THE Home Hill Chamber of Commerce has offered its sincere thanks to Wilmar Sugar’s Inkerman Mill for their sponsorship of the printing of The Home Hill News for almost six years, with the presentation of a certificate of thanks to their Manager, Community Relations and Internal Communication, Kylie Newman at the Chamber’s April networking meeting.
The administration staff at Inkerman Mill only recently stopped printing the town’s newsletter, after regularly carrying out the task on a monthly basis over the length of the sponsorship.
When The Home Hill News was first published in 2015, it offered only two pages of local news at a time when Home Hill was completely ignored by other media – except when it was negative reports involving the community.
The first few issues were printed on private photocopiers until there was a problem that looked like curtailing the publication and especially the use of colour.
When that information was provided to Wilmar’s Kylie Newman, she indicated that Inkerman Mill would be happy to undertake the printing – and that they have done for 11 of the 12 months each year (no publication in January each year) as it has grown to up to 10 or 12 pages in each issue.
While such sponsorships normally only last for a year or two, the Home Hill Chamber was lucky for it to continue through until February of this year, when Wilmar printed its final issue of the newsletter.
The printing is now being carried out on the Burdekin Race Club’s photocopiers, although the actual numbers of hard copies have been reduced from 600 to 300 each issue, as more readers register to receive their copy by email.
While readers are encouraged to make use of the availability of the newsletter by email, the Chamber will continue to offer a printed copy at a price of $2 through newsagents in Home Hill and Ayr for those people who do not have the benefit of a home computer.
Presenting a certificate to Mrs Newman, Chamber President David Jackson expressed their gratitude to the company for their support and to their administration staff who had spent many hours each month producing The Home Hill News in full colour to ensure the town’s news was covered.
