Send an ‘old fashioned’ message

By Carol Saffer

In these times of Instagram and Facebook posts the Rotary Club of Bacchus Marsh is testing the hard-copy nostalgia market selling a six-pack of ‘Bacchus Marsh Days Gone By’ postcards to raise funding for community youth projects.
Teaming up with Rotary, local business What Knot’s Picture Framing owner Steve Hicks prints the cards and Pete Drever sells the cards for $14 a packet in his Bacchus Marsh Authorised Newsagency on Main Street.
Rotary Club member Alan Morton says while sales of the six-pack black and white postcards over the past three months has been slow, packs of colour cards are on the way in a bid to increase sales.
Mr Morton says “in this age with digital phones and Facebook and Instagram everything is instant. It is probably going to be a hard thing to push.”
“In reality [they] probably won’t be mega sellers.
“Rotary at this stage is testing the market using the advantage of modern printing technology having no minimum print runs,” he said.
Mr Drever says Rotary and Mr Hicks have done a great job printing and presenting the postcards with visitors to the town their main customers.
Mr Morton said What Knot’s can print just one card if necessary.
“Steve is printing small amounts of the card pack at the moment to see whether or not [the idea] has any traction.”
While the money raised from the sales of the postcards may not be mega it will go towards projects that in general give local youth access to training or education to develop better life skills.
“This could be supporting local students on overseas exchange programs or sending them to Summer Science School at Canberra National University as well as a week-long residential personal development program for young people aged 18 to 25 years,” Mr Morton said.
The post cards make ideal gifts, with Christmas just around the corner.