Baw Baw Citizen - 2 June 2017

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CITIZEN P5 BBCITIZEN.COM.AU

2 June 2017

P8 FREE

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Snow season starts early on Mt Baw Baw

A view of one of the slopes yesterday.

Source: Mt Baw Baw Snow Cams

Right on cue, freezing weather has hit Baw Baw just at the start of winter, bringing with it large amounts of snow for our alpine regions.

More snow than expected, in fact! The Mt Baw Baw Alpine Resort has announced it is opening early this season, and entry will initially be free!

“With winter starting tomorrow and a lot of snow on the ground, and it’s still falling as we speak, we’ve made the decision to open up early,” a resort spokesperson said in a social media video on Wednesday.

“That means from tomorrow we’re going to have our snow plane open, from Friday we’re going to have our toboggan slope open, and the best news of all?

There are going to be no resort entry charges until 11 June.

Pictures on social media show the sudden snowfall, with measurements around 10cm recorded earlier in the week.

With temperatures on the mountain not expected to rise above six degrees over the next week, seeing the snowy slopes from lower ground does at least make the cold weather seem a little less harsh.

Weather Today Cloudy

Tomorrow Partly cloudy

Sunday Mostly sunny

Monday Possible late shower Tuesday Shower or two Wednesday Showers

BAW BAW

3-14 2-15 2-14 3-14 3-13 4-12

CITIZEN

Gods and monsters Neerim South musician Wayne Dwyer explores the dark side of humanity Page 10

Fixing Gippy rail █ William Kulich @WillPJK

GIPPSLAND • Delays on the Gippsland line are a common complaint among commuters, so recent announcements of upgrades, extra services, and promises or improved reliability have been met with interest and scepticism.

But will the upgrades proposed by the state government actually help improve reliability, and what really

are the biggest bottlenecks which make the Traralgon line the least punctual interurban rail route?

Let’s start with reviewing exactly what the state government has proposed doing to improve the line. At the end of April, Victorian premier Daniel Andrews visited Warragul Station to announce his government’s statewide $1.46 billion Regional Rail Revival package. The lion’s share of the

funding, $435 million, has been earmarked for works on the Gippsland corridor.

Assuming the state gets federal government support (more on that in a moment), that cash will fund upgrades to train detection systems at level crossings, duplication of single track sections between Bunyip and Longwarry and through the Haunted Hills, second platforms built at Bunyip, Longwarry, Morwell,

and Traralgon, signalling upgrades, and the duplication of the Avon River Bridge east of Traralgon.

The upgrades are expected to allow Gippsland line services to run every 40 minutes, a relief for commuters catching peak hour trains filled to above seating capacity.

“What’s been promised has

Read more on Page 3

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Baw Baw Citizen 2 June 2017

This Edition

About our advertising

█ Bus services ‘vital’ in public transport plan How important are the new town services, and how do they compare to those in other regions?

You will notice ads and sponsored articles throughout this paper. It’s to be expected - you can’t have a free paper without some way of paying for staff, printing, and distribution.

But how do we balance our need for cash with your need for clear and trustowrthy content?

Papers have always featured advertisements as content - long form advertising is a great way for retailers to engage with customers and can actually make having ads on a page worthwhile for some people. But

Page 3

News █ The artists tearing up books to tell a different story You might think people who tear up and scorch books aren’t great fans of the written word, but that’s not true for a group of artists creating a book “sanctuary” in Warragul’s Civic Park.

Baw Baw Life

Page 5

Downtime

█ Tone your apps We often blame technology for keeping us indoors and out of shape, but can we use its power over us for our own good?

Page 6

Health

█ VR for fitness? Page 6

█ Need fitness motivation? Page 7 █ Food hub growing a community We catch up with Lynda Hoare to talk about the Baw Baw Food Hub. Page 8

Food

BAW BAW

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The Citizen is free, which means your dollar is too The Baw Baw Citizen believes in access to high quality media for all, for free. That’s why you didn’t have to pay anything for this paper.

But, if you have the means, we do ask that you consider donating something to a local charity.

You can also try volunteering. There are many community groups in the region who would love to have your help.

In fact, we feature one in this week’s paper. Check out our Food secetion on Page 8 for more on how you can help the Baw Baw Food Hub.

there is a problem when that content is indestinguishable from editorial content.

The Baw Baw Citizen has always had strong rules for advertisers. This paper has never and will never publish sponsored articles without declaring what they are. This works well for us, you, and even for our advertisers who aren’t tarnished by association with dishonest advertising.

If you have any questions about our advertising or want to place an ad, see our contact details below.

Free email updates from the Baw Baw Citizen bbcit.co/email

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Contact us

Formerly The Warragul Citizen and Warragul & Baw Baw Citizen

Mail PO BOX 1111, Warragul, Victoria, 3820

Edition number: 38 Published monthly.

Publisher & Editor: William PJ Kulich

The publisher takes responsibility for political comment in this paper.

Uncredited articles and photos are by the editor.

Social media @BawBawCitizen

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Baw Baw News

Baw Baw Citizen 2 June 2017

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Fixing theGippsland line

12 Mth Avg

February ‘17

March ‘17

PT

V

State average 86.75%

Gippsland 77.6%

State average 80.5%

Gippsland 76.1%

State average 84.7%

Gippsland 84.4%

State average 87.8%

been in some cases long-overdue and is certainly needed,” regional spokesperson for the Public Transport Users Association Paul Westcott told the Baw Baw Citizen.

“One of the long-standing problems that are going to be dealt with… is the single track between Bunyip and Longwarry, which has been a bugbear for decades. It was disappointing it wasn’t built in the first place when the Gippsland line was duplicated.

“Any single track section of line is going to be a problem; it’s going to cause delays and exacerbate unreliability because if one train coming one way is late then the other train [travelling in the other direction] has to wait before it can proceed.

“We do of course note the fact that a number of the projects listed in the budget promises do depend on federal government funding, which at the moment is the subject of some dispute, so it’s disappointing that that’s the case.”

And there lies the problem these upgrades face. The Regional Rail Revival project relies on funding from the federal government as part of its privatisationencouraging Asset Recycling Initiative. The long-term lease of the Port of Melbourne was expected to bring in more cash than the feds are willing to hand over to Victoria.

“The money is Victoria’s under a written asset recycling agreement between the commonwealth and the states that was signed in 2014,” Gippsland Labor MP Harriet Shing said on social media after the announcement.

“Under that agreement, an amount of 15 per cent of the proceeds of an asset that is privatised (in this case the lease of the Port of Melbourne) is payable to the state to use for infrastructure projects.

“Unless the federal government is planning to treat Victoria differently to other states and to breach its own agreement, this money is very much Victoria’s and the infrastructure projects we have determined will be delivered from this money are the regional rail upgrades that we announced today.”

Ms Shing’s comments came after criticism from the Liberal/ National opposition for relying on the federal funding. Narracan Liberal MP Gary Blackwood said “commuters will rightly be sceptical of this announcement.”

Public Transport Minister Jacinta Allan told the Baw Baw

Stopping all stations... but when?

Gippsland line punctuality vs other V/Line interurban lines average

Gippsland 82.1%

From Page 1

April ‘17 Data source: PTV Track Record

Citizen “the Turnbull government is trying to walk away from the Asset Recycling Agreement shortchanging Victorians to the tune of $1.46 billion.”

“We will continue to lobby the Federal Government to make sure Victorians get the best deal possible and our fair share.”

One part of the project did receive federal government support in this year’s budget. Mr Blackwood announced a $500 million commitment to duplicating the line between Bunyip and Longwarry, a project he campaigned on during the 2014 state election.

Asked how useful duplicating only one section of track would be, Mr Westcott said “the longer the single track section, the worse the problem.”

“The Bunyip-Longwarry one is an obvious bottleneck, and the closer you get to the city the worse the problems of single track sections are.

“Obviously… we’d advocate for continued duplication, even if it’s done in stages. It doesn’t need to be done all at once.”

Mr Westcott said even smaller duplication projects could be effective in the short term, “so long as you can create long enough sections of double track in places, what’s called passing lanes instead of passing loops.”

“Passing loops are long enough just for the train to pull in and wait for the train going the other way, whereas a passing lane might be a number of kilometres long, which means both trains can pass each other on the run. Then you could link the duplicated sections up gradually as you go.”

The fact even smaller projects, if half a billion dollars can be called small, could make for big improvements is heartening for commuters on the state’s least reliable interurban line. April’s performance numbers, the most recent available, put the Traralgon line’s reliability at a state high of 99 per cent, but punctuality at just 77 per cent. The next least punctual interurban service was Ballarat at 81.5 per cent, while Seymour won the most punctual ribbon at 90 per cent. Geelong and Bendigo both achieved punctuality rates above 87 per cent.

“For the interurban services yes, I think definitely the Traralgon line takes the ribbon for the least reliable services in general if you take it over time,” Mr Westcott said.

“The reason for that is not hard to see – it’s partly the single track sections, and also because it has the longest section of track shared with Metro services of any of the so-called commuter lines.”

Ah, Metro. Even occasional travellers to and from Melbourne are familiar with the urban crawl, where a V/Line train winds up stuck behind a slower metropolitan service. Other regional lines received dedicated tracks to bypass suburban stations as part of last decade’s Regional Fast Rail project.

Gippsland still shares tracks with several lines, including Dandenong, Cranbourne, and Pakenham.

As part of the Level Crossing Removal Project, elevated rail (nicknamed “Skyrail”) is under construction between Caulfield and Dandenong. As with all level crossing removals, the project will likely improve reliability

on the line as less can go wrong at intersections. The problem for Gippsland is the project will not add any tracks for the three metropolitan lines or our own.

There will be no third or fourth track added to ease congestion.

Asked if the state government had considered leaving the old ground-level tracks down exclusively for regional rail use, which would substantially reduce the number of trains at level crossings, Ms Allan only commented on the “11 MCGs worth of new open space” the removal of the old tracks will create.

Mr Westcott said the decision to not create additional elevated tracks might have to be revisited if

extend the services later into the day, but a statement only said the state would continue to monitor and review bus patronage in the area.

You can find out more about the changes at bbcit.co/1705bus.

So how important are the new town services, and how do they compare to those in other regions?

“It’s a vital link,” Public Transport Users Association regional spokesperson Paul Westcott told the Baw Baw Citizen.

“Public transport rises and falls by its network. It has to be a good network with smooth transitions, and it’s not just a question of smooth transitions physically, but you don’t want to be waiting too

long for a bus to turn up.

“Well connected services are vital, and more of them.”

While the buses cost money to run, Mr Westcott said there were huge savings to be made in encouraging people to catch a bus to a train.

“To continue to get most people to the train by car, you will never have enough car parking to cater for it,” he said.

“It will just be endless tar and cement surrounding stations.

“It’s an expensive proposition to provide car parking – it’s about $16,000 for a single spot if you kerb, channel, and seal on railway land.

“And it also doesn’t help other people much with one person per

car, whereas a good bus service connecting to the train not only helps people get to and from the station, but also helps people along the route get into the town the station is situated in.

“You look at the triple bottom line – you don’t just look at the economic balance sheet, you look at the beneficial effects of the presence of public transport.”

“Patronage is the key” when measuring the effectiveness of the services.

“If people are using it then it’s effective,” Mr Westcott said.

“It’s often considered that 20 minute services (the new town services are hourly) is the kind of limit in urban areas for buses,

the next major Melbourne port is built in Hastings.

In the meantime however, Skyrail is expected to increase capacity of the corridor by 42 per cent, and the government has cited an Infrastructure Victoria strategy which states additional tracks will not be needed on the corridor for perhaps over 30 years.

Skyrail isn’t the only suburban project Gippsland line travellers could benefit from. Moving block signalling, where signals are effectively moved into trains to allow them to run closer together, will be trialled on the South Morang line from 2018 in preparation for the Metro Tunnel project under the CBD. “It would certainly make the running of more frequent trains [on double tracks] easier,” Mr Westcott explained.

“It should also increase reliability, depending on the circumstances.

It will mean they can run closer together – they won’t have to wait for the train in front to clear a signal block (that’s the area between two signals) before they can proceed, as long as they keep a common distance between them.

“They come a bit more like cars than the trains we’re traditionally used to.”

Moving block signalling, or “high capacity signalling” as the state government refers to it, will be gradually rolled out between Dandenong and Watergardens as part of the Metro Tunnel project by… yikes! 2026! The adoption of moving block will, however, likely be a first for Australia.

Skyrail, presently under construction between Caulfield and Dandenong, is expected to increase the capacity of the line but will not see any tracks added to the busy Dandenong corridor.

Bus services ‘vital’ in public transport plan █ William Kulich @WillPJK

BAW BAW • We have talked about the backbone of our public transport network, rail, but haven’t touched on what happens at a local level. As covered at bbcitizen. com.au last month, Warragul and Drouin have recently had complete overhauls of their bus networks.

New routes, stops, and timetables mean catching the bus to work is now possible for many more people than before, but getting back might be a little difficult – all town bus routes leaving the town CBDs well before 5pm.

The Baw Baw Citizen asked Victorian public transport minister Jacinta Allan if there were plans to

anything less than that and you’re not going to attract people out of their cars, and anything more than that is good until you get to the stage where you don’t even need a timetable.

“If more people are using it than before you made the improvements then the improvements have obviously had some beneficial effect.

“Buses are the poor relation I think in public transport – people tend to see that if it hasn’t got [big] steel wheels then it’s not public transport.

“But obviously buses have a vital role to play, an unfortunately sometimes forgotten role, in filling in the gapes in rail routes.”

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Baw Baw Citizen - 2 June 2016

BASIC com.au

INVOICE Why make it complicated?

Baw Baw Life

Baw Baw Citizen 2 June 2017

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A word on waste The artists tearing up books to tell a different story

█ William Kulich @WillPJK

You might think people who tear up and scorch books aren’t great fans of the written word, but that’s not true for a group of artists creating a book “sanctuary” in Warragul’s Civic Park.

Dressed in surreal green outfits with large horns and masks for anonymity, the four-person artist collective behind Too Many Words are hoping to demonstrate the waste of modern society.

The thousands of books being torn up, drilled, wired, and glued into place to form a small shelter and a book circle around it were snatched from the jaws of the pulper. Donated to charities by individuals and the West Gippsland Regional Library Corporation, op shop volunteers had deemed the books unsaleable and would usually have paid someone to take them away for destruction.

Unsaleable doesn’t mean damaged beyond repair. People just don’t want them.

“The pile of books that we have next to the sculpture is one month’s collection from one op shop and the CFA Book Fair,” artist Susan Acheson

told the Baw Baw Citizen.

“This isn’t just the case with books – it’s the case with fabrics, clothing, and things like that. So much is given to the op shops that cannot be sold, and we want people to consider what happens when they buy something without [considering] ‘where does it go after I’ve finished with it?’”

If you cringe at the thought of books being torn apart, that’s the point: Too Many Words is supposed to confront.

“We did have a plan to burn the books,” Sue said.

“We are still planning to scorch them as we go along, when it’s applicable, if it’s applicable. The idea was to burn the whole sculpture at the end, but we’re not allowed to do that at Civic Park because it’s a formal park. We may still take it somewhere else and burn it we’re not sure.

“That in itself is a controversial act, the burning of books, which creates a lot of emotion for people. But what we’re trying to do is make them confront things: ‘what happens to all this waste?’ ‘What can I do about it?’

[The artwork is] something to make people address the issues, which is what art often does.”

The books might be given a brief

reprieve outside the Warragul Library, if negotiations between the artists and library staff go well.

Speaking of libraries, the artists have set up a small one of their own.

“Some of the books people can take,” Sue said.

“We’ve got a bookshelf on one side for the books we feel we can’t use; they’re too important for us.”

The shelf houses a surprising mix of books – Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest stands next to Fifty Shades of Grey. Unrescued on the ground in front, The Cat in the Hat forms part of the book circle. Titles with recommendations from George Orwell and comparisons to Moby Dick printed on the cover remain in the pile.

Seen alongside the artists’ bizarre full-body uniforms and under threat of fire, the circle makes the work look like some kind of ritual. Its purpose, however, is only practical.

“People were coming in and looking through the books, and it was a bit like a rummage sale,” Sue said.

“It felt disrespectful to us, like they were invading our space, and so we put this border of books around.”

Sue described finding books

considered important labelled as unsaleable “a bit weird.”

“It’s very precious, words are precious. In this day and age we are becoming less book people and more online people, and to me that’s a shame because as you browse through these books you see things that are totally unexpected. You would never have dreamt of picking up In The Moon of Red Ponies by James Lee Burke, I don’t [know the author] but that might be a really fantastic book.”

Staying with things which are “a bit weird,” what’s with the costumes?

“We’re wearing [this] so we are anonymous, because we’re working as a collective. It’s to make all four of us ‘The Artist,’” Sue explained.

“As we’re working, we’re working as one. So that means we can make a part of the sculpture, but it doesn’t matter if someone else comes and changes that and it evolves. It makes the outcome unexpected, because we all see everything differently.”

It’s effective – even knowing the people involved, it takes some effort to peek through their lace masks to see who’s inside each outfit.

The costumes and theatrics are,

however, just part of the show. The structure under construction is the symbolic part.

“The sculpture itself is also a sanctuary, so we’ve made this welcoming space because people often seek sanctuary in words, in books,” Sue said.

“You lose yourself in a book and you forget about everything else that’s going on in the world, and that’s a really comforting feeling.”

Society’s waste isn’t the only political and social point the group is looking to make through the sculpture, though the additional message might not be immediately obvious.

“The sanctuary inside is also a reflection on the sanctuary we as Australians should be offering people,” Sue said.

“Whether they’re refugees, whether they’re homeless, they have mental health issues, if they’re disassociated from society in any way we should make them feel more welcome.

“We should be aware of the differences of people and the joy that that can bring, instead of saying ‘you’re different from me, you can’t come here.’”

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Baw Baw Citizen 2 June 2017

Health & Fitness

Tone

Health tech

Can virtual reality help you get fit?

Strapping a screen to your face might not be most people’s first thought when figuring out how to exercise, but it might be a viable option for the masses in the future.

Virtual reality headsets like the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and PlayStation VR have been on the market for a while now.

Marketed primarily as a PC or console gaming peripheral, they have also been used for storytelling and medical research. The headsets track your movement and allow you to move around in a virtual world.

Turns out they have another use: exercise.

After a slew of reports of people losing weight through Virtual Reality, American tech YouTuber Bitwit (Kyle Hansen) decided to put it to the test.

Over the course of a month he played a select number of highenergy VR games four times a week for an hour at a time.

And the results? He lost about 2.1 kilos just by playing games, with few changes to diet.

Kyle also explored the practicality of exercising with a cord attaching him to his computer. You can watch the full video by heading to bbcit.co/bitwitvr.

your

APPS Want a free personal trainer?

Look no furtherthan your pocket

█ William Kulich @WillPJK

We often blame technology for keeping us indoors and out of shape, but can we use its power over us for our own good? To find out, I have spent the last couple of months trying out a few basic apps which claim they can keep us fit and healthy.

My first priority when choosing

which apps to test was accessibility.

The goal of this column is to help people like myself, who haven’t really bothered with their fitness in a while and use a smartphone with no desire to have their every move tracked. I also ended up excluding any apps which required anything more than a free Google account sign-in to use. (Just remember to keep location history

switched off on that account if you don’t want Google to track you!)

Apps which meet those requirements are pretty hard to find.

Many people have successfully used free advice and training to get fit and healthy, and technology provides some extra motivation for those of us prone to losing an hour to Facebook every night.

As the owner of an Android mobile, Google Fit seemed a good first choice.

There are equivalent apps available for iPhone users. Fit-connectable apps Progression and Water Drink Reminder were my other two choices for this overview, and I will cover other accessible health tech in future columns.

“People are always telling me I need a bigger shop, and now I am glad to say it’s finally happening.

“It has been quite a squeeze in here over the years – I often have people standing behind the counter because there’s no space left in front.

“There have even been times recently when literally every bench, desk, counter, and shelf in the store has been in full service as part of an active repair — and I’ve even had to fix the odd urgent job on the floor!

“This isn’t ideal.”

“I am really excited to have the space to be more efficient, and the opportunity to look at bringing a locally employed staff member on

to help out.”

All of this is great news for customers and the local economy.

Jon’s lifelong passion for tech has kept him and his store at the front of the pack. The range Jon offers is greater than many expect, and with the move things will only get better.

“Customers can look forward to a wider range,” he said.

“The new store will have three times as much standing room, displays, and work space as the present store does, along with hands-on demonstration areas for new hardware and software.

“More space means we can provide a better customer experience”.

With personal computers now considered to be an essential item in the everyday life for an overwhelming majority of people, Jon has made a name for himself as the go-to computer guy.

“Word of mouth feedback has been amazing and especially important, as it is the main way new customers find out about the services we offer,” he said.

“It has been great to see the generosity of other community members too. I have been accepting usable eWaste – old computers, tablets, and so on – to service and pass on to charities, community groups, and people who need them.

“The much-needed additional

storage space will provide me the tools to continue this program.”

One of Jon’s biggest community campaigns has been educating people on how to avoid malware and ransomware, as well as avoiding scammers and hackers. He keeps a blog of the latest threats at warragulcomputerrepair.com.au, speaks to community groups about staying safe online, and provides free, frequently updated fact sheets and videos to anyone who wishes to benefit from his professional advice.

Jon’s new shop at 6 Smith Street Warragul will open in July. But don’t worry if you need him now - it’s business as usual at 2 Smith Street until then!

Continued Page 7>>

Warragul Computer Repair’s big upgrade █ This is a sponsored story

In the few years Jon Cavell has been running Warragul Computer Repair he has had some regular requests: “fix my computer,” “I would like a new computer,” and “pleeease get a bigger shop!”

The little Smith Street store has been the site of countless repairs, data recoveries, and new computer sales. But with every new customer arrival his biggest problem makes itself clear; the shop is just too small. Happily, Jon’s little shop is about to get a big upgrade: next month he moves two doors up to a bigger store at 6 Smith Street.

“The growth has been incredible.”

Jon told the Baw Baw Citizen.

BIGGER STORE COMING SOON

Find us at 2 Smith Street Warragul until the move, and just up the street at 6 Smith Street in July

Health & Fitness

Appsolutely fabulous

<< From Page 6 GOOGLE FIT Platforms: Android, web

Pros: Friendly, easy, free

Cons: Wants to track your every move

For anyone with an Android phone this one looks like a no-brainer. In much the same way as Google’s Play Games app lists all your achievements from compatible mobile games, Fit centralises exercise data from connected apps and throws in a few features of its own.

Apple users have similar functionality built into iOS, but both platforms face similar problems. A quick search online presents reliable reports of inaccurate heart rate and step counting from all fitness wearables.

Fit is one of the companion apps for Android Wear-compatible smart watches. Connected devices can synchronise data including steps, heart rate, and so on with your phone, although basic steps data and activity detection is available for those of us who haven’t splashed out on a wrist computer.

In my experience using Fit without a watch the step counting is consistent, but the number of steps the app thinks you have taken varies from device to device. After changing to a different mobile last month, Fit started reporting that I had taken more steps on average despite few changes to activity levels.

The lesson here is to use step tracking as a general indicator of activity levels, not a definitive count of steps.

What I have found Google Fit most useful for has been tracking weight and activity levels. Through Fit, you can easily set and review goals for numbers of steps walked, and how many minutes of activity you want to undertake in a day, week, or month.

The app doesn’t attack you if you don’t meet a goal, it doesn’t get macho about exercise, and it isn’t too fussy about where the data comes from – you can even manually enter it.

Well, actually, in some ways it is fussy. Why you need to enable physical location history for your entire Google account just so the app can automatically count the number of situps you do is beyond me, so I have used other apps or manually logged exercises into Fit. The biggest problem with Fit is slightly inaccurate activity tracking.

The app mistook a quick walk to the bus stop as a run, and there doesn’t seem to be any automatic detection for jogging. That, however, is a relatively minor complaint.

If you own an Android phone or want a simple, free online interface to log your exercise data and goals into, I can recommend Google Fit. PROGRESSION Platforms: Android

Pros: Excellent way to plan exercises Cons: A little macho

Progression is useful for filling in Fit’s blanks, but can be intimidating.

BAW BAW

I have never been into the macho world of body building, and that’s not the point of this column. While this app does cater to that world, with sketches of exclusively male ripped bodies for every exercise diagram, it is useful for beginners and those not wanting to beat Arnie in an arm wrestle.

In fact, there are some really great features for beginners in this app. The aforementioned sketches are useful when trying to learn new exercises, and there are quick links to video searches about each technique so you can watch someone else to learn how it’s done.

While the app can operate on its own with no connected accounts, it can interface with Fit as well.

That integration is great for logging situps, pushups, and all the other activities Fit doesn’t do properly or at all.

One of the best features of Progression is the ability to create workouts consisting of different exercises and timings. Pretty much everything is customisable, from the exercise type to the number of times you want to do that activity in a session. I have set up one exercise which focuses on stomach and arm muscles through a mix of situps, pushups, and planking (yes, planking actually is an exercise).

There are also in-built exercises you can choose from if you don’t feel like formulating your own.

I only tested the free version of Progression. There is a paid version which offers its own detailed stats tracking and so on, as well as other features. I recomend trying out the free version to see if the app suits you.

WATER DRINK REMINDER Platforms: Android, similar apps on iOS

Pros: Simple interface, good widgets Cons: Society hasn’t standardised around one glass size

How many glasses of water do you drink in a day? The answer is probably “not enough.”

It might seem silly to admit you need an app to remind you to drink water regularly, but given the number of health benefits of staying hydrated it’s justifiable to want an extra prod to get a glass of water.

Water Drink Reminder is a simple, easy to set up app which reminds you to have a glass of water at whatever interval you want during the day. Using your weight as a reference, the app estimates how much water you should be drinking and keeps track of how much you have had to drink.

While the app is simple to set up, if your household has a lot of mismatched cups and mugs you will find yourself frequently measuring their capacity. When you log a drink, you tell the app how much water you consumed. Thankfully it remembers the volumes you log and offers them as quick selections to make it easier to use that glass again.

With unobtrusive reminders and many widget options, this app is great if you feel you should be drinking more water.

Baw Baw Citizen 2 June 2017

7

Community

Need some extra motivation?

Many people want to get fit but struggle to find the time or motivation to do anything about it.

While the Baw Baw Citizen can’t help you with the first part of that, we might be able to help motivate you!

I have it lucky - by publishing my goal to get fit in the paper, I feel I have to follow through with it because I potentially have over 10,000 people watching!

So, to help you achieve your fitness goals, the Citizen is offering you the chance to make your goal real by having it published in print.

You don’t have to put your name to it, and we certainly don’t recommend setting any unrealistic goals for yourself; this is just so you can write down and plan how you are going to get or stay fit.

Tell us what you are going to do and how often you’re going to do it (just don’t say exactly when or where for safety reasons).

Your lead will not only give you some added motivation to get fit, but will also give other readers ideas of what they can do themselves.

Email us your goal at admin@ fpress.com.au with the subject line “fitness goal for print.”

Please note that submissions may be lightly edited for editorial or legal reasons.

CITIZEN

We’re with you wherever you want us Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and even Google +

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8

Baw Baw Citizen 2 June 2017

Food

The food hub’s display at this year’s Farm World was very well received.

Growingahub forthewhole community

Food

After the opening of its cool room late last year, the Baw Baw Food hub has continued its growth.

The hub works with farmers to produce weekly and fortnightly fresh food boxes for its members.

What lies in the future for the hub?

The Baw Baw Citizen caught up with Lynda Hoare to find out.

BBC: How many people do you have coming to the hub at the moment for food and sub boxes?

Lynda: We have about 150 people who come every week who are signed up subscribers, and then there’s probably about another 20 boxes each week for people who just order a casual box.

BBC: And you serve all those people just with volunteers?

Lynda: We’ve got a small group of paid workers who get paid to do all the ordering and preparation and transport, but we really rely on volunteers to get the bulk of the work of getting vegetables into the boxes, helping with cleaning, helping with events and so on. It’s definitely not for profit.

BBC: So how do you work with local farmers?

Lynda: We aggregate from other like-minded farmers, so mostly certified organic growers, but also people who grow organically but don’t have certification, usually because of scale - they’re so small they couldn’t really justify the annual fees and paperwork involved in certification.

BBC: And you cater for different size families?

Lynda: Yes, a small, a standard, and a large ranging from $25 to $50 per week. The small box often has eight or nine different things, the standard box has a little bit more and more volume of each, and then the large box has a

lot more variety, so maybe 15 lines and bigger volume of the lines.

BBC: What sort of stuff ends up in the boxes?

Lynda: All year around we have staples: spuds, carrots, onions, broccoli, virtually 50 weeks of the year. And then the rest of it is seasonal, so through summer people get tomatoes, eggplant, capsicum, zucchini, beans, which then into autumn we’re starting to have things like cauliflower, cabbage, pumpkin, sweet potato, and then in spring it’ll be very lean, what we call the hungry gap when all of the autumn stuff has run out but the summer stuff is still just being planted, so then we rely on things like asparagus and snow peas to provide a bit of interest. It’s very seasonal.

BBC: What has the installation of the fridge, which you threw a big event for last year, allowed you to do?

You’ve had it for about six months now?

Lynda: Yeah, getting on six months.

That was actually the launch of the hub as well, so that was when we came out into the world and said ‘we’re here!’ So the cool room has been absolutely amazing, helping us to reduce food waste even further so we can really manage our cool chains, so as stuff arrives it either goes straight into the boxes or into the cool room. In fact, even on the day while we’re packing, stuff is in the cool room until the very last moment when people come pick it up, so everything’s kept in really good condition. It also allows us to work with our growers to provide a cool room space for them, so [dairy outfits] Gippsland Jersey [and] Mountain View Organic, and some of the veggie growers, are using it as their ow cool store space, so they can put a pallet in there and come and go as they need.

BBC: About six months since the launch of the hub, how have things been going?

Lynda: It’s going well. We do have... churn, so we have people who think it’s a great idea, are around for a while and disappear, and we just hope that they come back, and often they do.

But for some people, being signed up and having to turn up every week is a bit much, so we are now offering fortnightly boxes - that seems to suit some people who don’t eat as many vegetables as what we reckon they should!

BBC: On that note, people who aren’t members of the hub. If they walk in, can they just buy vegetables like they would from a normal greengrocer or supermarket?

Lynda: They can, but we’re only open such limited hours. The short answer is yes they can now because we have the cool room and we can store a bit more. Previously, everything that came in had to go out that day, but now we can carry the risk of carrying stuff that may not sell on one day. We’re also open three times a week now. Tuesday afternoon’s our big opening and there’s a massive array of stuff, Wednesday morning we’re there for a short opening for people who couldn’t come in Tuesday, and we do Saturday morning as well. Saturday morning there’s no boxes, it’s just come in and what you can see is what you can choose from.

BBC: And there is of course your presence at the Warragul Farmers’ Market. Did you start out through the market? You’ve been around how long now?

Lynda: The hub has been going for three years, and previous to that quite a few of the growers were selling at farmers’ markets. I used to do all the big Melbourne markets, I now find

that once a month at this market plus selling into the hub can sustain me. That’s the idea; most of the little growers don’t really want to go and spend every Saturday standing in a Farmers’ market, so we can do the retail part for them and they can concentrate on growing. For some people, that’s their thing. They’re into growing. They’re not necessarily up for this kind of connection.

BBC: You work kind of like a cooperative then?

Lynda: We do, and we are actually looking at formalising as a co-op, and not as a producer co-op but as a multistakeholder co-op of eaters, farmers, and the workers. We’re really excited about that prospect.

BBC: What do you have to look forward to in terms of ongoing growth?

Lynda: It has been quite steady over the years. We’re growing each season and year on year we grow a bit and the idea is that that growth can fund more employment. As soon as we have a bit more money, we put another person on. There is a massive amount of voluntary labour going into the hub, so we’re trying to get on more sustainable footing by employing people to do some really important roles that take a lot of skill and time.

The other thing we have moved into now is wholesaling, which is very exciting. We’re supplying Hogget Kitchen, Stella’s Pantry, and a new pantry which is about to open in Inverloch called The Local.

BBC: In Inverloch!

Lynda: We were approached by them, and that’s another thing that we’re really keen on is working logistics-wise, so they have a vehicle which goes to the wholesale markets and now picks up for us, comes by Warragul on the way back

Baw Baw Citizen 2 June 2017

9

to Inverloch, which is absolutely fantastic for us - we don’t need to be going to the wholesale market to do our top-ups. This sort of logic of collaboration is going right through he local food system, it’s absolutely fantastic. We all work and help each other.

BBC: How many growers do you have cooperating with you at the moment?

Lynda: We have about four medium to larger growers, and from week to week it varies a lot but probably 15 to 18 people contributing into the boxes each week.

BBC: What prompted the creation of this group?

Lynda: It’s all about trying to make small-scale farming economically viable. So taking out the middle people who perform an important role but the cut the take just makes small-scale farming really really vulnerable economically. It’s all about keeping the value either to the farmer, or we’ve added another constraint to ourselves which is we want to make the food affordable so anyone can access it. That’s why we’re a not for profit, because there’s very little margin in the middle.

There’s nothing left by the time we’ve paid. All of those volunteers get a free vege box, a $35 box, so by the time you have 10 of them in the hub each week that actually adds up to quite a lot, but it’s absolutely fine, it’s great.

BBC: Can anyone just contact the hub to ask about becoming a volunteer?

Lynda: That’s right, drop us an email or Facebook message, anything, we’ll get back to you. We love to see new people.

You can find out more about the hub at bawbawfoodhub.org.au

10

Downtime

Baw Baw Citizen 2 June 2017

Gods and monsters Neerim South man Wayne Dwyer might seem like a quiet person, but his music is anything but.

He has just released his second album, The Painful Road to Eden, under his band name Vulvagun.

It’s an often confronting band name, and when the Baw Baw Citizen last spoke to Wayne back in 2015 he said he was planning to change it to ‘Promethian Arch.’ We asked him why that name only made it into the lyrics of a song, and not on the cover of the album.

Wayne: That’s right, I thought I had to pay homage to the idea that I toyed with changing the band name.

It might have been around the same time, because I like to put little clues into what I’m writing.

BBC: So why did you decide not to change the name?

Wayne: Well, in the beginning I wanted to change it just because it got so much negativity, even though I stood by it. I just kept thinking about it; ‘what do I do? What do I do?’ And then it was like ‘no, I’m not going to change the name for anyone.’ Because you do have youy doubts about it.

And that’s what I like about the name, I’ve said it before, if it challenges me then it’s a good thing – that’s what metal’s about, it’s about pushing those boundaries. And for the people who are kind of like ‘oh, I’m not going to listen to the band because of the band name,’ well, f--- off. If you listen to metal, those are the sort of things that push the buttons of the people who

don’t listen to metal.

Wayne: Yeah, probably. I think people are desensitised to the name, so the obstacle goes away a little bit I think. Although, reading forums and stuff, because I get online and read stuff, I love it, there are definitely people who still go ‘stupid band name, great band,’ ‘love ‘em, but what’s going on with the band name?’ And the good thing about that is they’re talking about the band name; if we were called Promethian Arch, it’s kind of forgettable. It’s a great name I reckon, but it’s not something you’re going to remember.

BBC: You had some communication about the album itself with your artist. The artwork in this album is spectacular.

Wayne: In a way, [Melbourne-based artist] Matt Bottos helped produce the album itself, in a roundabout way. When I first contacted him and said ‘I want you to do the artwork,’ he was really interested in creating something around the lyrics, and he was the one who said ‘why don’t we do a different image for every song in the booklet?’ Yeah, okay, because I’m a vinyl guy – I love the old Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath albums where you’d open them up and read everything and get really involved, and that sort of doesn’t happen all the time any more, with mp3s and whatnot you don’t get that product any more and the experience.

BBC: This album does have a story.

Do you want to spoil it here?

Wayne: It’s on the website so I don’t

WEST GIPPSLAND ARTS CENTRE

mind telling people what it is.

It’s a concept album, and it’s kind of hard to do a concept album if you want to remain ambiguous, and I love doing that. If you want to take a song out and listen to it on its own it can mean anything. So I didn’t say ‘we wake up in the morning and went and did this, and this happened to me’ and all of that kind of stuff; lyrically it’s more about the inner turmoil of the main character.

It’s about (Wayne turns to the bookshelf behind him), as you can see I’m into old books, mainly old science books, Darwinism, anything from the early 19h century, late 18th century. [The main character is] a naturalist, or what they used to call a natural philosopher, the precursor to a scientist. He sort of has this idea that perhaps we didn’t come from the biblical idea of creation so he sets out on this journey to find what Darwin would call the theory of evolution, so he was seeking something like that but inadvertently sort of finds something a lot darker and that we come from something purely evil.

He finds ancient texts, the idea was he finds all the literature that we used lyrically on the first album, Cold Moon Over Babylon, so he discovers all that stuff we sang about, just the references, like the… the hammer of witches… and all these ancient Christian and Jewish texts which actually talk about demon worship.

They’re basically warnings how not to raise the devil. So he finds all this stuff and opens up this doorway into

this other dimension which is actually this underworld, and it’s our future, but it runs simultaneously with us but backwards in time.

So there’s this two [levels], here’s us and here’s them, and they decide on the dark side that they want to change their past, so now they’ve got this gateway through to change their past, he can see the future and wants to change the future and wants to change the past as well, so the future is different in this future.

It’s kind of convoluted. Those ideas are very Lovecraftian, so the idea was the character was a cross between Darwin and Lovecraft, or a Lovecraftian character, but the idea of there being another world underneath ours kind of makes sense scientifically anyway because there are books like The Lucifer Principal by Howard Bloom that talk about where does the nature in evil in us come from? And obviously it comes from genes and mutations and stuff, but in our story on the album it’s not, it comes from this dark underworld that has to exist in order for our own to exist. So if you destroy what happens under here, this stops as well..

BBC: You mentioned religious texts there and we have discussed previously that you’re not a religious person. It would be easy to think that you are based on your music.

Wayne: I actually read through my lyrics, when you finish an album you read through and make sure they’re right, and thought ‘I sound like a nutter. I sound like a fundamentalist.’

CORNER OF SMITH AND ALBERT STREETS, WARRAGUL Bookings: PH 5624 2456 - www.wgac.com.au

I’m an atheist, but I’m not a radical atheist; I don’t hate religion. There are elements of it that I hate obviously, but I know religious people and they’re not bad people, they just have a different outlook on life, and I’ve kind of come to this point in my life where I go ‘that’s okay, it’s alright.’

There are things I like, I have friends who on a Sunday afternoon sit down at the kitchen table and flick through the bible….

BBC: So do you find yourself trying to make a point? Do you find yourself ever trying to make a point in your lyrics either politically or about religion?

Wayne: No, I use it as a means to tell a story. I don’t want to lead people down the path of what I’m thinking, I want to enjoy the story. Every story has a moral to it or a point to it I guess, in some respects you learn something about yourself when you watch a film or read a book or whatever, but no, I’m not trying to influence anyone in their thinking, absolutely not.

I like to tell stories, and you us the real world and what happens in the real world to kind of make those stories happen. Like I said, the first album is based on all these texts, they actually exist, they’re real texts; they don’t mean anything in the real world, they don’t do anything, but they exist, and there was a time when people kind of took them pretty seriously.

That fascinates me.

You can find The Painful Road to Eden online at vulvagun.com.

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Presents... Outside the Walls - 2017

Starring JOHN WOOD & JULIE NIHILL

The Beggars return to weave gorgeous three part vocal harmonies with acoustic textures that will transport you with songs you know and love.

This is a performance that is funny, intimate and moving.

DON’T MISS THIS SHOW!

“Inspired by true events, this sparkling and colourful new comedy-drama asks vital questions about what makes art... and people... truly authentic” - The Telegraph

Multi ARIA award nominated guitar duo The Grigoryan Brothers are at the height of the Australian classical music scene. ”Guitar playing of uncommon originality and authority. Musicality, expressivity and daring...”

- The New York Times

Tuesday 6 June 11:00am, 8:00pm Cardinia Cultural Centre

Friday 9 June 11:00am Narracan Public Hall

Tuesday 13 June 8:00pm Cardinia Cultural Centre

Sunday 25 June 3:00pm Wesley of Warragul

40 Lakeside Blvd, Pakenham

Connections Road, Narracan

40 Lakeside Blvd, Pakenham

62 Victoria St, Warragul

Blows the mind in every aspect - Same Same Go out, see this production - Australian Stage Remarkable. Brilliantly executed - Aussie Theatre An amazing piece - Absolute Theatre Begs a second viewing - Absolute Theatre Entirely riveting - Blue Curtain Brisbane Stunning... an utter triumph - LSF

Downtime

Baw Baw Citizen 2 June 2017

11

When Dracula comes to town shake & stir theatre co’s national tour of Dracula will arrive at the Cardina Cultural Centre on 6 June.

It’s not a small task to bring such an iconic story to the stage. The Baw Baw Citizen caught up company creative director and actor Ross Balbuziente to talk about bringing Dracula to life.

Prepare for a gothic nightmare. Image: Dylan Evans. Supplied

Ross: We’ve got a really lovely balance between maintaining the faithfulness of the original source material, the novel Bram Stoker created, but then coupled with some really high production values which then creates a large-scale theatrical experience for our audiences. Being very very truthful to the original, but then coupling that to modern theatricality which does surprise audience.

We’ve got an epic revolving stage that’s lavishly designed that transports the audience through time and across different locations. We’ve got all the bells and whistles to create the atmosphere of the piece.

BBC: Looking back at the history of Dracula, have you borrowed much from previous interpretations?

Many people’s exposure to Dracula is through Hammer Horror - have you looked to other people’s interpretations in trying to figure out how to make this production look?

Ross: No, there was an intentional decision made across the whole creative team, our director and our design team, to not base this on any other adaptation of Dracula.

What has been used as inspiration has been the gothic architecture and the gothic wardrobe, and we’re not even slavishly tying ourselves to those elements but the design team has obviously been inspired by the shapes and the textures and the angles of those very beautiful designs. But then we put this together and created our

own world which again, depending on each moment of the production, has shades of the modern but also very very ingrained with tradition.

BBC: You mentioned you’re on a national tour and you have a lot of very big Dracula fans coming to see you, how have your audiences responded so far?

Ross: There’s nothing better than hearing audible gasps from an audience, when there’s shock at perhaps Dracula’s appearance or reappearance, or the intentional moments where it’s the goal of the cast and the creatives and the crew to scare our audience. But then it’s also really lovely to give the audience the opportunity to have a sigh of relief and have moments of laughter, which allow the audience members to regulate themselves I guess, and then jump back on board the ghost train experience which is the show.

BBC: If you could become a vampire, would you?

Ross: Oh look, they’ve got it pretty well. I mean, as an artist and practitioner, I’ve been working in this field for close to 15 years now, a lot of my most creative moments come at night time, so I guess I can relate to Dracula’s nocturnal lifestyle. There’s a lot of stuff, you know the drinking blood ain’t that appealing to me, but I’ll give anything a shot!

BBC: You’ve recently done productions of Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. A blood sucker must be a pretty light character to do work on in comparison!

Ross: The same creative team responsible for those productions... have come together to work on this particular production with the same amount of care and attention to detail, despite there not being that obvious political slant. Again, it throws back to the privilege we get to present these

classic words on stage, and adapting them for a new audience. We love that opportunity and we don’t take [it] lightly. There’s a lot of care and precision which goes into creating these [adaptions of] classics for stage.

BBC: Who are you hoping turns up?

Ross: If past audiences are anything to go by, it’s really a cross-section.

Vampire fiction, and Dracula being one of the most famous vampires of all time, has infiltrated so much of our pop culture. There’s hardly any film, TV, book in that style which hasn’t been inspired by the very notion of Dracula. There’s a lot of [people] out there who love American Horror Story and True Blood, and Twilight dare I say, and who want want to come and enjoy and revel in what is the most classic vampire.

BBC: How do you find fans of the modern vampires, the Twilight fans and so on, do you feel they have a different response to Dracula than other more traditional fans?

Ross: Die hard fans are fans of Dracula himself, so regardless if they’re reading the novel that Bram wrote all those years ago or watching a modern adaption, they’re team Dracula all the way. Their response is really interesting, where they’ve devoted a large portion of their lives to following everything gothicinspired and Drac- (sic) and vampireinspired, and it’s really refreshing and really nice to meeting these people across the country.

We’ve had audience members in the past rock up with garlic wreaths around their neck or in capes or with fangs; it’s always nice to meet those true, true, die hard fans. But again, you don’t need to be a die hard fan to enjoy this piece of fiction.

thing where it probably feels a little more like work because it’s not that natural, even though I like the editing.

And I like the face to face almost more than the online, so I’m probably a bit old school.

BBC: Do you think you have inspired any little kids to follow into a career which isn’t engineering? illustration or writing or so on?

Adam: Yeah, I think so! I have a few folders at home of [pictures] kids have sent me and letters from parents and stuff, which has been really nice, and I’ve been told by parents that their kids have been reading my books and that sort of stuff, and I go ‘ooh, they might take that path.’

Once you’re in, I think you can go anywhere with it, but for lots of kids getting into reading and drawing stuff, it feels a bit daunting I think.

When they realise it’s actually fun, I think so, hopefully.

BBC: You’ve published a lot of books. Just googling your name...

Adam, interrupting: I do [that] all the time.

BBC: ....there’s multiple books every year, and you’re doing this talk on a weekend - is this what you live and breathe now? Or do you get time to do anything else?

Adam: Yes, this is pretty much it.

I think I’ve got about 40 books now, and this year I’ve got about five or so coming out.

I wrote down a goal a couple of years ago to do one book a year, and it’s just sort of change from that now.

I was talking to someone yesterday who was asking ‘do you have a day off?’ And I’m like, ‘well, no.’ If I get up in the morning and the family’s asleep, I just start writing because I don’t want to just sit around and do

nothing. So even on days I have off I will at least do some writing, and I do markets on a lot of weekends as well.

BBC: Would you write something for older kids? Or have you?

Adam: I generally write up to grade 6.

I’ve done one novel that’s probably aimed at nine to 13 or 14 year olds.

I did try a young adult novel and showed it to a few people, and they just went ‘nah.’ Again, it didn’t come naturally, and they could see I was trying too hard to write a young adult novel.

I think my natural voice is probably seven to 11. When I just write stuff, that’s what it comes out for. But I would love to do a young adult story; I have an idea I really want to work with, but since that first one I haven’t had the guts to sit down and write the new one. One day, one day. I really like the idea so one day I will do it.

BBC: What did you like to read when you were a kid?

Adam: Heaps. My stepdad was a teacher librarian, so we had books everywhere.I did get a bit influenced by him, which is why I barrack for Collingwood as well; he would have kicked me out of the house if I didn’t!

When I was three!

But yeah, lots of Roald Dahl, Dr Seuss, and Bill Peet, who is one not as many people know. He actually worked for Walt Disney, and he was the only person to have ever done a whole Disney animated movie on his own. He did 101 Dalmations by hand on the flip paper, every sheet, just by himself. Now it’s teams of thousands or whatever. He did two movies, I don’t know what the other one was.

His books are amazing. He writes and illustrates the books as well in a really cool sketchy style.

They were probably the main ones.

And I started reading horror stories when I was about 10.

BBC: What do you read as an adult?

Adam: A lot of non-fiction, actually.

A lot of philosophy, self help, personal development-type stuff.

At the moment I have three books on the go at once, so I do one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and then one when I go to bed.

BBC: You have time for all that despite writing five books per year!

Adam: Yeah, I don’t read as much as I’d like to. It’s about 15 minutes at a time.

I just read One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest because I hadn’t read that in ages, so I usually go a fiction in the evening, a non-fiction with breakfast, and whatever.

BBC: Have you ever been recognised while out and about by a particularly keen reader?

Adam: Yeah, sometimes, generally if I’ve been to a school in the area.

The other week I was at Doncaster Shopping Centre and this kid just watched me go past, and I went ‘have I been to your school?’ And he was like ‘yeah!’ That happens a bit.

I just remembered the funniest one, and this was really embarrassing: I was at a book market at Federation Square, and there was this march about a war somewhere, it might have been a memorial. It was all very quiet and sombre, and then suddenly I heard this kid go ‘oh my god, it’s Adam Wallace!’ And I just waved and covered my face, it was hilarious, that was just about my favourite moment of all this I think.

You can book tickets for the show online at wgac.com.au

‘Oh my god, it’s Adam Wallace!’

From Page 12 books, and self published, and went from there. That was about 2005, when my first book came out.

BBC: Do you miss engineering at all?

Adam, firmly but laughing: No. BBC: So why did you do it in the first place?

Adam: Probably like a lot of people who do engineering, I was in high school, I was good at maths and good at science and had no idea what I wanted to do, and dad goes ‘how about engineering?’ I went ‘hmm, sure,’ and so I did it.

It was fine, and it got me 10 years of good work and some of my best friends out of it, and financed starting up my writing, so it was really worthwhile, but I never had the motivation to want to become a manger and work 80 hours a week and do all that sort of stuff, and all the meetings. No interest at all.

BBC: You’re talking to a lot of young kids about sketching. What got you into drawing in the first place?

Adam: Drawing? I used to muck around at home, like when I was in primary school and stuff, but never really thinking about it as anything.

I see a lot of kids who go ‘oh, I can’t draw.’ Because there are kids in their class who are awesome, they go ‘well, I can’t draw like that so I can’t draw.’ But it was really only when I was doing the before and after care back in 2003 and just wanted to do something with the kids [that I started drawing more.]I looked up a couple of pictures of cartoons online, copied them, and just drew them with the kids. They liked it and I liked it, so I then sort of started developing my own stuff from there and taught myself, did an online course. I

don’t see myself as an illustrator or anything, but I love drawing.

BBC: So you’re author first, illustrator second?

Adam: Absolutely. And authoring, writing, is much more natural. I can just sit down and write and be reasonably happy with what I write straight away. Drawing is easier now, but I have to really work it. It’s not a natural thing to just sit down and draw a picture like I see some people do.

Now I’ve worked at it for 10 years it’s easier, but it’s still not natural.

It’s almost more rewarding because it’s not natural. But writing is easier.

I wouldn’t illustrate someone else’s book, I just wouldn’t have the confidence, I guess.

BBC: You do have an illustrator for most of your books?

Adam: Yes. That sort of stuff that they do, I can’t do that. I mean, I do the simpler stuff, which is why my how to draw books work well.

I think, because they look simple enough, kids go ‘oh, I can draw that!’

BBC: You have a surprisingly big audience for your YouTube channel.

It’s 2017 so obviously kids grow up with more than just books and the ABC. How do you find interacting with an online community that’s probably people around the age of 10?

Adam: It’s really weird because I don’t use a lot of social media, and Facebook’s probably my main one, but then kids aren’t allowed on that until they’re 13 so it’s more the parents and teachers who I interact with there.

The YouTube stuff has been good, but I’ve been pretty slack the last couple of years so I need to get into that more because I actually really like making videos. Again, it’s that

You can find out more about kids’ activities at the Warragul Library by visiting wgrlc.vic.gov.au.

12

Kids

Baw Baw Citizen 2 June 2017

We found Wally!

Prolific children’s book author Adam Wallace recently visited the Warragul Library to teach kids about drawing.

The Baw Baw Citizen sat down with Adam to ask what pulled him into writing, and what exactly makes an Adam Wallace book...

Adam: They’re funny. I try to do funny narratives. My books are probably a bit quirky and a bit different. Even when [teaching] cartooning the instructions are little rhyming funny stories, and the pictures start as different things and then transform.

They reckon good books and moves are 85 per cent familiar and 15 per cent original, so that’s what I try to do. It’s sort of based in that familiar stuff but then take it a bit left of field.

BBC: Do you actually graph it out?

Adam, jokingly: ‘84! Gotta get one more per cent!’ No, no no, I do do graphs though funnily enough, but more mapping out the story: good events, bad events, and seeing if I get a nice curve in the story. I do that after I’ve finished the first draft, which I’ve found really really helpful.

BBC: That’s cool! You seem to do a lot of school and library visits. What do you enjoy about actually meeting your readers?

Adam: I do a lot. I’ve done about

250 school visits over the last few years. I also go to markets; I’ve done about 750 markets as well. I actually love meeting the parents as well as the kids, but especially the kids in schools and things, I just get [this] energy. Even now just saying it, I’m just getting that energy the kids give, and that interaction. And after doing a visit I’ll often just go home and start writing because it gets me excited about it.

Seeing kids get excited about books and drawing and reading and writing, it makes you go ‘ooh, this is the right thing. The path I’m on is a good path.’

And they’re just funny - kids just crack me up, so I’ll spend the whole time just laughing, they’re awesome.

BBC: How long have you been writing full time?

Adam: Full time since the end of 2009, so eight years now. I was an engineer before that.

BBC: Oh! Adam: Yeah, that’s the reaction I get from everyone! Then I did my primary teaching degree. I didn’t teach but went into after care and was writing stories for the kids in that. I really started getting into it.

Then I went back to engineering part time so I could finance starting up the Read more on Page 11

What’s on at the Library

AUTHOR TALKS Jackson’s Track with Linda Mullett Drouin Library Thursday June 29, 2.30pm – 3.30pm

Dominic Finley Warragul Library Tuesday 11 July, 5.00pm - 6.00pm

Back by popular demand, Linda Mullett will take you on a trip down the famous Jackson’s Track. Join us for this wonderfully engaging slice of local history.

Local author and musician, Dominic Finley, will share the stories behind his debut novel Diamonds, Bingo and Glamour. It follows Norman Muggeridge, a singer with a Neil Diamond tribute act, and his poignant pursuit of love.

Margareta Osborn Trafalgar Community Centre 105 Princes Highway, Trafalgar Tuesday 6 June, 11.00am

me o s e 2 aw rands b 8 - 14 w e n boys for

Adam demonstrating how to draw the elusive ‘UFO dog’

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Dave Morgan Warragul Library Tuesday 8 August, 2.00pm – 3.00pm

Join Margareta as she talks about her latest book Lake Hill, a Dave Morgan’s life has taken him captivating combination of romantic from the jungles of Vietnam, and comedy and heartbreaking tragedy. the terror of a young soldier fighting far from home, to exhilaration and Eleanor Hatswell isolation in Antarctica far from the Warragul Library rest of the world. He has written Wednesday 21 June, two books about his experiences, 2.00pm – 3.00pm Ice Journey and My Vietnam. He is a sought after speaker on Post Local author Eleanor Hatswell will talk Traumatic Stress Disorder and is about Follow Hatswell’s Yellow Brick an Ambassador for Soldier On, an Road. In her latest book, Eleanor organisation helping young veterans. shares stories about her marriage to her beloved husband Len.

find them at

BOOKINGS ESSENTIAL

Visit wgrlc.eventbrite.com.au to book into these free programs or contact the Warragul Library on 5622 2848.

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