Rob Willis is a name not only well known as a local identity, he is known throughout the Central West and indeed much of Australia.
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And I had occasion last week to listen to a talk by Rob given at the men’s Probus Club of Forbes.
The more I listened to him the more I realized we had a lot in common; he loves history but he also loves speaking to people particularly those who have stories to tell and because of it all he is a great collector of stories and also love writing and recording.
And out of his talk came the thought about something I brought up in this column some time ago; the need to have a source where people will willingly come and have a conversation which then encourages others to join the same conversation and provide information that many may not have known about.
The example I gave then was a site on Facebook, the social media giant which now has 1.51 billion members.
The particular side is called Old Darwin and is a group which looks back, talks about the days in Darwin of around 1975 and previous but not limited to.
When I joined about four years ago it had a membership of 1550…it is now closer to 10,500! It has been such a success because people love to remember, love to talk about it and that in turn takes the conversations outside of Facebook into the everyday world and encourages non-members to want to join.
I believe the same can happen in Forbes.
I do know there is a Facebook site which has over 3000 likes which I am not sure translates necessarily into members but it is obviously not updated regularly because two eateries mentioned no longer exist.
We also have a wonderful Forbes History group and I don’t think I have ever seen a better printed history of a town or city than that done about Forbes which proudly sits in my library…quite frankly it is an astonishing piece of work.
But we are now in an ever changing world where the computer rules and where once they said you had to be on the Internet if you had a business or you would go bust, but now say you have to be on Facebook because everyone else is.
So….I do not know who starts it but what about having an Old Forbes group on Facebook and start the conversations ….I guarantee you it will grow quickly and will be a lot of fun.
- Denis Booth
