FAROES is a household name in the district and Casterton Newsagent and Lotto’s new faces are carrying on the home-grown services and offering the huge range of products, delivered by the Faroe family.

When Phyllis, Maurice and Di Faroe were looking to retire after more than four decades in their Henty Street outlet, Foodworks Casterton owners, Susan and Alex and their store manager, Sandra, put their hands up to carry on the much-loved and needed local business.

“It’s such a vital business to the community and we discussed it between the three of us … the benefit of having the two businesses – both separately and under the same ownership – is that they complement each other well,” Sandra said.

“There are things that we don’t do so well at the supermarket, largely due to lack of space, that fit perfectly with a newsagent, so we’ll be moving those departments up here and enhancing them.

“I will still oversee both businesses, but the newsagency will operate as its own department, so to speak.

“We have Val Russell here, managing the business and Tanya Mutch as her offsider.”

New manager, Val, a former Foodworks deli manager said she had enjoyed the change of pace and scenery at the newsagency.

“We’ve been here working with the Faroes, learning the business, particularly the newsagent’s side and it’s been great having something new to learn,” she said.

“The people are so relaxed when they come in here, they’re not in a hurry, they come in to buy the morning paper or their lotto tickets and they come in for the chat; it’s lovely.”

She said the business would continue its early-morning trade to accommodate those heading to work

“Customers can grab an early morning paper, at the moment we’re open from 7.30am until 5.30pm. so where the supermarket doesn’t open until 8am, they can still get their early-morning read,” Val said.

“We’ll also be adding a few cold drinks and a couple of other items to the newsagency – it’s a convenience thing for people on their way to work.”

Just read it

WHETHER it’s a Reader’s Digest for the loo, the latest news from your favourite hobby or a novel to tide you over on that long wait for an appointment, Casterton Newsagent and Lotto continues to stock a massive – and we mean HUGE – range of reading material for all tastes and ages.

From cars, shooting and beer brewing, to craft, travel and cooking or gaming and teen fashion trends, the store stocks more than 120 magazines and journals, accompanied by a great selection of books, from ‘my first’ titles, educational and colouring books for the little ones – including some classic Aussie authors – to best-selling novels, autobiographies and instructionals, for teens and adults.

And if a crossword, Sudoku or wordsearch is more your thing, there are puzzle books galore, with everything from a five-minute time-filler to an all-day test of patience, to keep you entertained.

“We had (a visitor) come in from Lorne and he said ‘my God your magazine range is huge’ … he’d never seen anything like it in a little newsagent’s,” Sandra said.

“Val has the top 1000 list on her desktop, so she can make sure we always have the most up-to-date and popular titles available and if there’s something you subscribe to or would like to subscribe to that we don’t have, we can most likely order it in for you.

“We’ll also be expanding the range offered at the supermarket – again to offer that convenience to our customers.”

Grab the bread and the paper

IF YOU’RE time poor, your local newspapers – the Casterton News and Hamilton Spectator – are also now available at Foodworks.

“Some people don’t want to line-up at a checkout just to grab the paper or a magazine,” Sandra said.

“And they like being able to come in and have a chat or grab their weekly lotto tickets when they grab their newspaper, so those people still have the option six days a week, to come in and visit Val and Tanya for their papers.

“But other people work past the newsagent’s business hours and it’s more convenient for them to grab the paper when they’re doing their shopping or when they drop in after work on the way home, so having the local papers at the supermarket, right at the checkout, offers that convenience.

“And the local papers are still available at our subagents – Casterton Central and the Top Shop.”

Time to party

“WE DON’T do ‘party’ well at the supermarket and it’s a small thing here at the newsagency, but with the room, we are going to be enhancing our party section to cater for every event,” Sandra said.

“So many people love to go all-out for their celebrations now, with themes, matching decorations, whether it’s for a birthday, a baby shower, an anniversary or other significant date and we’ll have a greater variety of inventory available so our customers can have just the look they want.”

To complete the party theme, a selection of great one-liners, beautiful prose and heartfelt messages can be found in the huge range of cards for all occasions and also for those significant celebrations, the new range of giftware offers the perfect present for that special someone.

“We’ve refined and enhanced the giftware selection, to a more classic selection of collectables and functional items, such as glassware, pewter and silver, including mugs and flask sets, as well as baby milestone books and the classic 21^st key, for gathering messages from well wishes,” Sandra said.

She said party and giftware was just one of the areas that would see a makeover, in the near future.

“There are a few lines that we won’t be restocking, only because they’re items that can be bought elsewhere in town and I don’t want to be stepping on the toes of other businesses,” Sandra said.

“And there will be other items or new lines that we’ll be introducing or revamping, with items that you can’t get here in Casterton.”

The old favourites

WHILE there’s plenty of ‘new’ to be seen at 77 Henty St, Casterton in the coming months, the business will still serve up the bread-and-butter items that make a great local lotto and newsagent:

• The business is open six days per week for all of your lottery needs, including weekly draw and scratchie tickets and there are plenty of gift pack ideas for that hard-to-buy-for birthday boy or girl.
• The art supplies station is jam-packed with everything for everyone from the budding Boticelli who is still mastering the art of crayons and chalk, right through to a range of papers, grades of card and canvases, brushes, oil paints, charcoals, sculpting tools and other media for the more established artisan.
• Val and Tanya will continue to do the ‘booklist’ run at the start of every school year, to save parents the hassle of chasing down all of the kids’ school stationery needs.
• It’s all about the stationery – there are literally thousands of items available at Casterton Newsagent and Lotto, to cover every need from the school desk to the corporate office, including writing implements, diaries, storage and filing options, pricing and labelling, document presentation and electronics – there’s not enough room on this page to list it all!

Can you deliver?

NEWSPAPER home deliveries is one service the new owners have found difficult to tackle, with weekend services already cancelled and the team now assessing options, keen to keep the weekday service running.

“The newsagent lost the weekend driver last year and (then co-owner, Maurice Faroe) was doing the deliveries himself, just to keep the service going,” Sandra said.

“We’re not in a position to be able to do that – it’s not that we wanted to stop doing it, we just had no options – so we don’t have a weekend delivery anymore and we have someone doing the weekday deliveries at the moment, but he wants to give it up.

“If anyone wants a job for a minimum two hours a day, in the mornings from Monday to Friday, please come and see me either at Foodworks or here at the newsagency.”