Shop Ipswich - New Ipswich Campaign

A campaign encouraging residents to spend locally is gathering momentum within Ipswich.

Shop Ipswich – created through a partnership between Ipswich City Council, Ipswich

Chamber of Commerce, Business Enterprise Centre Ipswich Region and local media outlets – was designed as a consumer and business confidence-building campaign, running over 12 weeks.

After the January flood, Shop Ipswich highlights how buying local can have a powerful and immediate impact on the city’s economy and business recovery. Every dollar spent at one business is spent again seven times in the city, with business using the cash flow to purchase stock or services from other Ipswich businesses, or pay staff who will go on to spend their money in Ipswich.

Shop Ipswich aims to create opportunities within the city, supporting and promoting businesses that were affected by the flood or are supplied with stock or services by affected businesses.

The campaign was launched in early February, with Shop Ipswich merchandise including shirts and stickers, visible around town. Visit http://www.ipswichchamber.org.au/shopipswich

Wanted: Miss Showgirl Entrants

FAR from the beauty pageants of old, today’s Ipswich showgirls need to have it all.

The Ipswich Show Society is searching for a local woman to become the “face” of the show as the 2011 Miss Showgirl.

Open to women between the ages of 18 and 27, contestants are judged on a range of criteria, including their general knowledge of Ipswich, as well as their personality and presentation.

The competition offered entrants the opportunity to develop public speaking and networking skills, with contestants mingling with everyone from politicians to business people, said 2010 title holder Louisa Dossetor.

She said it also gave women the opportunity to learn the finer arts of deportment and etiquette.

“It is not a fundraiser and it is not a beauty pageant,” Ms Dossetor said.

“Young women are judged on how they carry themselves and represent their local region.”

The Mt Crosby pharmaceutical sales rep said the competition also enabled young women to gain a range of marketable skills.

“When you finish school and uni, sometimes it is a struggle to find things to put on your resume,” Ms Dossetor said.

“By being part of the competition it shows you are involved in the local community.”

Ms Dossetor said the competition was also a great way to meet other like-minded young women.

“The competition has moved with the times,” she said.

“They have changed the age requirements so older people can be involved.

“It is definitely not old-fashioned.”

The 28-year-old, who went on to beat other young women from the Ipswich region’s country shows at the sub-chamber level, represented the region at the Queensland Country Life Miss Showgirl awards at the Brisbane Ekka last year.

Ms Dossetor said for four days while she was competing at a state final, she and her fellow finalists had been “treated like royalty”.

“To go to government house and meet Governor General Penelope Wensley was a real privilege,” she said.

Entries in the 2011 competition close on April 1.

For more information, prospective entrants can ring the show office on 3281 1577 or visit the website, www.ipswichshow.com.au

Josephine Gillespie - The Queensland Times

California scraps Jamie Oliver, turns attention to Queensland Flood Stricken Ipswich

JAMIE Oliver has selected the flood-hit Queensland town of Ipswich for Australia's first Ministry of Food program, which hopes to combat obesity by helping locals cook simple and nutritional food but his attempts to change eating habits in the home of showbusiness have suffered a setback.

Education officials in Los Angeles have rejected an opportunity to have the chef make a television series about the city's school dinners.

In a blow to Oliver, they said they preferred working with "nutrition experts".

Advertisement: Story continues below The snub came as Oliver prepared to move his young family to Los Angeles, where he plans to make the second series of his US program, Food Revolution.

Officials from the city's Unified School District also suggested that their counterparts in West Virginia, where Oliver filmed the first series, had not recommended taking part.

In a letter to Oliver's producers, Melissa Infusino, the district's director of partnerships, said the aims of the program were "in perfect alignment" with their own. But she added: "We believe our work with nutrition experts, health advocates, the community, schools and students is the most effective strategy for our continued success."

She said budgetary and time constraints meant that participation in the series would "prevent us from committing 100 per cent of our efforts to our students".

Oliver's first American series, which was broadcast by ABC, focused on Huntington, West Virginia, the city with the highest obesity rate in the US. It won good viewing figures and an Emmy award but also received sharp criticism. A Washington Post review said it "regurgitated the worst of reality-TV pap".

Its critic said Oliver, "a foreigner with meticulously rumpled hair", was "afflicted with the kind of warm-hearted caring that requires the constant presence of a TV crew".

Oliver also angered locals who discovered he had criticised them in the British press. A city spokesman later played down his efforts, saying: "There was already a movement to make Huntington healthier."

Infusino reportedly said that when her colleagues called school officials in West Virginia to discuss the experience of taking part in Oliver's show, they were told: "No comment."

A spokesman for Oliver said the governor of West Virginia and the principal of the school the chef worked in had been "hugely positive" about the series. He said Oliver hoped "parent power" and the arrival of Jerry Brown, the new Democratic governor of California, would persuade the school authority to change its mind. "This is a small setback but we think the door may still be open."

See SMH article Source