The tiny town of Fingal, in Tasmania’s north-east, has been sending and receiving post for nearly 200 years.<\/p>\n
But earlier this year, Australia Post said the post office would have to close unless it could find a suitable new operator, after the previous one moved on.<\/p>\n
“I think post offices are kind of like a vital organ in any town,” Fingal resident Hamish Thompson said.<\/p>\n
“Without a post office, a town, in my view, kind of ceases to exist.”<\/p>\n
Mr Thompson enlisted some of the town’s residents to help him film a campaign video to “help us save the Fingal post office”.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Fingal resident Hamish Thompson out the front of the town post office. (ABC News: Ashleigh Barraclough)<\/p>\n
Hundreds of residents of Fingal and surrounding areas lined up outside the post office, forming what they described as the longest queue the Fingal Valley had ever seen.<\/p>\n
Maria Kinze, her husband and her son, William Russell, were at the rally, quietly contemplating whether to put their hands up to take over the post office.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ms Kinze and her family have plans to turn the post office into a commercial enterprise. (ABC News: Ashleigh Barraclough)<\/p>\n
Seeing the number of people in attendance convinced them they should give it a go.<\/p>\n
Their expression of interest was accepted by Australia Post, which has been training Ms Kinze on the ins and outs of running a post office.<\/p>\n
This week, she and Mr Russell began serving customers.<\/p>\n
A new home<\/p>\n
Fingal no longer has a bank or a pub, so the post office fills those roles.<\/p>\n
“It’s a meeting place, it’s where people congregate together, it’s for banking as well as mail,” Ms Kinze said.<\/p>\n
“It’s like a lifeline to a lot of people.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ms Kinze has been learning the ropes of the postal industry with help from Autralia Post. (ABC News: Ashleigh Barraclough)<\/p>\n
Ms Kinze does not have any experience in working in the postal industry.<\/p>\n
“My background is in aged care and theatre nursing and then of course being up on the farm as well, so I’ve never done anything like this,” she said.<\/p>\n
With help from her family, Ms Kinze plans to restore the post office’s back rooms and turn it into a place to live.<\/p>\n
“My husband and myself and my little doggies will move down here, and yeah, I think it’ll be great for all of us,” she said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Fingal community fought to keep the post office open. (ABC News: Ashleigh Barraclough)<\/p>\n
Planning for longevity<\/p>\n
Mr Russell will continue running Primal Pastures, the family farm to the north of Fingal, while his mother helms the post office.<\/p>\n
“The post office here in Fingal is also our bank, so whenever we’re doing deliveries or dealing directly with customers, we will do our banking here in town,” he said.<\/p>\n
“So it’s a crucial service for not only our farm, but the whole community.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
William Russell chats to Mr Thompson from behind the post office’s counter. (ABC News: Ashleigh Barraclough)<\/p>\n
He said he would be his mother’s “backup” at the post office and help implement a number of initiatives to make it commercially viable, such as stocking produce from local farms, including his own.<\/p>\n
They are also looking at setting up a bakery, a bed and breakfast in the post office’s back rooms, and working with other locals to put a food van out the front.<\/p>\n
“First and foremost is keeping the postal service running,” he said.<\/p>\n
Those campaigning to save the post office felt it was a “vital organ” of their home town. (ABC News: Ashleigh Barraclough)<\/p>\n
Town’s revival<\/p>\n
Hamish Thompson is thrilled Ms Kinze and her family are taking over the post office.<\/p>\n
“It’s particularly important in a rural community like this that we have access to reliable mail services,” he said.<\/p>\n
“The alternative is that they drive 25 kilometres down the road to St Mary’s and back every day to ask one question: ‘Is there anything for me?'”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The post office will keep its doors open thanks to campaigners. (ABC News: Ashleigh Barraclough)<\/p>\n
In its heyday, Fingal benefited from gold and coal mining booms.<\/p>\n
Mr Thompson was hopeful the efforts of Ms Kinze and her family to revive the post office meant the town was “coming back”.<\/p>\n
“It feels like a turning point for the town,” he said.<\/p>\n
“It feels like suddenly there’s a little bit of entrepreneurial zeal in the place.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The tiny town of Fingal, in Tasmania’s north-east, has been sending and receiving post for nearly 200 years.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148208,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99,18679,20666,99954,5570,16804,99955,44610,32444,99956,2801],"class_list":["post-148207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-closure","tag-farmers","tag-fingal","tag-office","tag-open","tag-pig","tag-post","tag-remain","tag-saved","tag-tasmania"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}