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SupportWhat happened and how did we get here?
It feels like just yesterday I was enjoying New Year’s Eve in Merimbula with the family, unaware of the long-term impacts of the then-dreaded Millennium Bug.
Oh, how bugs have changed! New Year’s Eve celebrations too for that matter. Alcohol is legal and I’m no longer that guy, but the kids today are.
Now, moments in life seem to matter so much more. Maybe that's just parenthood? Perhaps it's the result of the world we've been living in recently – regardless, it can't be a bad thing, right?
It's those early days in January, when you're unsure what day it is. When time isn't dictated by a big and little hand, and the moments aren't fleeting – they’re all-engrossing. It's somewhere around this time of year that for me launches a creative zest, free-thinking and a thirst to plot the year ahead.
"We're hoping to communicate more with our readership and we'd encourage you to get back in touch with us too.
The Gippslandia team have done an outstanding job over the last two years, keeping the ship afloat, even at times when we knew we needed to keep moving without being sure of where exactly we were moving to.
2022 feels clear – my contribution to Gippslandia this year is that we’ll bring about a new version of our cookbook: raising awareness and funds for mental health again. And, we'll be putting a call out to restaurants and accommodation venues that may be interested in being involved in the coming months.
We've spent time refining the opportunities for you – our readers – to support us and this is really important. Many of you were buying subscriptions purely to assist us in continuing and to help keep the publication free. We've recently launched our Press Patron account, allowing anyone to make regular or one-off donations. These contributions mean the world to us, and we'll be putting a lot of effort into bringing them to your attention over the year ahead.
We've worked closely with our good friends at Cheffields Providore for a few years now. They've helped distribute our publication and they've done an outstanding job. This year, we're looking to improve on these processes. We're often overwhelmed with requests for additional copies and may hunt for a few new locations that are happy to warehouse some issues for us each quarter.
Having spent time in some of our smaller towns over the summer, it would be great to start getting more copies to them too: Seaspray, Noojee and Bruthen are just a few that we'd love to expand into.
Recently, we welcomed the Gippsland Performing Arts Centre on board as a partner. With a bit of luck, we'll be launching some future editions of Gippslandia there, and possibly throwing a little soiree to mark the occasion. By the way, if you haven't been to GPAC for a visit yet, you're missing out!
Lastly, we're going to put more of a focus on our communications. Sounds funny coming from a publication, but we’ve found a little glitch in the system and many of you who had signed up for our updates haven’t been receiving them. So, we're hoping to communicate more with our readership and we'd encourage you to get back in touch with us too. We love receiving feedback; we love when people purchase subscriptions and we love it when you click on the 'support us' button and donate a few dollars, big or small. We enjoy the comments and the sharing of our stories and the conversation it provokes.
So, let's chat more in 2022!
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If there is something in particular that you wish to know or discuss, please get in touch and I’ll either address it here in a future column or via email at md@gippslandia.com.au.