At present, I'm back on the farm to continue community consultation as we bring ‘Rain Dance’ to life. A common trend I observe out here is that regional projects often don’t attract high level exposure as country people are not inclined to self-promote. Largely, their humility and ‘get it done, no fuss’ style means many of their projects and stories slide under the radar. Rural Room endeavours to share these projects with wider audiences across our extensive platforms. Our July feature highlighted two Media Stringers from regional Queensland; Kirstie Davison of MaRiKi Media, and Lisa Alexander of Lisa Alexander Photography, to showcase their collaboration on a major interactive multi-media exhibition that brought the stories in their community of Blackall to life. Over the weekend I drove to Hopetoun to spend time with Rural Room Co-creator, Gab Major, to attend the Our Photo Stories exhibition organised by Astrid Volzke. We were in awe of the 200 images, which were complemented by a multi-media presentation created by community members from Hopetoun, Ravensthorpe, and Esperance through Astrid’s travelling photography workshop. A bottle of champagne was popped on arrival to celebrate Astrid’s birthday and to toast exciting news that the West Australian Government has agreed to reverse their decision to slash funding from the state's Community Resource Centres (CRCs). The celebration was especially heartfelt given the surrounding CRCs played an integral role in bringing Astrid to the community; a real-time example of their value. It's difficult to understand why city stakeholders continuously overlook country perspectives when there are so many available channels to connect and converse in this digital age. The School of the Air saga at the beginning of this year is another example of short sighted, reactive planning that omits the country voice.