We often hear people talk about “the small town charm” and how a small country town can band together in times of crisis, but what about at other times?

How many times I have heard people say we will have to fold due to a lack of support and/or volunteers. What happened to this generation that doesn’t seem to care about their local school, footy club, fire brigade, Red Cross, scouts etc.

One of my favourite things when I was younger and dating my country boyfriend was going to town picnics and barbecues, meeting all the local families and people – not to mention the amazing country food.

We need to get our young people to reconnect with the country charm our small towns deliver, and the Rutherglen Agricultural Show is one of those charming and very diverse small town charms.

It’s up to every one of us that lives in or around a small town to rekindle that country town feeling. The kids of today need us to stand up and volunteer to do some small thing, to do the boundary umpiring, to run the water out to the boys on the field, to help cook a BBQ for the Guides or Scouts, to go and rattle a tin for the fire brigade. Come on people, without you small towns will die.

Spend that $5 and buy a pie from the local bakery, meet someone for a coffee at the local café, whatever it is, it’s a start. And maybe just maybe, the local shows like Rutherglen can come back and be strong again.

IT’S marvellous isn’t it, the way some Liberals are banging on about the superannuation changes being retrospective.

We need to understand that they are people who will have $3.2 million in super unaffected by any proposed changes. I have not heard any politician mention that changes to pension rules due to take effect from January 1 are retrospective, which indeed they are.

Many part pensioners have made retirement decisions based on the rules as they applied at the time of retirement. They have had the rug pulled from under them.

Oh, and Bill Shorten did mention this matter. He said that he wasn’t going to rescind the legislation after earlier saying he would overturn it.

NSW Premier Mike Baird was very damning of the greyhound Industry to the point where the sport will be banished in NSW from June 2017. No such condemnation, not only from Mike Baird but any politician whatsoever, when the clergy, sports coaches, teachers and the like were found to be indecently abusing young children. So now we care more about dogs than our children do we?

THE article “Muslim ban push ‘rubbish’” (The Border Mail, June 27) lacked balance and accuracy.

I am not politically aligned however the article gave only three paragraphs to Mr Pike's viewpoint with no photos yet gave over a dozen paragraphs to the Muslim viewpoint along with three benign, happy photos. This is hardly fair and balanced reporting.

In addition to appearing to take sides, the article quoted the President of the Albury-Wodonga Islamic Society that the word Islam translated to “peace”. This is incorrect in fact. It means “submission or surrender (to the will of Allah)”.

It bothers me greatly that many Border Mail articles on topics such as gay marriage, Islam, refugees etc have frequent feature stories yet rarely publish different opinions. Do I sense a certain political leaning towards what gets published?