I recently had the pleasure of sitting on my deck and chatting to Paul Bibby about my experience of the start of the Byron Community Centre 45 years ago.
At the time there was a movement of people from the cities to the country, to the Northern Rivers, the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast and other rural areas. They were loosely termed surfies, hippies, alternates and so on, generally by other people.
In my memory there was never a formal group called ‘The Alternatives’ as appears in the article, nor was the Byron Community Centre called the Youth and Resource Centre.
It was for many decades called The Literary Institute, then the Byron Community Centre, which helped set up the Youth Activities Centre (YAC) in Byron Bay as well as many of the facilities and social benefits available today.
My thanks to Paul for his patient listening to my rambling recollections of a very exciting time and to The Echo for continuing to widely represent the community, its interests, and concerns.
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. 
