Celebrating twenty years

of bringing you the news

Time flies when you’re having fun, an idiom that was first recorded about 1800, or when you’re engaged in an activity that you enjoy doing. And the Grapevine has enjoyed bringing you the news that matters.

2 August 2023

 

WHEN Alan Hayes launched the Grapevine twenty years ago it was to fill a need for the rural community of Wyong Shire – to keep them informed of the news that affected them, because there wasn’t any other mainstream print media servicing the district west of the M1 Motorway.

 

The first edition of the Grapevine, then known as the Rural Grapevine, was a very basic and plain publication – twelve pages and entirely printed in black and white. It was a publication that wasn’t intended to be born but arose out of a need to inform the Wyong valley communities of an issue with the then Wyong Council and about the proposed coal mining by BHP Billion in the valley district west of the M1 motorway.

 

When the second issue of the Rural Grapevine was published one month later it proudly presented itself with a glossy colour cover, which at the time had some locals commenting that the Grapevine “has gone upmarket”. Eventually, it grew into a full-colour, glossy magazine style publication that is familiar today.

 

Publication of the Grapevine was timely for the rural folks of Wyong, because soon after its birth the Dooralong and Yarramalong Valleys had another mining company, Sydney Gas, arrive and who was intent of destroying the area, extracting coal seam gas with 700 gas wells. A process that would have obliterated the Central Coast’s major drinking water catchment. The Grapevine was there to keep the community informed and to champion their fight to preserve the Central Coast’s most precious asset – its water.

 

The fight against Sydney Gas was won, the water catchment district of the valleys and the hills beyond was excised, through legislation, from the Petroleum Exploration lease but a new battle was looming. In 2006, the South Korean Government-owned coal mining giant KORES, who had bought the mining lease from the previous proponents, decided it would seek to gain approval to mine coal from beneath the same area. The Rural Grapevine again became the war journal of the people. It was at this time that the Village Grapevine, a full-colour glossy publication from its inception, was launched into the suburban area of the Central Coast to inform those people, too, of the devastating impact a coal mine would have on their water catchment area.

 

The people had a ‘war journal’ that was unrelenting in its attack on the South Korean mining company; a newspaper that was there for them and to ensure that they knew what the mining company’s plans were.

 

Over the past twenty years the Rural Grapevine and Village Grapevine have continued to bring cutting-edge journalism to the people - exposing the truth without fear or favour, until in June 2020 both the editions finally shared a common name - The Grapevine Community News.

 

In 2021 the Grapevine spread its wings and the online digital edition was launched – publishing each Wednesday to keep the entire region up to date with the ‘news that matters’.

 

From its humble beginnings, the Grapevine has always advocated for those issues that affect the community – ferreting out the truth and supporting the people’s right to know.

 

For publisher and editor Alan Hayes, it’s been a journey of passion; a journey that has evolved beyond what he could ever have imagined twenty years ago. A journey that was only possible because of those people who believed in the Grapevine and because of those people and businesses who supported it. A journey that was also supported and achieved with the help and belief of his wife Judith; a journey that now embraces three generations of the Hayes family as the Grapevine moves forward into the future.