IT’S easy to do nothing. But for most country towns, doing nothing is a plan for death.
So throughout this glorious State, day after day, week after week and year after year, unsung volunteers do something.
They are the arteries that pump life into communities, a sort of human royalties for regions.
Yet their activities rarely attract the media, let alone government.
So what do they do?
They keep having a go. Just like the volunteers in the Newdegate district.
I could have chosen any town to write this story but happenstance intervened earlier this year when I met David Butcher, president and co-ordinator of the Newdegate Community Cropping Group.
Our conversation quickly focused on what country towns are doing to survive and his enthusiasm led to a meeting with St John Ambulance volunteer Gary Guelfi, who also is a community cropping group co-ordinator.
According to Gary, the community cropping group is a sub-committee of the Newdegate Machinery Field Days committee, spawned eight years ago from an idea by John Morton to increase funding for local projects, in association with funding from the field days.
The field days was the foundation model to literally keep the town alive and now with two regular income streams, there’s time to discuss bringing dreams into reality.
“We all want to make this district a great place to live so you need to have a constant vision and ideas that can directly benefit the community,” Gary said.
“We’ve still got a young generation so a lot of thought goes into what we can do to make the youngsters stay and it basically is just taking steps towards that.
“You improve the sports oval, the swimming pool, school facilities, you contribute to the needs of sporting clubs and community organisations and to townscapes and look at ways to make it a better town not only for locals but for thru-traffic, such as tourists.”
A major focus of the cropping group is pledging $200,000 to building a skate park playground, an idea brought forward by three young mothers who have primary school-aged children.
“This is the type of project we are very actively encouraging,” Gary said.
“Small towns very rarely have the opportunity to fund projects such as this.
“It’s placing a focus on every day facilities to make it a happy place to live and visit.”
A total of 42 successful Newdegate Machinery Field Days has enabled the committee to support the local community with donations to many local projects.
Over those years, the field days major contributions have totalled $180,000 to the community recreation centre, $150,000 to the Newdegate Medical Centre, plus contributions to the town’s swimming pool, school air-conditioning and undercover areas and school equipment and grassing of the school, football and hockey ovals.
Monies distributed by the cropping group include six defibrillators, one in each sporting club, and the hotel ($12,000), including one donated by CBH for the IGA store; a pledge for the tennis club ($42,000); purchase of two community buses ($33,000); artificial turf for the bowling club ($30,000); a tractor for the golf club ($29,000); electronic targets for the rifle club ($20,400); lights for the hockey club ($20,000); purchase of mower and spray unit for the recreation council ($16,000); support for school camps ($13,000), which is on-going; a new pitch for the cricket club ($8000) and bus and jumpers for the football club ($12,000).
But as every country resident knows, making places happier places to live is not on the agendas of a large number of government-employed bureaucrats.
And this is where the story takes a turn.
The group crops the defunct Newdegate Research Station, averaging between 600 hectares and 900ha a year with the land leased on a 12-monthly basis.
But as from next year, the lease has been withdrawn from the cropping group, with no option to renew it.
The Department of Food and Agriculture (DAFWA) has informed the group that it is pursuing a more commercial rate of return for the property.
The cropping group pays $30,000 a year for the lease, but has not been contacted with an alternative figure or arrangement that would suit DAFWA conditions.
The cropping group has put more than $200,000 back into the community to date and having these funds available to assist the community with projects enabled the field days committee to be able to make a significant contribution to the building of the Newdegate Medical Centre.
A further $50,000 has been contributed to a new St John Ambulance sub-centre in Lake Grace.
The merits of gaining extra money for land the State Government deems as surplus to requirements and a lazy asset, are debatable.
Logically you see land generating funds for a community, volunteering to follow government philosophy of growing the regions.
It could rightly be seen as a commercial return for the government, defraying its costs to grow the regions and assist the district of Newdegate.
It seems mean-spirited for a government to withdraw the cropping lease from a community willing to assist the government, voluntarily, especially with medical and education costs.
The government’s decision will see a significant income stream lost to the Newdegate district – one that cannot be recouped simply by relying on the field days.
The ripple effect on a rate-paying community is not lost on Gary.
“We are very grateful and fortunate to have had the opportunity to crop it for as long as we have,” he said.
“Saying that, we would also like to have the option to participate in whatever a satisfactory solution for DAFWA might be.
“One idea would be to buy the land from the government and secure it for the long term.
“I don’t think we can revert back to a do-nothing approach because we know what that means.”
The group is looking to provide the State Government with a proposal for the future use of the Newdegate Research Station and a discussion on the process of purchase.
It is hoped that the discussions from this meeting will provide opportunities and a way forward for the group because the outcome of these discussions will ultimately determine how the Newdegate Community Cropping Group continues.
And, without sounding alarmist, on the future of Newdegate as a vibrant, volunteer community.
