St Arnaud, Australia News

The Marnoo branch of Country Women's Association celebrated Christmas with an evening of fun and frivolity at the home of Sandra Brown.

THE Country Fire Authority will tell two Wimmera councils this week whether it has approved Safer Spots in their municipalities.

A WIMMERA police officer was taken to hospital after he crashed into a car near Murtoa on Saturday.

The Country Fire Authority has identified a number of Neighbourhood Safer Places in the Ararat and Stawell regions heading into another potentially dangerous fire season.

GOOD AS NEW: Nelson Gliding Club members Ray Sharland, left, Dave Frost and Miles Hursthouse with the fuselage of the club's oldest aircraft, a Rhonlerche II glider, which has been rebuilt after hitting a bullock while landing two years ago.

NIGEL PHOENIX: Restoration, not renovation, is his philosophy. Shotgun pellets in the veranda ceiling are relics of 19th- century treble fatalities at a historic Nelson hotel.

Authors from across the region shared in the success during the Wimmera Regional Library Corporation Short Story Competition.

Schools across the region will be closed on a day that is declared a Code Red Fire Danger Rating this fire season.

Northern Grampians Shire Council has made youth grants available to residents year-round. The changes to the grants assessment processes were made by councillors to better respond to those individuals and groups whose needs for financial assistance are not predicted in advance.

The potential closure of beds at Sea Lake Hospital continues a long and sorry saga of health service cutbacks in rural Victoria, increasing the risks to rural patients, further eroding rural communities and once again underlining the need for urgent government action to resolve the statewide crisis, the Rural Doctors Association of Victoria warned ...

WILDLIFE Victoria and police have condemned those responsible for shooting a kangaroo in the face with an arrow at St Arnaud.

Aspiring young visual artists can experience the thrill of exhibiting in a professional public gallery environment when Ararat Regional Art Gallery hosts its 2010 VCE Graduate Exhibition early next year.

NORTHERN Grampians Shire Council and emergency services have named neighbourhood safe places for bushfire risk towns Halls Gap and St Arnaud.

The Northern Grampians Shire has been successful in gaining four cadets under round two of the Victorian Governments Rural Skills Cadetship Program 2009.

Unable to carry a bucket, Ararat resident Carmel Brennan waters her garden with tank water yesterday, but from tomorrow she will be able to use town tap water.

A moment of panic led to a head-on crash between two vehicles on a one-way bridge at the Buller River near St Arnaud yesterday afternoon.

Intern pharmacist at Stawell's Amcal Pharmacy, Rendelle Wiseman was one of eleven finalists selected in the 2009 Victorian Rural Ambassador Awards.

Visitor centres in the Northern Grampians Shire have come under review in a bid to increase tourism in the area.

An $800,000 Brumby Labor Government initiative is helping a student from Northern Grampians Shire return to, or stay in, her home town to work and help plug local skills gaps.

SIR George James Coles opened the first Coles variety store in Smith Street, Collingwood in 1914, but the history of the Coles family and their stores goes back a lot further, and begins in the Wimmera.