Community collaboration between local media and charity made for a fun and educational event on Wednesday 7 August.
The Rotary Club in Belgrave welcomed Sar Mail journalist Tanya Steele as a special guest speaker recently at their regular meeting in Ferntree Gully.
“It was great to chat with the Rotary members at the bowling club,” said Ms Steele.
The Star mail reporter for the Ranges area did a presentation for people attending the event and over Zoom, uniting clubs across the region for a mini-chat on local news.
“Get to know your region’s reporter,” said Ms Steele.
“We love our community, and the paper would be nothing without you,” she said.
Ms Steele took the Rotary members through how Star Mail works on a day-to-day and weekly deadline-driven level and said the sooner the paper is looped in, the better.
“We are an advertising paper, but we publish online digital content daily and go to print weekly,” she said.
“We also have a smaller ‘snippets’ section and welcome an email or phone call from any community that would like to tell us what they are up to.”
Ms Steele said that any story always needs a good angle and can be as simple as a quick phone chat or email.
“What is the story about?” she said.
“Is something happening in the area? Is it a grant delivery, an event or an anniversary? Why does the community need to know?”
Rotary Belgrave President Gus Rozycki invited Ms Steele along for the fun and informative evening and showed his region’s Rotary members the best way to get in contact with journalists and get their stories out to the wider community.
Founded in 1954, the Belgrave Rotary is an active charity group and while very well known for a good sausage sizzle, the group can often be found getting up to all sorts of things around the hills.
The Emerald and Belgrave Rotary Clubs recently installed a new shelter for the Emerald Monbulk Wildlife Shelter, constructing a steel bird enclosure in place of a wooden one.
“The birds are now happy and safe in their new enclosure,” read their social media post on 14 July.
The group enjoyed the presentation, and Ms Steele said it was great to get to know more about Rotary.
“They are an amazing group,” she said.
