Friends!

A lot has happened over the last few weeks and it’s fair to say that the world as we know it will be different from here on, and for quite a while to come.

Many are now facing hardships that they would never have dreamed of just few weeks back.

People in safe employment last month now find themselves on unemployment queues, previously successful businesses are now facing ruin.

And so it goes on.

My wife and I, like so many other business owners at this time, are scrambling to meet Government regulations, while trying to keep up with community expectations and still come out at the other end. For some, this must seem mission impossible.

In our case, and with the unbelievable co-operation of our fabulous team, we’re going to try and defy the odds.

My wife and I have come up with a strategy that we hope will enable us to keep all our full-time employees in work, keep producing Orange City Life each week and hopefully come out at the other end. This strategy also relies on others who we rely on, such as our printer in Sydney to survive as well.

Defying the odds however will require a number of changes, sacrifices and a lot of understanding.

Changes

From this issue, Orange City Life will look very different to what you’ve become used to. Many of the types of stories and features we’ve included in recent issues simply can’t be done under the present distancing and isolation rules.

To help us all through the Coronavirus crisis, for now at least, we’re taking a completely different approach.

We’re going to try to meet the changed needs that many readers now have as a result of isolation or being housebound. We’ll also make more use of our available space to ensure you have plenty to read and enjoy each issue.

Orange City Life will now provide you with more entertainment, more things to do, more ideas on how to keep yourself busy, all while trying to lift your spirits and put a little sunshine into your day. To that end we’re including more puzzles, and we’re also including a serialised Novella titled Sunshine (pure coincidence) that given the extra time we all have, we hope you will read and enjoy. We’ll also bring you quite a bit of helpful news from local businesses who are keen to keep serving you, and we'll be encouraging you to send us items to include.

Sacrifices

To keep our costs to an absolute minimum we’ve also had reduce the number of pages we print and suspend several regular features in OC Life that we regularly pay for, among these is our TV Guide. I know a lot of people love our TV guide but given our present circumstances, the cost of providing this is beyond us, if we are to win this battle. Despite all this, there are still ample copies of OC Life being distributed in many of the usual pick up spots right across Orange.

Understanding

It’s a shame that it takes a disaster like this to bring home to people just how important our small businesses are in the scheme of things, and why supporting local businesses is so important. Without dwelling on it too much, my hope is that locals will knock themselves out to spend every dollar they can with local businesses as we battle through this crisis together. Please keep spending as much as you’re able and do it at local businesses. We all need every dollar we can get right now because at the end of the day we’re all in this together.

Good luck everyone!

Bob and Jackie Holland
Publishers – Orange City Life