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The Cobar Weekly - Proudly supporting the community for over 22 years
For more than 22 years The Cobar Weekly has presented Cobar’s news to the Cobar community, growing from an idea dreamed up by a small band of enthusiasts to become a vital part of the life of the community.
The paper’s beginnings were shaky - at times in the early days it teetered on the brink of folding; but despite early setbacks, The Cobar Weekly has now arrived at a position of strength and stability with around 1,700 copies being printed every week on the paper’s own printing machine. |
The Cobar Weekly Association Inc's life members and founding steering committee Rod Parker, Pauline Hunter and Bill Barwood.
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The Cobar Weekly was the brainchild of Bill Barwood (at the time head of the science department at Cobar High School and also a shire councillor).
“A local woman Issie White used to publish a paper The Cobar Challenge, but this had to close down when she became ill. This left a terrible gap in the community,” Mr Barwood said.
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“At that time The Cobar Age (then published by Macquarie Publications, not Rural Press as it is now) did not print much local news, or carry much Cobar advertising, so we needed a local paper. So a few of us thought, well if Issie could do it, why can’t we?”
After two public meetings, a steering committee (Bill Barwood, Pauline Hunter and Rod Parker) was formed to drum up support from local business houses and to start producing the first paper which was published on February 6, 1986.
“We employed Angela Fryer to run the paper and I would take the copy across to the printers at Gilgandra every Wednesday afternoon after school and wait so that I could bring the papers back with me to be distributed on Thursday. If I remember rightly there were 24 editions of the paper printed in Gilgandra,” Mr Barwood said
“At the beginning the paper was delivered to every household – 1,745 copies went into all the letter boxes in town and throughout the shire. We had terrific cooperation from the post office.
“But by about June-July I was well and truly out of the running of things. There was a wider range of people available to help. I had sort of run out of steam and I realised my limitations,” Mr Barwood said.
However, by August the fledgling paper was in serious financial difficulties, owing around $4,500 to the Gilgandra printers and drastic action had to be taken to save the paper.
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Local businessman Rod Parker and grazier Peter Snelson loaned the Cobar Weekly Association enough to pay off the debt to the Gilgandra printers – a loan which was repaid over the next two years.
Mr Parker recalled with some amusement the measures undertaken to cut costs and at the same time keep producing a newspaper. |
Rod Parker and current Cobar Weekly Association Inc president David Snelson at the paper's 20th birthday celebrations in 2006.
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“We printed it on a gestetner copier out the back of the Retravision store. We used whatever paper we could scrounge – blue, yellow, green, whatever. We had to reduce the size of the paper to fit the copier – the start of ‘the little paper’,” Mr Parker said.
“We always planned to go back to a normal newspaper size once the problems were over, but everyone loved the little size and didn’t want us to change it.
“I had wanted to start a new local paper for ages – and had already spoken to some people I knew who were involved in newspapers. Then I heard that Bill had started The Weekly and I sort of jumped on his bandwagon. Regardless of who started The Weekly, it succeeded and we got a damned good paper for 20 years.”
Then Peter Snelson and Rick Matthews (both of whom had been involved in the paper from the beginning) bought a printer and in November 1986 started Cobar Print ‘N Paper which printed The Weekly for the next 18 years.
At first it was printed in the garage at Mr Matthews’ house, but after Peter Snelson bought him out, the printer was moved out to his property Yarrawonga.
During 1987, Toni Leaney, who is The Cobar Weekly’s longest serving editor, started work.
“I had absolutely no background in journalism. The Weekly advertised for someone to do typing and sell some advertising, and I thought ‘I can do that’.
“Val Willoughby (wife of Uniting Church minister Bob Willoughby, also a staunch supporter of the paper) was running the paper when I started – she was virtually getting it out single handed,” Ms Leaney said.
When Peter Snelson, who was editor resigned because of conflict between being editor and printer, Ms Leaney was appointed editor and office manager. |
Rod Parker, Pauline Hunter and Bill Barwood cut The Cobar Weekly's 20th birthday cake in 2006.
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“The way the paper was put together was quite different to how it is done now.
"We had no computers then, just typewriters. The stories were typed out and then cut up and pasted onto the A3 paper we used for doing the layouts," Ms Leaney said.
“We had this super beaut machine called a merlin which we used for making the headlines – we used to punch out the letters from an expensive roll of special type.
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“After the paper was laid out, it was photocopied and reduced to the A4 size we needed for printing. We must have used gallons of white out. If we touched the layout with glue on our fingers it would leave black marks when it was photocopied – we were forever using white out to fix things.
“I really enjoyed my time at The Weekly – it was wonderful, but stressful. I got to meet and know so many people. What I appreciate most from my time at The Weekly, is that it gave me a life long love of photography – I’d had no experience with photography before, and I had to learn to take every sort of photo. It was full on – almost a seven day a week job.
“The support of the local businesses and the people who wrote for the clubs and sporting organisations was wonderful - without them The Weekly would not have happened,” Ms Leaney said.
Milestones of The Cobar Weekly
1985
October - public meeting in October to canvass community interest in the publication of an independent local paper met with enthusiastic response.
November - public meeting to form steering committee (Bill Barwood, Pauline Hunter and Rod Parker elected) to publish The Cobar Weekly.
1986
January - leaflet urging local individuals and businesses to join the Cobar Weekly Association.
February - publication of the first issue of The Cobar Weekly on February 6. The early issues of the paper were posted to every local mailbox.
March - first annual general meeting held on March 13 to adopt the constitution of the Cobar Weekly Association and elect office bearers and management board.
August - TCW had accumulated an operating loss of over $6,000, partially offset by membership fees and donations, but was nearly $4,500 in debt, mainly owed to the printers in Gilgandra. If TCW was to survive, the debt would have to be cleared and costs reduced. To do this the paper was produced in Cobar on a Gestetner copying machine for a short time. The real start of “the little paper”.
November - Cobar Print ’N Paper was officially appointed as printer of The Cobar Weekly. Management committee members Peter Snelson and Rick Matthews had bought a printer so that the paper could be printed locally.
1987
TCW was kept operating by loans from two association members (Peter Snelson and Rod Parker) used to pay off the 1986 debts. These loans were paid back through 1987 and 1988 and the paper had a more than $2,500 trading surplus for 1987. Equipment owned by the paper included one typewriter, one photocopier and one large desk.
That year TCW moved to offices above Doumani Bros Retravision, which were provided rent free for more than 12 months.
1988
May - Peter Snelson resigned as editor of The Cobar Weekly and Toni Leaney (who became TCW’s longest serving editor) was appointed. The paper had increased in size from an average 16 pages per issue to an average 24 pages.
1989
May - The Cobar Weekly Association received its certificate of incorporation under the Associations Incorporation Act, 1984 and officially became The Cobar Weekly Association Inc.
1990
Following the death of Peter Snelson in 1989, printing of the paper was taken over by his widow Jan and son David.
1991
July - the first issue where the words Free to the Householder and Postage Paid In Australia were deleted to make way for Your Free Community Newspaper.
1994
February - TCW became part of the computer age when it was decided to lease a computer system and staff started attending TAFE computer courses.
June - TCW was produced for the first time using computers.
July - free postage and delivery of TCW to rural areas ceased.
October - Toni Leaney resigned as editor
November - Renee Horsfield appointed as new editor
1995
June - TCW moved to its current offices at 9 Marshall Street.
November - Renee Horsfield resigns as editor.
1996
February - Journalist Greg Sweetnam was offered and accepted the position as managing editor of The Cobar Weekly.
1997
Autumn In Cobar was published in March, the first of TCW’s free tourist information guides. Initially published quarterly, In Cobar is now published every six months.
1998
February - Greg Sweetnman left after two years at TCW and a former metropolitan journalist Reg Barlow took over as managing editor.
June - Reg Barlow left. TCW was produced by staff members Elisha Ghisoni and Kathy Holmes.
July - Elisha Ghisoni officially took over as editor and former staff member Karen Irvine returned to the paper.
2000
September - Elisha Ghisoni resigned as editor.
November - Jennie Geerdink took over as editor.
2001
May - Jennie Geerdink resigned as editor. Start of team approach to managing the paper, with one staff member acting as editorial team leader.
2004
August - Because of economic and personal reasons, after 18 years the Snelson family and Cobar Print ‘N Paper finished up as TCW printers.
2005
February - TCW entered a new era when it bought its own printing equipment (a $90,000 Ricoh Aficio 2090 high speed copier) and started printing both The Cobar Weekly and In Cobar at its Marshall Street offices.
March - After much heart searching by TCW staff and association members a 50 cent charge for the paper was introduced to help defray the cost of buying the printer.
December - Sharon Harland took over as managing editor.
2006
February 6 - TCW marked 20 years of providing a community newspaper to the town of Cobar, the villages and the shire as a whole.
The paper now regularly has 40 plus pages a week, including an eight page lift out TV guide and business directory and normally prints around 1,700 copies.
2007
January - The Cobar Weekly Association, in consultation with staff and committee, raised the price of the newspaper up to $1.
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