Whooo hooo! Byron Bay business community donates $1,360 to BayFM… ‘Please Sir, can I have some more?’ should have been the headline in last week’s Echo story.
I suspected there was little enough community spirit in Byron but this is getting ridiculous. The business community would make that much profit in 30 seconds of trading on a good day, 30 minutes on a really bad day.
I can’t imagine the shit-eating grin that BayFM volunteers had to spread over their justifiably gobsmacked faces after hearing that they would now be able to pay another week’s bills. Gone are the days when Tom Mooney would drop off cases of beer to the Byron Environment Centre (BEC) xmas party (natural allies we were not!), or heaven forbid that a local real estate agent (Paul McCarthy) would donate the Railway Park rotunda to home the BEC (after having been evicted from Railway Cottage), or in your wildest dreams that a local greenie troublemaker like myself should be given the Byron Chamber of Commerce Environmental Award for services to the community.
Even the Silver Fox himself, RIP, would turn in his grave if he knew how emaciated the coffers of the current chamber have become. I am deeply saddened to see nothing left of the community I once called home and do not regret for a minute the move west I made many years ago. I now belong to a community that has nowhere near the wealth of Byron, but I can guarantee that we could raise that much with a chook raffle on a rainy day.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
