At last Thursday night's dinner meeting of the Port Macquarie Chamber of Commerce, at the El Paso Restaurant, president Ern Little gave details of the program for Pioneer Week in June of this year.

Mr Little told the meeting Pioneer Week would start on Friday, June 18, with a Pioneer Ball and end on Sunday, June 27, with a field day and possibly a rodeo. The Chamber will also sponsor an art competition and exhibition.

The anticipated venue for the ball is the Port Macquarie RSL Club. The Chamber hopes to hold the field day at Port Macquarie Race Club.

Invitations will be sent out to all sporting and service clubs asking them to participate. Business houses will be approached to donate trophies for the sports day.

The service clubs will be requested to do the catering at the field day venue.

Mr Little also informed the meeting that Warwick St Clair had the beard growing competition in full swing. A prize for the best decorated shop window is yet to be announced.

Win a Dragster A Dragster Bike is the prize, in a competition for the children, being run by Jones' Foodland Horton Street store.

The store had recently been extended and renovated. A representative from Oldhams was in Port Macquarie last week to help celebrate the opening of the store extensions.

Passenger coaches

A proposal has been compiled by the Port Macquarie-Hastings Tourist Authority concerning the need for Intrastate passenger coach services between Sydney-Newcastle and Port Macquarie-Hastings.

The nine-page submission has been sent to all government leaders and authorities involved in the proposal. Details are given in the proposal of the region and of existing services.

The limitations of these services are clearly set out and can be broken down to the fact one is very costly and the other time consuming.

A quote from the Travel Industry Appraisal and Recommendation points out "the team believes the Department of Transport's policy of restricting set-down of passengers from interstate coaches is depriving the region of potential visitors".

Radio Appeal

On Sunday, Apex members in the six clubs from the Camden Haven to Coffs Harbour, will be hard at work organising the biggest appeal ever held in the area.

The combined Apex clubs will conduct a mammoth 12 hour radio appeal over Radio Station 2KM. Station management has given the entire 12 hours of transmission time free to the clubs.

Club representatives in the 2KM studios at Port Macquarie, Kempsey and Coffs Harbour, will acknowledge donations.