Restoring a Maranoa artwork the mayor “will never forget”

A DELICATE restoration process is underway to preserve one of the Maranoa region’s beloved artistic icons.

The wartime mural at the Yuleba Memorial Hall is being restored with state government grant funding obtained by the Maranoa Regional Council.

The mural was painted in 1964 by jackaroo Robert Fred Doyle, who honours the region’s men and women who served in World War II and the Vietnam War.

Brisbane-based art restoration experts Tessa Blair and Maite Le Mens have been commissioned to carry out the restoration, which is intended to preserve the vibrant painting for decades to come.

Working on the project has been a delightful coincidence for Ms Blair, who grew up in Roma and has strong family links to mural itself.

“My great-grandmother (Alice Coleman) was involved in getting the painting in the hall,” Ms Blair said.

“She was the secretary of the hall committee back in 1964, and then my grandmother (Marie Klein) was the secretary after her.

“Here I am, back to fix it up again!”

Maite Le Mens from Studio 204 carries out the delicate work of cleaning the Yuleba Memorial Hall mural.

Working to preserve the decades-old painting, which is permanently attached to the back wall of the hall’s stage, has been a delicate process.

Ms Blair, proprietor of Blair Paintings Conservation, has partnered with Ms Le Mens (of Studio 204) on several previous projects but admitted the pair had “never worked on anything quite like this before”.

Ms Le Mens, originally from France, said the restoration would involve “consolidation” of peeling paint, cleaning loose dust and dirt, and retouching the areas where there’s been a loss of paint.

“We came and did a lot of tests with different solvents to see how stable the painting was – how sensitive – and then see what we could and couldn’t do,” she said.

“I think it’s great. A piece like this is really important for the community. It carries lot of knowledge and history.

“Sometimes it’s not just the painting, it’s the people and the history behind it. The artwork is important but the story makes it more special.”

Yuleba residents gather at the Memorial Hall to hear about the mural restoration works.

Ms Blair added: “It’s always nice to work on something that is loved and treasured and you can really feel that in this community”.

“You can tell they really appreciate having this here and you can feel how protective they are of it. It’s really important to look after things like this,” she said.

Once the cleanup has finished, plans are in place to cover the mural with high-grade perspex – a technique commonly used to conserve ageing artwork.

Maranoa mayor Tyson Golder said restoring the mural was “hugely important”.

“I’ll never forget the first time I walked into this hall and saw it – it just blew my mind,” Cr Golder said.

“Fred Doyle was an enormously talented artist.

“I’m very glad that Council has engaged very knowledgable people to look after this piece of our history.”

Yuleba resident Fergus Seawright with another historic painting by jackaroo artist Robert Fred Doyle.

Origin coal seam gas fields up for farming lease

PROSPECTIVE lessees will throughout September be allowed to inspect gas field properties being made available for agricultural use by Origin.

Origin is seeking to lease twelve properties throughout the Western Downs and Maranoa, ranging in size from 217 to 3,575 hectares.

The company announced in July it had engaged agribusiness commercial partner CBRE to oversee the leasing process.

Community information sessions were held in Roma, Miles and Chinchilla throughout August.

Property inspections are now underway, and leases are expected to be finalised by the end of October.

“Origin is committed to successful coexistence between the gas and agricultural industries in the management of its land assets and will retain unfettered access to the properties for ongoing operation and development,” the company said in a statement.

“The goal of this leasing project is to facilitate commercially sustainable use of the land with the major development period now complete.

“The lease arrangement is intended to be a long-term partnership to provide for the sustainable management of the land.”

CSG infrastructure on the properties comprises predominantly gas wells while one property has a gas processing facility.

Agricultural infrastructure includes access roads, cattle yards, dams and water troughs, dwellings and machinery sheds.

Harvesting underway at “Monreagh”, a property owned by Origin and used also for CSG operations.

Those who lodge expressions of interest will be assessed on relevant land management criteria and asked to detail their current agricultural operations and intentions for land use

Prospective lessees will have an advantage if they “enhance local employment, indigenous partnerships or general community support” the statement said.

Origin’s Alexandra Kennedy-Clark, who manages the company’s operations at Condabri, Talinga and Orana, said the leasing package demonstrated the successful coexistence between the local gas and agricultural industries.

“We’ve been working side by side with hundreds of landholders over the past decade as we develop Queensland’s natural gas resources,” Ms Kennedy-Clark said.

“Now that these properties are well developed, we are keen to see continued productive agricultural use.”

Barakula fire spotting goes digital as timber heritage lives on

WHEN field naturalist Len Hubbard says everything in the Barakula Forest is a “survivor”, he isn’t kidding.

Some trees in the southern hemisphere’s largest national park are thousands of years old, still thriving today despite enduring hundreds of raging bushfires, surging floods and bone dry droughts.

Now, one of Barakula’s iconic bushfire observation towers which stood for decades in the vast 700,000 acre forest can be added to its list of survivors.

“This is such a wonderful project that will preserve the Barakula Forestry’s rich history,” Mr Hubbard said.

The Coondarra Tower – brother of the nearby, near-identical, heritage-listed Waage Tower – is being given a new lease of life at the Chinchilla Museum.

Part of the imposing timber structure is being restored for permanent public display, in a $140,000 initiative by the state government and Chinchilla Historical Society.

The tower was dismantled in 2017, having become a victim of technological advancement.

For some years now, 360-degree cameras have replaced man’s naked eye as a cheaper and more practical means of monitoring bushfires.

No longer do forestry employees need to man a rickety, 30-metre high structure while constantly on the lookout for plumes of smoke signalling bushfires.

Instead, in the Coondarra Tower’s place today stands a huge steel spire with a rotating lens, constantly feeding back live Barakula footage to Department of Environment and Sciences offices in Dalby.

The steel fire observation post at Coondarra has a 360-degree camera at the top which sends footage live footage of the Barakula Forest to Department of Environment and Science offices.

The old timber fire tower was destined to be torn down and used as – ironically – firewood, until a group of local history buffs and former forestry workers set about keeping the tower intact.

The top section of the building has been resurrected at the Chinchilla Museum and is due to be open for public display in time for the venue’s 50th anniversary in 2021.

Plans are in place to also install an interactive monitor allowing visitors to view the live footage coming from Coondarra, where the old tower once stood.

“We couldn’t think of a better way to engage the museum’s guest with this new Barakula exhibit,” Mr Hubbard said.

Field naturalist Len Hubbard at Coondarra, displaying old forest maps he says are “as rare as hens’ teeth”.

Among the group involved in the restoration works is 74-year-old Charlie Hazard, a former forestry employee who worked as a logger in Barakula for a staggering 40 years.

For 32 years Mr Hazard’s family was one of about a dozen which lived in a tiny village within Barakula. The village had a single-teacher school where all of his children were educated.

“Once this goes, nobody knows about it,” Mr Hazard said.

“If it just went to firewood the younger generation wouldn’t have known what a fire tower was or how it worked.

“It would have been a shame to see it all up in smoke.”

Covid closures cause caravan jam in south west towns

HUNDREDS of grey nomads and Covid-weary travellers from southern states are relieved to have slipped into south west Queensland towns just time to beat the state’s second border closures.

The month-long window when borders were open to anyone, bar Victorians and those from certain Sydney hotspots, allowed travellers to enter the Sunshine state without issue.

Many of those taking inland routes flooded caravan parks and campsites from Goondiwindi and Cunnamulla and beyond, providing welcome business in the wider region’s accomodation and hospitality sectors.

Traveller Rick Williams, originally from Proserpine, has spent the past six years on the road and the past four interstate.

Mr Williams, his partner, and his rescue dog Penny, became stranded in Western Australia when the pandemic prompted authorities to impose travel restrictions from March.

He said he was part of a convoy of Queensland travellers who’ve gradually made the journey home, crossing the border just days before Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk shut the door a second time.

He’s staying at Dalby Tourist Park on while on his way to visit his elderly mother at Gympie.

“If you get stuck outside of your home state, and they start closing down caravan parks, you could be in trouble,” Mr Williams said.

“You don’t live locally so you can’t go home, what do you do?

“Some of those caravan parks out west were pretty busy. We stayed at Cunnamulla and there were a few Victorians who came in from NSW just so they didn’t get locked out again.”

Dalby Tourist Park owner John Stenzel said ongoing travel restrictions had been an overall blow to the business, but patronage had begun increasing in recent weeks.

“Victorians make up 60 to 70 percent of our client base at this time of year,” he said.

“The bushfires at the start of the year had already slowed things down a bit, so it’s been tough, but things are starting to pick up a bit now.

“There’s a lot of Queenslanders travelling around, a lot of people who are new to caravanning – they’ve just bought their first caravans or camper vans or motorhomes.”

Dalby Tourist Park owner John Stenzel says business is finally starting to improve after months of lockdowns.

Lockdown laws leave league in limbo

SIDELINED country rugby league clubs are vowing to return stronger than ever next season after pandemic restrictions made running 2020 competitions too difficult.

All twelve senior competitions in Queensland Rugby League’s central division were cancelled this year, having been deemed unfeasible in the ever-changing coronavirus climate.

In order to proceed this season, every club was required to create a so-called COVID Safe plan that satisfied strict conditions imposed by Queensland Health.

Conditions ranged from recording the names and addresses of every attendee at training sessions, to restricting and monitoring numbers of spectators at football grounds on game days.

The five clubs in the Roma & District competition all chose to opt out this season.

Chinchilla Bulldogs president Frank Roma said sticking to such onerous rules while facing the threat of major fines for non-compliance was too big a burden.

“We couldn’t guarantee we’d be able to comply with all that,” Roma said.

“It would have put too much stress on our volunteers, especially in these little country towns.

“Maybe now the clubs might have gotten away with it, with some of the restrictions lifted, but then again it’s changing all the time, so you don’t really know.”

The region’s rugby union competition is going ahead, with generally smaller clubs with fewer teams and players making COVID Safe management easier across the board.

Upgraded facilities at Chinchilla’s Bulldog Park rugby league ground lay dormant throughout cancelled 2020 season.

Bulldogs players had been training to defend their Terry Charles Shield ahead of the annual March start to the competition when the coronavirus threat escalated in Australia, causing widespread lockdowns.

Mr Roma said the club would reset its sights on the 2021 season.

“It’s part of our life out here. We’re either playing footy or we’re watching our family play footy,” he said.

“Hopefully next year we can get a good smooth start, straight into our pre-season.”

Cafe serves sides of everything you never knew you needed

ONLY in Chinchilla can you go to a local cafe and be constantly stared upon by a tribe of life-like gorillas while you sip away at your flat white.

There’s a mountain of plastic storage containers towering over you on one side and, on the other, a bucket of replaceable broomstick handles selling for two dollars a pop.

By the time you find a seat, you’ve nearly tripped over a pile of multicoloured hula hoops and dodged an army of steely-eyed terracotta warriors made of plastic.

Welcome to Amelia’s Place, the combined cafe and gift shop run “with an iron fist” by a mum-like manager nicknamed Nards, and staffed by a roster of teenagers learning the vital life skills of hard work and team work.

In barely two years, the Middle St business has grown from hole-in-the-wall coffee shop to thriving eatery and variety store.

Despite the global economic downturn, Amelia’s Place is employing 20 locals as it emerges from Coronavirus lockdowns.

For Nards, who’s real name is Jennard Rose, the business is a seven-day grind.

It’s the incessant “ding” of the bell that’s rung every time a food order comes into the kitchen.

It’s the never ending stocktake on an inventory of cheap shop items that runs well into its thousands.

It’s a frenzied juggling act. Coffee cups, cakes, coins, cash and customers. Figurines, fridge magnets, fake flowers and every other ‘effing thing under the sun.

“We originally started with just gifts, but because of the economics of Chinchilla you need to have the variety as well, so we opened the cafe,” Nards said.

“There are so many cheap shops in the area, but we’ve got different stuff to the other cheap shops.”

Too right. The variety at Amelia’s Place is nearly as extensive as it is quirky.

There’s everything from handbags to dog beds, walking sticks to winter socks, wind chimes to hand sanitiser.

There are hanging dream catchers, back to school stationary, cutlery sets, and those glittery cowgirl hats you usually only ever see at costume parties or bucks parties.

If the Covid 19 lockdowns lasted another ten years, Amelia’s Place would have nearly enough 500 piece jigsaw puzzles to keep the town busy the whole time.

Need a toy crystal growing kit? They’ve got you covered. A Ned Kelly wanted poster offering a 2000 pounds reward? You bet. A set of bocce balls? Look no further.

There’s everything. A whole room full of the ugliest garden ornaments and gargoyles you’ve ever seen, including a shoulder-high Snow White complete with the full entourage of seven dwarves.

Garden ornaments at Amelia’s Place cafe and gift shop.

“Out here, gifts will vary depending on the season,” Nards said.

“All the arts and craft stuff are the steady movers. Kitchen utensils always are very popular too.

“Other stuff isn’t so popular. Snow White’s been sitting there for a while”.

It’s a fun novelty to sit with your coffee and raisin toast, surrounded by a kaleidoscope of colourful woollen beanies, sunglasses and coffee mugs with slogans like “if things get better with age, then I’m magnificent”.

But the best part of the Amelia’s Place experience is the service. You’re guaranteed to be greeted with a smile by the high school kids working part time at the counter.

If you’re lucky, you might even hear Nards keeping the younger staff on their toes – growling at someone from the kitchen for making the type of forgivable error everyone makes on their first job.

Amelia’s Place manager “Nards” with some of her staff.

According to David Collison, the Kogan-based owner of Amelia’s Place, working at the cafe is like being part of a big friendly family.

Nards is very much the matriarch. When the Caller made contact with Mr Collison for an interview, he referred immediately back to her.

“She absolutely runs the show there, so you’re best talking to her,” he said.

“She’s a firecracker. She runs that place with an iron fist, but she’ll give everyone a fair go.”

Asked about her favourite item on sale at Amelia’s Place, Nards’s response was quick.

“The animals,” she said. “I love them, especially the gorillas.”

But if you want one in a hurry, too bad. They’re so popular that what’s currently left on display is already sold out.

Paraphernalia on display at Amelia’s Place cafe and gift shop.

COVID downturn plays into sports store’s hands

THE last thing sports equipment retailer Scott Cosgrove expected from the Coronavirus recession was a sales boom, but that’s exactly what’s happened since the pandemic began.

Sport First on Chinchilla’s Heeney St has enjoyed record sales throughout the lockdown period, despite fears Australia’s tumbling economy would cause retail spending to plummet.

Owner Scott Cosgrove said he’d feared the cancellation of many of the region’s sporting competitions would have particularly bad implications in his field of retail.

Instead sales have been at their highest in his seven years of operation.

“I can’t understand why, but it’s unbelievable,” Mr Cosgrove said.

“The past three months have been the busiest three months we’ve ever had.

“In April when the sports stopped, we were really worried. We’d pre-bought a lot of our gear and then we didn’t sell – your footy boots and mouth guards and headgear.”

Mr Cosgrove said he took advantage of government fiscal stimuli, including interest-free rent offerings and JobKeeper payments for his casual staffer.

But since then revenue has increased rather than disappeared as expected.

“I’m a bit concerned about when everyone’s got to start paying back the government debt, and what’s going to happen in the next 12 months or so,” he said.

A spike in retail spending across the country has been attributed to early superannuation payouts being made available in April in order to stimulate that national economy.

Data released by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority showed that in one July week alone, close to 600,000 Australians withdraw a total of $6.2 billion from their retirement funds.

Analysis by economic advisory firm Alpha Beta showed at that time, consumer spending was up 17 percent compared to pre-pandemic levels.

“The superannuation (early access scheme) was the real sleeper here. I don’t think anyone had any idea how significant the impact was going to be,” Alpha Beta director Andrew Charlton told The Sydney Morning Herald.

“For a lot of young people who took it out, that’s an enormous amount of money.”

Coronavirus stimulus and superannuation applications have been reflected in a nationwide retail spike. Source: Alpha Beta

In Chinchilla, Mr Cosgrove said the research figures rung true for sports equipment and apparel, with trade up as much as 20 percent in recent months.

He said some customers were among the many who’d resolved to embark on a health kick during lockdown, especially after gyms nationwide were forced to close.

“Everyone came in and went nuts buying all the gym gear to have at home, so we sold all of our weights,” Mr Cosgrove said.

“Because every sports store in the country had the same problem, all the suppliers across the country ran out of gear, and it all comes from China.”

Country Caller online news service advocates for rural Queensland

THE launch of the Country Caller introduces an exciting new news publication to an increasingly robust local media landscape developing across the region.

Based in Chinchilla, the Caller is a multimedia publication aiming to provide high quality news content and analysis for residents and businesses in the regions oif Western Downs, Southern Downs, Goondiwindi, South West and Maranoa.

It’s the third publication created in Chinchilla alone since June, when Murdoch-owned media giant News Corp stopped printing community most of its weekly newspapers throughout Queensland.

Chinchilla News is one of many country mastheads now being delivered only online, while new independent papers West Qld Echo and The Chin Wag seek to fill the hardcopy void.

David Fuller, whose family owned Chinchilla News for 50 years until 1987, said the migration of news media consumers to digital platforms was inevitable.

“I could see, even 20 years ago, that papers were going to be in serious decline, but digital has exploded even more than I could have imagined,” Mr Fuller said.

He said it would be challenging for both longstanding and new media organisations to attract and maintain readers and advertisers because of the vast array of platforms created by the internet.

“Back in those days (when the Fuller family owned the paper), we didn’t have that kind of competition,” he said.

“Advertisers were loyal – the big car firms, real estate – everything. We could run two pages of cattle advertising every week. There wasn’t anywhere else to look up classifieds.”

He said he hoped regional media would more closely scrutinise the activity of local councils – a journalism service he said had been lacking since Queensland local governments were amalgamated in 2008.

“Our longtime journalist Eric Platz would go to all four local shire council meetings – Chinchilla, Miles, Taroom and Tara. These days a lot of people have lost touch with their councils.”

Chinchilla Community Commerce & Industry vice president Matthew Burke said healthy competition in local media meant news consumers and advertisers would be spoilt for choice.

“It’s an interesting time and these changes are all very new,” Mr Burke said.

“You still see businesses taking out full page newspaper ads, but digital marketing is a topic that comes up a lot in discussions with local businesses.

“Some businesses are right into it, and others are still getting used to it.

“The question is – how do get the most out of it? Where exactly do you advertise? That depends on who you want to receive the message.”

The Caller’s target audience encompasses southern regional Queensland communities where agriculture and resources are mainstay industries.