Friday 21st March is World Poetry Day and some local businesses are hiring a performance poet to perform at their portal, serenading shoppers as they slip in to spend up. Westender, Bent Books and the Kurilpa Poets are pushing poetry with a regular Poet of the Month prize provided by Bent Books, a performance poetry festa at the Boundary Hotel next Friday at 6pm and an afternoon of street performance.
Local businesses that have already signed up to put a poet on their doorstep include Terry White. Mary Fotinos said that she loves to support local creative people as long as they don’t wear boxer shorts that might upset her more conservative customers. The mind boggles at the sort of poetry readings the Fotinos family frequent.
For a run down on other poetry related activitities of late check the Westender website
If you want to put a loose c-note toward feeding a poet, please let us know using the comment form below.
Avid Reader’s Fiona Stager thrills local Labor luminaries last year
Twenty West End businesses will have the opportunity to participate in a Mother’s Day promotion initiated by Fiona Stager at Avid Reader. The promotion was a huge success last year, encouraging local shoppers not just to buy for Mother’s Day but to buy locally.
The promotion will give residents who shop at participating stores the chance to enter into the draw for a $2,000 Mother’s Day prize. Each store will put a $100 voucher into the pool and contribute another $100 toward promoting the event.
Westender is offering some promotion for free as its contribution to the local business community that supports it and the West End Traders association will handle the administration. A number of businesses have already signed up, including Shay’s Shoes – What Mum doesn’t want shoes?
You can indicate your interest using the comments using the comment form below.
Simon Dell is an accomplished speaker and social media expert
Two Cents’ Simon Dell will be in West End this month to provide an update on using Social Media in your business. He will be speaking at a free event at 355 Montague Road West End from 7am on Thur 27th March.
Simon established Two Cents in 2009, to help Australian companies of all types and sizes, to grow. The TwoCents team, provides marketing strategy, company branding and logo design, graphic design, advertising campaigns, social media, public relations, web design and development services, SEO and Google, and print.
As an outsourced marketing department the company has to work pretty closely with its clients in developing their brand and representing them on social media. This presentation will focus on tuning the social media strategy for your business.
This free event is sponsored by Berwicks Office Technology as part of their give back to the community strategy. The company is also sponsoring local charity, Micah Foundation as part of that plan.
Berwicks is an 83 year old family-owned company which has been at the Montague Road premises for over twenty years. It moved from South Brisbane to its own custom-built premises, where the second and third generations of the founding family work to this day. The company has a small museum of office technology from different era, including an Edison phonograph and a wet copier system that could reproduce an A4 page of print in just under 30 minutes. Todays copiers are many thousands times faster than that.
More details about the event are available from Katrina Nystrom on (07) 3010 3225 or by email.
City Council’s new planning tool allows property owners to see planning controls at a glance
Residents of Rogers and Raven St West End were surprised to learn this week that their homes no longer exist, at least on the draft city plan of a future West End released his week by Brisbane City Council.
The plan replaces their homes with a new park in a reshuffle of the green space between Montague Rd and the Brisbane River, to allow developers to build more apartments. Residents expressed alarm and concern about the new plan, describing it as an “attack on their peace of mind” and “inconsistent with community values”.
Councillor Helen Abrahams has called for a rally on Saturday 22 March at the former Distance Education Site 45 Montague Road West End from 11:00 until 11:45am to discuss the impacts of the plan.
She voted against it, describing it as a plan for developers not for residents. The key objections that Ms Abrahams has raised to the plan include:
the replacement of parkland at Montague and Jane St with Mixed Use that may include shops, cafes and offices
approvals to develop in areas prone to flooding
a reduction in parking requirements for new developments
New density rules that allow blocks of 260 and 300 square metres with frontages as small as 7.5m and floor coverage of 80%.
an increase in the house height to 9.5m above ground level
a reduction of the need to advertise proposed development intentions to neighbours
She reports Lord Mayor Quirk as saying that West End does not need more parkland because of its proximity to South Bank.
Much of the proposed development is in flood prone areas
While objections such as flooding, parking and density address the future character of West End, others are about process and the rights of existing residents.
Lord Mayor Quirk has long been touting the reduced development application processing times and the facility of the new interactive map in providing developers with information at a glance as to what regulations will affect a particular property. In July last year he told Westender that the planning approval time is intended to come down from months to days.
He also said that it will prevent residents from falsely getting their hopes up that a development is not going ahead when it is simply on hold because of bureaucratic delays. Westender was not convinced at the time that residents would be delighted by this vigorous transparency of the Council’s pro-development stance.
Developers on the other hand are enthusiastic.
Identifying 4,500 apartments that are already approved and in some stage of development Paul Hey told members of the West End Traders association on Tuesday night, “This will bring the people that you need to get the business in your doors. The people are coming, we have to be ready.”
Whether businesses will welcome the replacement of proposed parkland to new competitors or the reduction in parking requirements remains to be seen. Both parking and competition from incoming businesses are high on the list of concerns with businesses contacted by Westender.
Everyone who rolled up their sleeves and shovelled mud in January 2011 is reluctant to see more building in flood prone areas. This is a community with deep experience of the floods that it is not anxious to repeat.
The deatils of the new plan are available at http://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/planning-building/planning-guidelines-and-tools/brisbanes-new-city-plan/index.htm
The draft city plan has now been submitted to the State Governent for approval and will became the new City Plan once approved. The council’s documentation makes it clear that the time for community consultation on the plan is over and implementation will follow swiftly once it is approved. All those who made submissions are directed to a Word document that details the council’s response to all submissions. This operates as an “Umpire’s word is final” and does not allow for further engagement.
Expect the cranes currently defining the sky line of West End to multiply.
There will be no new casino between Montague Rd and the River, West End Community Association heard on Tuesday evening.
Following public meetings last November about the future of the development of the industrial precinct between Montague Street and the Brisbane River the West End Community Association advised members that a Casino was planned for the site. Although the plans for that area have upset many residents, see related story, they do not inlcude a casino.
The plans to allow four new casinos in Queensland, bringing the total up to seven, include one additional Casino in Brisbane at the Government Precinct site at Gardent Point and three new regional casinos including a major integrated tourist development at CCCC Point near Cairns. The details of the new Brisbane Casino have been rigorously made public and can be explored starting at http://www.dsdip.qld.gov.au/infrastructure-delivery/queens-wharf-brisbane.html.
The consultation report that summarises the surveying of community opinion and the presentation of the proposal to the public is also available at http://www.dsdip.qld.gov.au/resources/report/consultation-report-summary.pdf along with monthly updates.
Because casinos are controversial means of filling government coffers and both those in favour of and those opposed to the casino are likely to take the government to court over any perceived corruption in the decision making progress, the mandarins of George Street have worked extremely hard to ensure complete transparency in their deliberations over the issuing of the licence as well as the planning for the development as a whole.
Get involved and have your say and please, let us know. Even though it is across the river it’s right on our doorstep.
Minister Sue Pickering at Northey Street Farm last year
The Uniting Church on Vulture St (just East of Boundary) has sported a huge We’re Open banner most mornings for the last week. Music wafts from the open door of the church and a lit candle within provides a warm welcome.
This is the work of the new community minister, Minsiter Sue Pickering, whose induction was held at the church last month.
“I just want to provide a safe, welcoming environment for people to sit,” she said. “I will not be ramming Jesus down anybody’s throat, I see the role of the church as taking its place in the centre of the community and providing a centre for reflection and growth.”
Minister Pickering’s background is in community service. She did not jointhe church until her mid-twenties and her calling to become a Minister came later. She has served the community in Wilston for the last three years and with her husband Tim has just moved across to West End to take up the role serving the congregation here.
She has been out an about on the streets, introducing herself to local business owners. WIth her ready smile, Yorkshire accent and stunning tattoos she has left an indelible impression on many in the community.
Local real-estate agent and president of the West End Traders Association (WETA) said that he assumed she was a local goth who had adopted the priest’s garb as a fashion statement.
Minister Pickering addressed both the West End Traders and West End Community Associations at their respective meetings on the opposite side of Boundary Street last night.
Westender also managed to get to both meetings and can faithfully report that she managed to be in both places on the same evening without divine intervention, managing the feat by simply walking across the road half way through the meeting.
Friday 21st March is World Poetry Day and some local businesses are hiring a performance poet to perform at their portal, serenading shoppers as they slip in to spend up. Westender, Bent Books and the Kurilpa Poets are pushing poetry with a regular Poet of the Month prize provided by Bent Books, a performance poetry festa at the Boundary Hotel next Friday at 6pm and an afternoon of street performance.
