Our quest for a beater (and access studio all started in late October 1998, when a group of us were talking at the end of a day spent at Frankston TAFE using the Hollander beater there. We thought "wouldn't it be great to have an access workshop with beater closer to Melbourne. The Fairfield paper mill seemed a likely venue.

A group of us met at Wattle Park to talk about what we wanted and how we would go about getting it. We drafted a letter to Australian Paper and had a phone call from Malcolm Shield, the Manager of the Fairfield Mill.

Anne Marie, Carol and myself (Gail) went to the mill to meet with Malcolm. He explained that it would not be possible for us to be anywhere on that site but that we might be able to have our workshop at the research site, just over the road.

Next we met with Stephen Grist. He didn't think there would be room for us to be there on a permanent basis but thought that we could hold some workshops there.

During this interview, Stephen recalled that there was an old Hollander around somewhere but he wasn't sure where. Carol called him some time later about the workshops and he said that they'd located the Hollander and that we could have it.

After some to-ing and fro-ing by Carol we got the beater Mark and Joy's, but then had to get a motor for it as the motor and weights had been taken from the AMCOR stores.

Many more trips to Fairfield by Carol, and a lot of work by Mark, and the beater was operational.

The launch day was a very exciting day for us because we had talked about acquiring a beater for the group almost ever since our inception. We had felt that it was out of our realm, the price of a new one being over $10,000.

We now have the beater available for members use at a cost of $5 per hour. It is housed at our new studio space in Box Hill Community Arts Centre.

Please call Helen to arrange use of the beater.