50 years ago October 1974
Echuca Associated Agents have expressed ‘’great concern’’ over the inadequate conditions of the Echuca sheep and cattle saleyards.
At their annual meeting a few days ago, members representing eight local stock and station agents, felt that unless a new saleyards complex was inaugurated immediately, Echuca would lose ground as a livestock marketing centre.
They said that if initiative was taken now to re-site the yards, the successful future of Echuca as a livestock selling centre would be assured.
The agents appreciated the mutual concern of the Echuca City Council and are working in close co-operation with council at every opportunity.
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Instead of a half-day stoppage to discuss pay claims on Wednesday, as was planned by the Technical Teachers Association of Victoria, members of the Echuca branch held discussions for only 35 minutes.
Of the 40 TTAV members in Echuca, 29 met during a stopwork meeting a 2pm to discuss the circumstances which led to Wednesday’s meeting and to discuss further action to hear new pay claims.
During the stoppage, students at the Echuca Technical School were supervised in the grounds while classes whose teachers did not attend continued as usual.
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Good, wholesome, home-style cooking is the basis on which the new proprietors of the Copperwood Restaurant will operate the business, in Heygarth St, from Monday.
Margot Sutton, of Hawthorn, and her sister and brother-in-law Betty and Ray Wormald, of Mr Waverley, decided to come to Echuca and buy the restaurant after they visited the city recently.
They said they had found the people of Echuca to be most friendly and helpful and decided that because of the relative peace and quietness of the country they would move here.
They intend to keep their food as fresh as possible and hope to refrain from using prepared and frozen food.
25 years ago October 1999
The approaching introduction of the Goods and Services Tax is adding a boost to an already buoyant building industry in the Echuca-Moama area.
In line with a trend across the state, building contractors have seen a rapid upturn in business as potential homeowners bring forward their house purchases attempt to avoid the expected 10 per cent price rise.
The services of sub-contractors and building materials will attract a 10 per cent GST.
To avoid the GST the contract needs to be completed by July 1, 2000.
Builder Paul James said the GST was the issue most homebuyers were concerned about.
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The beautiful gardens at Lockington Consolidated School have been recognised with two regional garden awards.
The school has won both the Department of Education Category 2 Schools’ Garden award for the Loddon Campaspe Mallee region and the Keep Australia Beautiful Rural Pride award for the north-east region.
Teacher Jeff Millard, who is in charge of the gardens, said the school surrounds had come a long way since 1995.
‘’A few years ago the school was basically demolished,’’ Mr Millard said.
‘’In 1995 there was a big effort to improve the school.’’
Mr Millard said the students and volunteers had done a lot of the work in improving the school’s surrounds.
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Ron Davidson was recently recognised for his contribution to the Echuca-Moama RSL and Citizens’ Club by becoming the club’s first life member.
Since the club was formed 10 years ago, Ron has been a regular face at the club.
He was the treasurer for seven years and is now one of nine directors.
Ten years ago Ron was a driving force behind the construction of the club.
He and Bill Lynn, who is the current president, had the idea to build the club in Moama and between them they helped raise $2.1 million over four years to build it.
10 years ago October 2014
The Murray tourist region cracked 2,000,000 tourist nights in the year to June.
And Echuca-Moama pulled in 750,000 domestic overnight visitors — up an impressive 16 per cent on the previous year.
The twin towns have again proved to be the jewel in the Murray region crown, attracting almost 40 per cent of all visitors.
Visitors splashed out an estimated $320 million while they were in the region.
Echuca-Moama Tourism chief executive Tom Smith said it was an ‘‘absolutely’’ pleasing result for the district.
‘‘That is the highest market penetration of any destination in the Murray,’’ Mr Smith said.
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Moama-based distributors of Wine in a Glass have made the jump from importers to manufacturers.
And will do it all from Echuca-Moama, working with district wineries to supply an Australian product.
The group decided to set up shop at Echuca’s Jaengenya Wines after a booming year and plenty of interest in the individual PET wine-filled ‘glasses’.
Michelle Sims has been working full-time as the only Australian distributor of the product since October last year, with occasional help from her four partners.
The market has already expanded across Victoria, NSW, WA and Queensland and Mrs Sims expected that to grow once filled with locally produced wine.
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Six months on from the brink of financial ruin, Tongala’s Golden Cow is back in the game.
Chief executive Cath Hughes shut the doors of the tourist attraction in February needing $40,000 for it to be refurbished and refocused to make it more financially viable.
Following in-kind and cash donations, Mrs Hughes said the final tally was $55,000, which had a massive impact on the operations.
‘‘It’s a shame it got to that point,’’ he said.
‘‘As challenging as it was — the silver lining was that it made us re-evaluate our business and we changed some key structures.
‘‘It’s been our busiest school holiday period on record.
‘‘We’ve had increased visitation across the board and we hope that will continue to rise.’’