It doesn’t take anyone moving to Armidale long to figure out that this is a cliquey town.
There are all kinds of reasons for that – the old town and gown separation, typical rural town differentiations of locals and non-locals, and some pretty ugly corruption and other ‘events’ that have had polarising effects on the community. Even the cold that dominates much of the year does have a tendency to keep people at home and socialising only with people they know.
Make it in to a clique – whether it be through joining a club, parents at your kids school, or whatever other magical gateway you find, and it is a beautiful, friendly place where there is always something to do. Rich in culture and life, stunningly beautiful, great food, great people… just the best place to live.
Get frozen out, and it can be really depressing. Much worse than just not being one of the cool kids at high school.
It’s not that Armidale people are nasty, it’s not intentional, we just have these invisible social barriers that make it so hard for new people to find their feet here. And that kind of deeply entrenched social structure is hard to fight against.
Here’s the problem: businesses succeed and fail because of these cliques. I spoke to two business owners this week who had both moved to Armidale and set up shop in the last 18 months. Both said they were finding it really difficult – one said they had more business from Tamworth than Armidale. They couldn’t figure out how to crack through the invisible social walls that were keeping customers away. Other businesses have thrived in Armidale with very rapid growth, and very little effort, because they somehow got in the cool kids club.
Our cost of living is inflated because of these cliques. When new businesses are hounded out of town and can’t get a market share because they haven’t been recommended enough in Armidale Thumbs Up Thumbs Down, that means you pay more for the services you need. I got quotes for a service this week – the most recommended on Armidale Facebook groups? $1100. The new local business? $400. Same service.
And when the only remaining Armidale business offering a particular product or service, endorsed by the dominant cliques, closes for whatever reason… we have to go elsewhere for that service. Then complain that we have to go elsewhere for said service. How is it possible that a city the size of Armidale doesn’t have a barbecue chicken takeaway shop or a shoe repairer? The cliques.
And the toxicity and psychological safety issues being experienced at most of our larger employers, including UNE, APVMA and Council, can be directly related to the underlying cliquey-ness of Armidale. I’ve written before that we need to design organisational structures and manage HR in a way that is appropriate to regional centres, and account for the fact that no colleague is just a colleague – they are also neighbours and probably have some other connection as well. But that also means that the cliques in the community come into the workplace. And that does not make for a healthy workplace for those outside the dominant cliques.
The natural follow on from that, of course, is that our population doesn’t grow because of these cliques. When you don’t feel welcome in a place, you leave. It’s not rocket science. So when we don’t welcome the newcomers, we don’t embrace the new professionals or businesses, they leave again, and our population stays stuck at the same level it has been since I was a kid.
If we genuinely want Armidale to be the thriving heart of the New England we all talk about, we need to deal with the cliques.
My love for Armidale and the broader New England is pretty unshakable, but even I am exhausted by fighting for the right to just be here and to be able to contribute to the community in any way I can and my crappy health will allow me to. I love how much the New England region has embraced the New England Times!! I love the enthusiasm and passion from our team of journos who share my love for this god-given amazing part of the world!
But it doesn’t surprise me at all that despite being based in Armidale, this is the one centre we get the least support from. Armidale Regional Council, UNE, others, just refuse to answer basic questions or don’t reply to emails. We get abusive messages from people in Armidale because we didn’t cover a story, or because we didn’t cover it the way they would like it done. People will actually lie and tell us nothing is happening, or the information we got is wrong, so we can’t run a story we should be running.
You know what we get from everywhere else in the 12 local government areas we cover? Messages of thanks and appreciation. Support, both in kind, in donations, and in advertising bookings. Press releases and invitations to events. Quick little Facebook messages sharing things that are on so we can write a story about it. They like and share, and tag others in so the news spreads. They fill my heart with joy every day.
Even the other independent local news organisations in the region are welcoming of a pay wall free regional news service and share info with us. Some even re-run our more detailed or investigative stories that relate to their town, with our full blessing to do so. A pretty stark contrast to the Armidale Times, who felt the need to run a front page box on their opinion newsletter saying they weren’t associated with us. (I had never heard of them until they started sending us abusive messages because of our name choice, so don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of them either. The Apsley Times and the Gunnedah Times and all the other Times’s didn’t have an issue with us picking up the name of one of the original regional publications in the 1800’s.)
I know and understand that if I didn’t have an already existing amazing group of friends here, and hadn’t gone to Duval High, and hadn’t been involved in all kinds of things when I was younger, that I would be having a much harder time. That the New England Times probably would have failed already. That makes me sad, not relieved or happy. I want everyone to be able to have a fair shot at doing well in Armidale.
So, my beloved Armidale, I think it is high time we break down the cliques, and end the toxicity. To do it, each and every one of us will need to make an effort: make a new friend, try a new business, go to a different event, volunteer to help with something new. Walk through the mall just because you can, rather than complain about there not being anyone in the mall!
I will be dedicating the rest of this year to breaking down the cliques. Both with the Times, in my social life (such that a spoonie like me can manage to have a social life), I’ll be actively choosing to embrace new people and things. I have asked the team at the Times to offer discounted advertising to new businesses and local events, and prioritise writing stories about new businesses and events to help them have the best chance of success.
I hope that many of you will join me and together we can free Armidale from the cliques.