HELLO to any new food gardeners. Welcome to the family! A bit of housekeeping to begin... Please, stop planting corn! And for that matter, please stop planting pumpkin, tomato, capsicum, eggplant, zucchini, chilli, beans, okra and basil. These are all warm season plants. If you have these seeds, congratulations, you are all set for spring. They won't

  DEAR News Of The Area, JUST a short note of congratulations to all involved with the recent inaugural Coffs Harbour Festival of Chamber Music. The organisation was faultless, especially considering the last-minute withdrawal of one of the visiting groups due to Covid isolation. The auditorium provided an intimate and warm setting for the

  DEAR News Of The Area, SOMETIMES we feel helpless to counter the suffering of so many people in our world. In the upcoming election we have an opportunity to help refugees and asylum seekers who have experienced injustice and cruelty due to the policies of the current government. We can help right this

  DEAR News Of The Area, PAT Conaghan, our current member for Cowper, claims on his website that he 'works for you', meaning us, his constituents. As of 4:45 pm on Thursday 13 April, his Coffs Harbour Electorate Office was unable to provide details of any upcoming town hall public forums where we

  THE Pink Ladies volunteers of the Coffs Harbour Health Campus have purchased a golf buggy after lots of hard work raising money with raffles etc. They felt there was a great demand for lifts from the car park to each section of the hospital, especially for the elderly. The buggy is driven

  DEAR News Of The Area, FINALLY we have the release of many refugees who have long been forced to suffer in detention under the policy of the current Federal Government. The national security narrative of "stopping the boats" as rationale for this policy has been revealed for the falsehood that it always

  DEAR News Of The Area, ISN’T it interesting? The Coalition government has for years had the power to vote into existence a National Integrity Commission which would be able to examine allegations of corrupt conduct by Federal MPs. Remember in 2018 when Prime Minister Scott Morrison first called the idea a “fringe issue”

  DEAR News Of The Area, EARLIER this year we heard that Australia is committed to developing a fleet of nuclear powered submarines at a cost of billions of dollars. This week we hear that we are joining the USA in the development of long range missiles that can travel five times the

  JACK and Moira Welch are celebrating 70 years of marriage on Tuesday, 19 April 2020. Jack and Moira are long term residents of the Nambucca Valley. They moved to Yarranbella from Blacktown in 1969 and became dairy farmers. After leaving the farm they retired to Macksville and now live in Nambucca Heads. Jack and

  DEAR News Of The Area, I WRITE as an 83-year-old third generation local concerned about political short-sightedness. As farmers, my parents, grandparents and great grandparents had to take the long view. We wanted our children and their children to benefit from our planning and care. Our governments seem to have only a three-year view