The 39th Surf Boat Carnival - Coffs Harbour

I thought I'd photograph some of the 39th Surf Boat Carnival in Coffs Harbour mid Sunday morning. The weather was beautiful and the boats and rowers put on a great show. But like so many of Coffs Harbour events they come and go and with very few people there other than competitors and no doubt some of their families and support groups.

Coffs Harbour is without doubt the non event capital of Australia. I can't understand the mentality of our Coffs Harbour City Council for not getting off their behinds and promoting one of the best towns in Australia which has been left in their laps. Council after the council the results are the same and we have the deadest town I've ever lived in.

If that event were say held at Bells Beach in Victoria like with the surfing it would have attracted thousands of people. What's the difference? The difference is we have people running our town into the ground and doing nothing to expose our natural and event resources.

We have a highway passing through the centre of our town with major long central medium display strips that could be displaying event banners advertising every event.
Major sized signs with flashing lights and arrows should be placed on the major roads leading to these events. But Nothing. A bit fat nothing from a town that is barely surviving on the fumes of tourism being lost to other regions. And its obvious why.

The people running our town are nothing more than a Corn Flakes packet mob of amateurs with no idea of what to do. Only after thought and its not good enough and Coffs Harbour deserves much better. Our town is being ruined due to inaction. Not everything has to cost a lot to do. I'm sure large events could manage word and direction lights on both sides of the highway to attract more people to their events for a start. Grants are available every year for this and more.

There are obviously hundreds of issues here but at the end of the day the people running this town call the shots and are responsible for its success or demise.
What gets me is that no one in Coffs Harbour is prepared to speak up. We have a new council but its the same as before. We pay environmental rates but our town is still one of the dirtiest in all Australia. And I've filmed hundreds and hundreds of towns making Australian Pictorials so I can say that without exception. 

If Coffs Harbour is to ever move forward we need people running the town that can actually "do" what needs to be done and not in a years time or later. The excuses, the thinking, the useless assessments all need to stop one day so the action can actually take place. If the people at the top haven't got the common sense to do what needs to be done then leave it to people that can. 

Our town should have been booked out with this event but as it stands most people wouldn't even know this event was even on let alone know where to find it. Why isn't there a community events group standard in place that basically has ready to go advertising in place for yearly events. Especially if its the same group events every year they can in most case use the same signage for the following years. The council could set in place those large highway signs with details and arrows pointing to such events and load banners on our central road strips. Its about promoting what we can offer in our town. If people don't speak out things will never change for Coffs Harbour.
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BCU Triathlon 2013

Another big event with next to no people there if you took away the 550 athletes that competed. Coffs Harbour just doesn't know how to get the crowds here its that simple. I thought they may have made a greater effort since the above surf carnival fiasco but no it was the same. A very small crowd. Rain all day Saturday didn't help but Sunday was relatively good weather with few people for such a large event of 550 competitors. Most people there would have been a few friends and relatives no doubt. No real crowd to speak of as such.

Then there was the issue of withholding information about the quality of the polluted water in which they had to swim. No one in the whole town was informed of this with huge sewage outflows from the Coffs Creek that no one spoke about at all. Enough to say it was covered up so they wouldn't have to cancel this event.
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23-01-2014