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THE TWEED SHIRE Volume 1 #44 Thursday, July 9, 2009 Advertising and news enquiries: Phone: (02) 6672 2280 Fax: (02) 6672 4933 editor@tweedecho.com.au adcopy@tweedecho.com.au www.tweedecho.com.au
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LOCAL & INDEPENDENT
Mayor ‘under siege’ for her GM stand Tweed mayor Joan van Lieshout claims a campaign to undermine her position by other councillors and some senior council staff is linked to her quest to have general manager Mike Rayner quit his controversial role on the Repco rally board. Relations between Cr van Lieshout, Mr Rayner and her fellow councillors have sunk to an all time low after she told The Echo yesterday the situation had become intolerable and she was considering working from home rather than her council chambers because she no longer felt secure in her work there and staff were trying to ‘control’ her. Mr Rayner’s role on the rally board has been criticised by her and Cr Katie Milne as well as many in the community for his perceived conflict of interest. A majority of councillors voted him onto the board late last year, at his request, at a meeting soon after they were elected. But as the controversy over his role grew, the mayor repeatedly asked Mr Rayner to step down from the board, but she did not have the support from fellow councillors to rescind the original decision and Mr Rayner refused to budge. Several councillors have
strongly criticised the mayor in the past week for publicly revealing she wanted the general manager to quit the board. Cr Warren Polglase said the mayor no longer had their support because she had ‘overstepped her authority’, calling her a ‘lame duck mayor’. Cr Polglase, a former mayor, and the council he led, was sacked by the state government in 2005 after the Daly Inquiry found the majority councillors were ‘puppets’ of developers and the council had become dysfunctional. Ironically, last week Cr Polglase claimed he had ‘never seen such a dysfunctional council’ in his 28 years in local government, referring to the breakdown in relations between the mayor, Mr Rayner and other councillors. But Cr van Lieshout believes she has the support of the community for her strong stand against Mr Rayner’s conflicted role on the rally board, and she has been backed up by several resident groups. ‘I’m very serious about this and have community support and I’ll keep pushing to have him removed from that role which I strongly believe creates a conflict of interest,’ she said. ‘I am the mayor till September and who knows what will happen then, the people
Photo Jeff Dawson
Lachlan revives the old radio days Roxanne Millar
Old radio scripts, some that sent terror through the airwaves in the 1930s, will be given a new lease on life by a theatre group set up by a 20year-old acting fanatic. Murwillumbah drama teacher Lachlan Glasby (pictured) set up his own Doublemask performance group fresh out of high school three years ago to give locals a creative outlet. Performances are always experimental and this month will move into the realm of improvisation with the performance of Radio Play Night this Saturcontinued on page 2 day, July 11.
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The group will be playing around with old radio plays such as the War of the Worlds and Flash Gordon. Lachlan reckons by learning the skills of improvisation, adults can overcome their public speaking butterflies while also having a laugh. ‘You have got to be firing on the top of your brain, which may seem hard, but isn’t once you learn a few basics,’ he said. ‘I tell my students that the easiest thing is not to think. The more you think about it and of being up on stage, the more it clogs your brain.’ Lachlan set up his experi-
mental theatre group with a few friends when he finished high school to give performers aged 18 to 30 years old somewhere to play around. ‘In hindsight it was probably daunting, but at the time it seemed like a natural progression,’ he said. ‘I think the fact I did it helps my students because they get to see that if you want to do something you have to put the work in yourself. You can’t sit back and wait for someone to give you a venue.’ The group has just found a permanent home at the Murwillumbah Showgrounds. ‘I like the new venue be-
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cause it gives us the flexibility to do experimental stuff because we don’t have to worry about making a lot of money,’ he said. ‘A big reason I wanted to start this group is because I heard of a statistic that said eight out of ten adults are more scared of public speaking than death. And I think that is terrible!’ The Radio Play Night is on this Saturday, July 11, from 7pm at the Murwillumbah Showgrounds main pavilion. Tickets are $5 at the door. BYO food and drink. To join Doublemask call Lachlan on 0432 387 691.
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