How historic Clunes will recover from COVID-19

Around 15,000 people generally travel to Clunes for the annual Booktown Festival in May that is reported to account for up to 40 per cent of annual business for some traders in the town.

Business owners and community leaders say the cancellation of the event was a big hit to the town's economy, but the support of local residents is helping them through this difficult time.

Clunes Tourism and Development Association president Steven Hunter said Clunes was a resilient town, with an engaged community and a high rate of volunteers that had showed initiative to support others throughout the pandemic.

He said businesses had gradually begun to reopen and a good number of visitors had supported the town's businesses this long-weekend, but safety was the first priority.

"The consensus around town is go gently, slow and steady, we don't need to rush back into it," Mr Hunter said.

"I do think we will get more visitors. Two weekends ago with the first relaxation of restrictions we saw a big influx of people getting out of Melbourne and stretching their legs. This weekend has been busy again with visitation.

"For the CTDA and Hepburn Shire, what we are working on now is making sure we have a safe environemnt when people come into town.

"We want to share messaging that the doors are open, we welcome and encourage visitors to come to us and support small businesses, but when you are here we want to make sure there is a confidence of safety."

Clunes businesses and community group leaders have worked with the Hepburn Shire Council and local artist Tom Ripon to create automatic hand sanitising stations to be placed outside businesses, with a country themed artistic design.

"The global impact has been significant. What can we do locally to overcome it is what we are trying to address now - how do we bounce back and recover," Mr Hunter said.

"The first thing is making sure people return safely and to support local businesses as best we can."

Clunes' Booktown Festival was born 13-years-ago from a desire to invigorate the special little town.

In 2007, with the help of 100 local volunteers, (Clunes only had a population of about 900 at the time) a group of Clunes residents decided to host an event they dubbed "Booktown for a Day".

They hoped perhaps 1000 people would turn up to the market day of rare, collectable and antique books. Nearly 6000 people came.

The festival has grown since, as has the town's population, visitation numbers and reputation as a 'booktown'.

Clunes Booktown board member Leslie Falkiner-Rose said when the board decided to cancel this year's event, the day before Daniel Andrews announced statewide restrictions on gatherings, they were not even sure the body Creative Clunes that runs Booktown would be solvent.

After banding together and securing the support of state government and council grants and philanthropic funding, the team is now planning for next year's event, preparing to re-launch its Booktown on Sundays series and has launched a new online initiative Book Clubs Hub.

Ms Falkiner-Rose, who is also Book Club Hubs chair, said the initiative was originally designed as a physical meet up of book clubs on the Friday of Booktown, but had launched online last week to create a central hub of knowledge sharing for book clubs across Australia.

"Book clubs are often undervalued... In fact, we know in many ways they are glue in communities and they bring people together," she said.

The first step of creating the online hub is inviting book club members to participate in a national survey of book clubs in an effort to understand their reach.

The hub will be a free platform where club members can share knowledge and book lists, recruit new members, tell stories, discover ways to meet virtually and connect with authors.

Ms Falkiner-Rose said she hoped to be able to run a physical Book Clubs Hub event in Clunes next year.

Clunes business owners say it is the support of locals that has helped them survive the most intense lockdown period of the coronavirus pandemic and they are looking forward to welcoming more visitors back to the town.

Clunes Tourism and Development Association members and town residents Jason Judd and Damien Whitten have skills in software development and offered to set up an online marketplace for businesses when the pandemic hit.

Mr Judd said many stores that could have remained open within statewide restrictions shut because the owners had existing respiratory conditions and did not want to take the risk.

The online marketplace helped them continue making some sales and delivering to residents.

Mr Judd said the response was positive and the online store had received 500 orders since it began.

"A couple of the store owners said it was good to have their tills ticking over and we were able to help them move extra stock they had purchased for Booktown and Easter," he said.

Rose and Oak Cafe owner Sharon Doody took over the cafe only five months before coronavirus hit.

The cafe has remained open for takeaway throughout the pandemic and is preparing to welcome dine in customers from Thursday this week.

Ms Doody said there were times early on in lockdown she considered shutting the business, but the support of local residents helped her through.

"The support from the locals has kept us going. We haven't made a lot of money but we have paid the bills and probably got a bit of a reputation out of it too," she said.

The cafe generally relies on a lot of trade from tourists on weekends, which started to pick up slightly this long-weekend.

Ms Doody said she had heard many residents were looking forward to the cafe re-opening for dine in this week, including community groups that regularly came in for coffee and cake.

"I am going day by day. I am not sure when all this will end. I suppose I am like everyone else, we just have to go with what is happening at the time and hopefully we will come out of it sooner or later," she said.

Confectionery store and cafe Widow Twankey's reopened the confectionary store for the first time in nine weeks this long-weekend.

Owner Tim Hayes said the cafe would remain shut until restrictions were eased, but he was glad to see some tourists back in the shop this weekend as it usually accounted for 60 to 70 per cent of trade.

Clunes Caravan Park owner Dorothy Russell said she had seven caravans and one cabin full at the park this long-weekend, which was 'better than nothing'.

She said visitation to caravan parks would be greatly restricted while owners were required to shut shared amenities like showers and kitchens.

She said they also had to close access to the toilets at the park as they were in the same block as shower facilities, meaning all caravan visitors must have their own shower and toilet.

"Even now people can travel, that will limit amount of people. We have had a lot of people ring saying they want to come back but they don't have a toilet and a shower," Ms Russell said.

"We are waiting for June 22 to hear the next release of restrictions."

Ms Russell said the caravan park had lost an estimated $80,000 due to the coronavirus pandemic, as she had to refund bookings for Easter and Booktown, the busiest times of the year.

"In February, we didn't have one site empty. We were fully booked up at our park right through to August this year and we lost every single one of them," she said.

"We lost thousands of dollars and we will never get that back. It has been extremely hard.

"The people we have staying at the moment are regulars, they love coming here to get away for the peace and quiet. We are very fortunate that way.

"I hope people come back out and start supporting their caravan parks because we really need it. If they don't a lot of us won't be able to reopen, it will be too hard because we have just lost so much."

Mr Hunter said while recovery would be a challenge for many businesses, Clunes had an opportunity to continue to grow and prosper, particularly as many city people were looking to regional lifestyles and remote working.

"There are a number of properties for sale and business opportunities," he said.

"For people who are looking for a transition to the country, there are some fantastic opportunities in small towns, particularly as we transition into a domestic tourism market."

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