Together we're making history

from Cooroy Rag 15 December 2021 edition

Sport

news Together we're making history!

WHAT an incredible 18 months for the Cooroy Rag. Since your community newspaper was restarted in August 2020, the Cooroy Rag has celebrated a major milestone, given money back to the community, been nominated for an award and broken major stories. In April this year, the Cooroy Rag celebrated 60 years of publishing history. What began as a way to advertise businesses in Cooroy, quickly grew into a noticeboard for events and announcements. For more than half a century, the paper has been a staple in the Cooroy community and continues today to reflect its views, champion its causes, celebrate its people and sustain its way of life. To celebrate this milestone, the Cooroy Rag organised a front page photo that literally stopped traffic. More than 100 past and present advertisers, locals, councillors as well as state and federal members joined the Cooroy Rag team in Maple Street for a photo that clearly reflects the unwavering support of our local business community for 60 years. Less than a year after the rebirth of the paper, the Cooroy Rag gave $15,000 cash back to the community at a wonderful community celebration. Believed to be the only newspaper in Australia to invest profits generated from local advertisers back into the community, more than 20 local groups joined 110 local businesses and Cooroy Rag advertisers as a range of cash grants from $250 to $1000 were handed out to the successful applicants. Since becoming a 100 percent community-owned newspaper in 2000, more than $1m has been given back into the community. The Cooroy Rag was acknowledged for this huge achievement, through a nomination for a prestigious award. The QCF Philanthropy Awards recognise those contributing at the highest level of philanthropic endeavour in Queensland, and the Cooroy Rag was shortlisted for a philanthropy award in the small-to-medium enterprise category. In the past year and a half, the Cooroy Rag has continuously striven to deliver news you can trust and content that informs and promotes our community. We have broken stories that were previously untold, becoming a source for news that locals can’t get anywhere else. From exclusives on the Wimmers Shop & Save Supermarket, to the Diamond Street development, to introducing the new owners of Harvest Fresh Cooroy, to providing the latest updates on the

Along with celebrating 60 years of publishing this year, the Cooroy Rag continues to champion the views of the community.

GemLife legal fight, breaking news on Woolworths purchase of land in Cooroy and the talks on Mount Cooroora, the Cooroy Rag is the first to provide the community with the news it needs to know. In August 2021, with the help of three local stalwarts, the Cooroy Rag "lifted the lid" on a decades-old Cooroy mystery, confirming that the concrete tank in Apex Park does not contain sewage but rather water, which once supplied the old Butter Factory. Since breaking this story, Noosa Council officers have been investigating and assessing its heritage significance, while locals buzz with suggestions about what could be done with it, offering ideas ranging from creating a tourist attraction to a water feature. The community has embraced the Cooroy Rag’s call for a memorial at the site of a tragedy that claimed four local lives. In October, the Cooroy Rag retold the heartbreaking story of Derek Lange, 11, his mother June, 30, Shayne Parker, 9, and Ricky von Blanckensee, 18, who were all killed in a tragic accident at Cooroy Creek on Saturday 5 December 1981. With the support of the families of Derek, June, Shayne and Ricky, the Cooroy Rag submitted an application to Noosa Council, requesting approval for a memorial at the site of the tragedy. This application is still to be reviewed by Council officers.