Howdy,

it's me again. I guess you guessed that... 

My business is open after the holiday break, but my shop is not.

I have such a big backlog of repairs to finish, including a lot of 2022 flood repairs, as well as a couple of dozen non-flood jobs that were interrupted by the flood ones.

And not having both electricity and telephone for just over five months, in the wake of the flood, also rather disrupted my gig.

I have tried to keep up-to-date with the smaller, regular jobs and that has worked out pretty well.

January is the big catch-up time for all of the big ones. I'm doing pretty well!

If you have a repair with me, then please contact me via this email.

Getting there!

AK

Hi,

best wishes to all of you for 2023. Hopefully it will be a better year than the last one.

Having said that, we really just had one bad DAY last year! February 28th. The rest of the year demonstrated the resilience of our town, and showed a positive spirit (by lots of folk) to re-build, re-invent, and renew. Walk around the city block today and there are more businesses re-opened than not, and even more than a few new ones!

A lot more residential properties seem to be occupied as well. I suspect that most of those are owner-occupied rather than rentals. Just like the businesses - if you have true personal connections to a place (whether financial, emotional, or both) you simply have to defend it. And re-invest.

2022 was so broken and disrupted that it's only really been in the last month or so that I've had a fully operational workspace and been able to get back into top gear.

I have quite a big backlog of major repairs to catch up on, as well as a few dozen minor ones, so I will have to close my shop for a few weeks to catch up.

The nature of my gig means that I usually have to pull the shutters down for one or two weeks each year (to catch up!), but the chaos that was 2022 means that this time I have to do it for a few weeks.

My shop will re-open late January and hopefully things will be back to "normal" after that.

Best wishes to everyone, and I look forward to seeing you in 2023.

Andrew

 

Hi there my friends,

and so goes another year. And what a year it was!

Thanks to the support of all of you who have needed my time and skills to make your instruments work properly, in the wake of the flood the shop has slowly crept its way back towards normal.

Thanks also to all of you who have asked about Lisa, and expressed concern about her illness. She is still recovering, albeit very slowly. We are hoping that her recovery will continue, and hopefully at an increased rate.

The next post on this page will be about guitars, repairs, and the big backlog I have that I will be addressing in the first three or four weeks of 2023. 

But meanwhile...

If you walk around the Lismore CBD now you'll see that about 70% (and perhaps even more) of the businesses have re-opened. And there are even several new businesses!

One of the important ones for us is that Planet Music has been sold, dismantled , and reconstructed at 81 Keen Street Lismore. With a new owner! 

The new owner is Matt Bone, former employee of both Planet Music and Byron Music, a genuine working musician (bass player), and I'm sure that many of you will know him.

I can't think of a better person than Matt to take over Planet Music. He is well-known and well-regarded, knows the music retail industry from both sides (all sides!), and is a thoroughly splendid chap!

In uncertain times, this is the best news for Lismore's music scene that I can imagine.

The February 2022 flood was a genuine disaster. And a huge test of personal philosophy - "do you believe that the glass is half-full or half-empty"!

The recovery from such an enormous event was always going to take a while, but the level of commitment shown by every single business owner, and every single home owner, to clean up and move back-in shows that there are plenty of those of us that are optimists.

And every one of us has a newly-modified plan should an event even a fraction of that one happen again.

Shame that the authorities don't seem to have one. Divert Leycester Creek, dredge the Wilsons River, have some upstream plan in order, and complete the Richmond River Overflow outlets to the ocean between Woodburn and Wardell.

All of which plans have had technical approval and even government budgeting, but none of which have been enacted due to "cost".

The cost to people who lost absolutely everything, and also those who didn't but whose lives were still irrevocably changed, is immeasurable in the real world. 

Meanwhile, sports stadiums and nuclear submarines are regarded as money wisely spent...

Oh NO!! I've gone political again! I spent my whole life trying to avoid this stuff, and within a few strikes of the keyboard I've joined the damn system!

In too deep now, trying to scramble my way out...

2023 will be about nothing but guitars. Promise!

Andrew

 

 

 Hi Everyone,

just a short note to let you know that I have removed all of the guitars from the shop and placed them in safe-storage. Again!

I do this any time that there is even a hint of flooding.

This event has followed a very similar pattern to February (albeit with a lot less rainfall). The weather bureau's response has been similar too - an incremental increase in the forecast rainfall over a couple of days. Whatever computer modelling they use to predict the development of these weather events is clearly rubbish. 

It doesn't look like the river will get into the CBD this time, but better safe than sorry.

And I am despairing of the fact that the "authorities" seem to have no intention of undertaking any flood mitigation measures. The town was trashed in February and all that has happened since is a lot of political posturing. There ARE measures that can be taken to reduce the risk, and they are all much cheaper than the restoration costs.

1. Divert Leycester Creek! Leycester Creek actually brings more water into Lismore than the Wilsons River. Diverting Leycester Creek behind the airport has been suggested for 100 years or more, and has actually been approved! After 2017 it was approved and budgeted at $200 million - a lot less than the cost of recovery. But the "authorities" decided that was too expensive.

2. Dredge Wilsons River! If you lower the bottom of the river you also lower the TOP!

3. Re-direct the storm-water channels! It is almost surreal to think that many of the storm-water channels that direct the flow from the hills around Lismore outflow into the river UPSTREAM of the CBD rather than downstream.

4. Build a series of small reservoirs upstream of Lismore to regulate the flow. This is an idea that I was told about that I'm not sure would be effective. But the chap that told me has spent a lot more time than I have studying this subject.

Surely anything that would effect even a small decrease in river levels during a major rainfall event is worth considering?

But the "authorities" seem to think that building a new sports stadium in Sydney has a greater priority than saving a regional town, and all of its citizens and businesses...

OK. That's my first and last venture into the shadow world of politics!!

Your guitars are fine (as always) and I will re-open the shop later in the week.

Andrew

 Hi Everyone,

my shop is now back open as normal.

Still a few bits of organising and decorating to do, but back to full pre-flood status.

I am pretty-well as up-to-date as usual with smaller jobs (set-ups, wiring and such), and routine mid-range jobs (refrets etc.), but still quite a bit behind on the bigger and longer-term jobs (restorations and rebuilds). I will catch back up over the next couple of months.

Thanks for reading this, and thanks for your support.

Best wishes to all of you who have suffered through this disaster, I know that many of you have been affected WAY more than I have. Being back open and trading as usual, it seems as if my little business has crossed a watershed. Hopefully the rest of the town will do so too.

Andrew

FINALLY!!

Hey everyone,

well there you go. After five months my shop now has electricity, telephone, and a new alarm and security system. Phew. Which means that very soon I will be properly back open. Double phew...

Over the next couple of weeks I will be moving stuff back into the shop - the tools, the parts, guitar-repairs to be collected, guitars for sale, as well as all of the posters and pictures and bits and pieces of paraphernalia that made the current stark bare rooms previously a bit of a cool place to visit.

More importantly, I will be able to clear the workshop at home and be able to do again do all repairs at the usual rate, rather than having to shift guitar cases and boxes of stuff every time I start a new job. It also means that I will be able to begin to catch up on the huge backlog of major repairs, including a lot of flood-damaged stuff.

There is a huge backlog, so it will take some time to get back up to speed with that.

But at least it would seem that we have emerged from the tunnel! 

I am still going to have to book new work in at a slightly slower rate than normal, but over the next few months I should be able to bring the turnaround times for regular work back into the usual one-week window. The longer-term jobs will take longer...

Thank you all for riding this whole thing out with me.

And best wishes to you all as ever. I am more than sure that some of you who read this have been through way more pain than I have.

Andrew

 

 

 Hi everyone,

in the words of Captain Beefheart...ELECTRICITY!!!

Yes, after four-and-a-half months I finally have power re-installed at the shop. 

I have the security people coming tomorrow, and so hopefully things will be back to "normal" very soon.

Phone may be a little longer. The NBN tech came out today and found that there is a fault somewhere deep within the labyrinthine chaos that is the Telstra wiring of the old building. I'm guessing that it will all be archaic PMG stuff, with old wobbly copper-cable 'phone lines

I might have to train a team of carrier pigeons...

And on it goes!

But we are getting closer.

Meanwhile, my business is effectively trading as usual - regular hours and hopefully soon regular turn-around times.

Andrew

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