THERE are plans afoot to dust off and fire up the Yesterday’s Heroes Ball as part of a drought-defying weekend for town and rural residents.
The idea arose during a meeting with NSW DPI’s Drought Co-ordinator Pip Job as a way of attracting support from generous urban residents wanting to do something constructive for drought-affected communities. Also at the meeting were District Veterinarian Jillian Kelly, Chamber of Commerce representative and Coonamble Times Editor Lee O’Connor, Rural Resilience Officer with NSW Department of Primary Industries Amanda Glasson, and President of the Coonamble branch of NSW Farmers Association James Nalder. Along with concerns around dwindling feedstocks for livestock and water supplies, the growing financial and mental pressure felt by people across the region was discussed. Donations of household and personal goods, like food and toiletries, have been popular ways of city folk to help out their country cousins but this has the unintended side effect of reducing expenditure in local businesses who themselves are likely to be under strain.
So the event proposed for Coonamble will be designed to involve people from all walks of life and encourage the money spent to flow around the community. “It’s been about six years since we last tried to hold a Yesterday’s Heroes Ball,” said James Nalder, who is also incumbent Ball Committee President. “It was a dry year at that time as well and we didn’t get enough of a response to make it happen.”
But with the prospect of little or no harvest again in 2018 and the potential for city-based sponsors to reduce the cost for local people to attend the Ball, Mr Nalder is busily working to rebuild his committee and revive the event.
“We’d like to make it a whole weekend, invite people from urban areas and provide some mental health relief for local farmers and businesspeople so they get a break without having to leave town,” Mr Nalder said.
He took the idea to the Coonamble Jockey Club meeting on Thursday 19 July, where the concept of creating a weekend package to coincide with the Gold Cup Races on 7&8 October was warmly received.
“We’ll be contacting Lachlan Valley Rail to see what chance there is of including a train ticket in the package,” Mr Nalder said. “We’ll also need to look at accommodation.” It is possible that some farmers may be able to host some visitors who will benefit from seeing first-hand what farm families have to look at every day. “We’re going to need a team something like the Avengers to pull this together in the time we have,” Mr Nalder said. An Annual General Meeting has been called for Wednesday 1 August from 6pm at Coonamble Golf Club.
Once re-formed Mr Nalder says the committee will be working on bus pick-ups, sponsored babysitting and “trying to remove any hand-break” that might prevent people impacted by drought from being able to attend.
The flow-on effect from these activities is expected to inject some positivity into the local economy.
“There’s so many others in drought and doing it tough,” Mr Nalder said. “Other communities might be able to do something similar.”
“If anyone in the community wants to get involved I urge them to come along to the AGM,” he said. “Or if you have useful contacts to make this a great weekend then please get in touch.”
