are that way inclined will call you 'Darling'. They have a way of bouncing around the room so that your eyes rattle like pinballs, more than likely dressing in the latest teen fashions which don't suit them, shimmy a lot, try to make you sing stupid songs and convince you that the Telephone Cleaners are the ears of your Sales Team.



We are ideas people. We can contemplate our navel for days, daydreaming comes easy to us, we use our imagination not or brains. Don't ask us to put anything into action. We Market Products we don't do action, we don't do work, to be exact we don't 'DO' anything.



Beside sometimes citing the bleeding obvious, marketing is about selling your product to an unsuspecting public, we can also impart some knowledge that it takes prospective customers five looks at an add before it sinks in permanently, thus the need to advertise at least five times in the Herald or that Direct Mail is by far the most effective means of advertising (the Herald goes to individual letterboxes), and offering free coffee to entice people into your shop is cost effective. How little does a cup of coffee cost if you’ve got the time to chat with potential buyers?



See … I'm marketing again without thought. I don't do 'serious thinking'.



Offering Free Coffee does not always work if you are a Barister (Coffee Maker not those who wear curly wigs) Grocer or Take-away shop.



Maybe some non-sensical tourist attracting activities might inject some of that country spirit into many of our more mundane and sedentary pursuits like watching the grass grow or even eating it like I do.



And now I get serious. A month or so back, and the reason why there has been a break in the publication of my column I unintentionally upset several humans in Linton with some of my more 'madcap' material. Whilst I do not retract anything that I said I will say that as a sheepish animal who abhors confrontation I certainly did not set out to upset but rather to entertain and if some people who are devoid of a sense of humour have taken offence then I apologise.



My feelings about newspapers are that they must represent all of the people and print both sides of a story where possible. There is a grim future in store for the print media in the next decade as the major papers increase their price or reduce their circulation to the point of only being available on the Internet. The outlook for National and Metropolitan Newspapers is eventual extinction.



I would expect that Regional and Local Newspapers and Newsletters will need to also undergo fundemental changes. As local news and views will no longer be seen in the major papers, smaller newspapers (and I include The Miner and The Courier in this) will be the only available outlets for local information. Internet Service Providers that feature the latest news whenever we activate our Internet connection will not bother to cover what Golden Plains Equestrians are doing nor the operating times of the Histrorical Society.



Active readership, which means opening up and perusing all the pages, depends very much on newspapers being up to date, active in local happenings, voicing opposing views, generating discussion and sometimes being deliberately confrontational. I have read many community newspapers in my travels. Some of them are extremely active and informative whilst others look not unlike TV guides or excuses for reprinting standardised Press Release (sometimes the same thing appearing in half a dozen papers) and certainly do not interest people enough to even read past the front page.



In the end if community papers are to survive they must attract Advertisers. Potential sponsors, supporters and commercial businesses are not interested in advertising in papers that people do not read.



Folgenderer Monat, Butch