Concert Plans Sound Note Of Encouragement For Community Hit By Drought
The Age
Saturday July 26, 2008
WEARING a large milking apron, baggy tracksuit pants and gumboots splattered in fresh and aged cow dung, Shaun Church looks every bit the dairy farmhand as his eyes scan the 300-strong dairy herd.
The cows have wandered out of the shed for the afternoon, and are meandering down a muddy track to munch on golden hay and fresh grass under his watchful eye. The bucolic image is slightly misleading. The dairy region of Cohuna in northern Victoria is severely hit by drought.When he's not milking or feeding cows and doing other farm work, Mr Church, 28, has plenty on his plate. He is also a computer software developer and drought concert organiser, two projects that absorb his spare time. The concert, earmarked for the Cohuna sports ground on the Australia Day long weekend next year, will aim to take people's minds off the drought, boost morale and keep farmers on the land.Mr Church admits he is aiming high, hoping that 25,000 people will attend. He wants performers such as John Farnham, Shannon Noll and Lee Kernaghan on stage headlining the "free" Saturday night concert, and hopes to follow up with fireworks. During the day on Saturday and Sunday, Mr Church plans to turn the sports ground into a country field day, with rides, machinery and agricultural displays, a "men's shed" and a "women's shed".Events like this don't come cheap, so Mr Church hopes to raise $50,000 to get things started. Life as a dairy hand does not generate that kind of cash in six months, but Mr Church has something of a head start.He is armed with an invention he hopes will help fund the concert. About two years ago, he developed some computer software after a frustrating day trying to find mobile phone retailers in inner-Melbourne using a telephone book.The software, which he donated recently to local companies and community groups to test, allows web users to transmit information from a web page via SMS to their mobile phone, for the cost of a text message. He says it's an ideal way to record names, addresses, phone numbers and other information.It sounds like a simple concept but, he says, didn't exist before his software. He will donate proceeds from the first 500 sales to the concert fund. At $199 a sale, he hopes to reach his $50,000 target.He hopes further funding will come from large agricultural corporations who rely on farmers for business, and from other sources.Mr Church decided to organise the concert a few months ago when he noticed something all too familiar in front of a dairy farm: a "For Sale" sign. "I thought: 'This is bullshit. That is another young family out of the industry', which affects your school, affects everything . . . So that's when I thought something needs to be done to try and keep these guys around." More than 20 local farms, mostly dairies, are on the market, he says. The farmers are operating in a climate of soaring fuel, fodder and other production costs, and are facing a zero water allocation for the 2008-09 season."The concert really came into my head because there's heaps of farmers going out of the industry, and I know them personally, obviously. It upsets me (and) the whole community is affected by it," he says.Anybody interested in helping organise the concert may contact Shaun Church on 5456 8254 or info@smswebinfo.com.au
© 2008 The Age
