Armidale Regional Council – which could soon be called Central New England Council if Adam Marshall gets his way – is finding its feet as a merged entity following our amalgamation with Armidale City Council.

Speaking of the state MP, last week he announced a $35,000 funding allocation for Care for Children with Disability.

It is part of the roll-out of the National Disability Insurance Scheme and Care for Children with Disability was one of six applicants in the Northern Tablelands to be awarded funding.

Mr Marshall said: “This funding is under the Transition Assistance Program which will ensure providers are ready for the change.” The words transition and change are very familiar to many.

Despite concerns that Guyra could get the rough end of the deal as the country cousins in the new council, it appears to have been a smooth transition so far, which is not an easy task given the large organisation that local governments are. With several hundred employees in the new council, merging is never an easy task.

At the Guyra Argus we have started on our own transition, which does have some similarities with the council.

Our paper, while having been part of the Rural Press and Fairfax Media families for many years, now work in a group with four other papers in the area –Walcha News, Glen Innes Examiner, Armidale Express and Tenterfield Star.

Apart from the new look of the paper, readers will also notice some different bylines as journalists from all those papers write stories that often deal with issues affecting more than one community. But whether it is our local newspaper, the council or service providers in the disability sector, changes have to occur from time to time as the world around us changes.

As we embark on our own change, which has greatly altered the way we produce a newspaper, and to a lesser extent the way it looks, we congratulate our council and Care for Children with Disability as they find their own way through something similar.

It is not always an easy thing to do, as we find the old ways we were used to are no longer. But we have great faith that our community can often be better served when change occurs.

Editor, Laurie Bullock​