Popular page talks Ballaarat up, not down

IF you’ve ever scrolled through Facebook and seen historical or creative photography of Ballarat, or a community event promoted, there’s a high chance it was shared by the Ballaarat page.

With the eureka flag as its avatar, the page may seem faceless, but there’s a team of collaborative contributors running it behind the scenes, led by founding administrator, Michael Jones.

Ticking over 13,000 followers last week, Ballaarat launched in 2008 when Mr Jones was working as a web developer and it has grown “exponentially” in the last five years.

“It was always aimed at promoting local artists and small community events, especially artistic events… Now, we like to theme things and tell stories,” he said.

“We might look at particular buildings; schools, hospitals… Get some of the old State Library records and up-to-date photos. Over the years we’ve had a couple of really good photographers contributing.

“If I get $1 into a local business, I’m happy, and in the past, we’ve done a Ballarat icons series, asking artists to submit photos of their artwork to have as the banner on the page to promote them.”

Meeting every two months to plan the next eight weeks of content, the core publishing team includes Mr Jones, World War One and cultural expert, Yvon Davis, former train driver and creative photographer, Peter Kervarec, Ballarat Neighbourhood Centre’s Vicki Coltman, Anthony Fleet, and Jan McIver.

“We all love history. We meet at a coffee shop, review what we’ve achieved over the last period and what we want to do in the next, but it’s very flexible,” Mr Jones said.

The page’s audience over the last 12 years has not only been made up of Ballarat residents, but of people who grew up here, have lived here in the past, or have passed through as tourists.

“People love to see photos of their hometown, and every now and again a person will let you know how much they’ve enjoyed the page, when it’s brought back memories. That’s really nice.

“Our snow series was popular, and a lot of our hospital posts are popular. There are a lot of people that used to work at the old hospitals, have spread their wings and gone, but love to reminisce about their time working there,” Mr Jones said.

“People are mad keen on trains and trams, and anything to do with trains is in Peter’s area.”

One of Ballaarat’s priority projects is to support lower Sturt Street and the Bridge Mall.

They are always looking for community contributors who can share what’s good about the city.

“We don’t focus on the negative, we focus on the positive. We want to keep the town up, not down,” Mr Jones said.

Visit facebook.com/ballaratvictoria to check it out.