TRASH Video in trouble.
They are asking for help @ TRASH -Great place, I just cannot get there v. often.
Here is the reprint of their latest email...
Before you do anything further: please forward this to as many people as you can. We need to get the word out that small business, and not just OUR business, is under threat, but you can do something about it.
Three things happened this week to make me send this email. Firstly, a friend told me how they mentioned they were heading to Trash. “Ah,” said one wit, “West End’s Black Books!” That’s funny and tragic at the same time: We’re seen as cantankerous, rude, shambolic, devoid of customers and filled with old things no-one wants. In other words, a joke.
Second thing (or “ting” as Black Book’s Bernard would say) is the appearance of Red Room DVD on Boundary St. That’s ANOTHER chain store renting new releases to compete with. To rub salt in the wound, their window proudly proclaims, “DVD killed the video store.”
Thirdly: our phone was disconnected on Friday, and I didn’t have enough money to pay the reconnection.
Older customers may remember us sending out an email last March saying “we need your help”. At the time we were limping along, barely paying the shop rent let alone wages and new stock, and several grand in debt with no hope of ever making it from takings alone.
In our email I wrote: “We now make ONE THIRD of what we did in 2001. 2005: we were barely making enough money to cover new titles, and had to borrow thousands from my business partner to pay for them. The repayments were crippling - I stopped taking wages at this point just to get the business back on its feet 2006: We were barely making our phone bills and overheads. Still no wages, but I was cautiously optomistic. 2007: We cant even make shop rent. At what point do I put this dying beast out of its misery?”
The response was overwhelming. Donations flooded through the front doors in the shape of cash and new DVDs. Wihin two weeks we were out of the hole and buying stock again. Everyone loved us, and the future looked bright.
Within another two weeks, things ground horribly back to normal. The message - that we need ongoing support and not just token attention or charity - went unheeded. NOW IN APRIL 2008 we still make a third of what we need to thrive and survive. After a flurry of activity for the first few weeks of the “Save Trash” campaign, things went horribly back to normal - we had over a thousand new DVDs but no-one renting them. Instead of trying to sustain the momentum, I sank into a pit of depression, anxiety and despair. I’m not too proud to admit now that my pride took an absolute beating, and so I tried every escape valve to take a mental holiday from the badness. Not productive, I know, but that’s where my head was at the time.
ELEVEN BAD MONTHS IN A ROW have seen us sink further into debt - six grand’s worth of immediate bills in the shape of debt collector letters, over $25,000 in back taxes, and the Tax Office are ringing us weekly wanting their money. That’s $30,000 we need RIGHT NOW. And that’s to stop us from drowning, let alone treading water. Add another desperately-needed capital injection of $30,000 to $50,000 just to compete with the chain stores in the neighbourhood.
THERE’S THREE OPTIONS OPEN TO US…
1) SELL THE BUSINESS. A heartbreaking option, considering it was my Golden Child thirteen years ago. I guess children grow to adolescence and become more demanding, not to mention a severe financial burden. Maybe someone else can turn the store around. Any takers? Only SERIOUS offers, please. This is heartbreaking enough to have to be polite to vultures looking for what they believe will be easy pickings. I can see the potential and so can others, so please don’t insult me with a patronizing gesture.
2) LIQUIDATE. Sell the collection off in its entirety or piece by piece, and close the business down. The absolute worst-case scenario, but one I may have to face.
3) SURVIVE AND THRIVE. The hardest one to achieve, considering my ever-depleting well of energy, sanity and enthusiasm, not to mention complete lack of capital. Things would need to change and a lot of cash would need to be raised.
THE PROBLEMS: THEN AND NOW
APRIL 2008: ...and continues spiralling downwards. How do we reverse the down trend? How do we make things good again?
APRIL 2008: The key words are “only just”. “But you guys have been around forever,” we hear time and time again. “You’re an institution (that horrible word). Surely you can’t go under!” Well, institutions tend to be structures fuelled by nostalgia or good intentions that never pay their own way and usually have massive external funding to keep them going. We’re a business, and thus don’t qualify for arts grants or the like. Believe me, we’ve considered every option.
APRIL 2008: …and it’s only getting grimmer for video stores in general. It’s not just us, so I no longer take it personally. The question must be asked - is Trash Video an anachronism? Are we no longer relevant? IS IT TIME TO MOVE ON?
APRIL 2008: No new releases for the last six months have proved those words as relevant as ever. Depressingly so.
APRIL 2008: Now we see the introduction of Blue Ray, a new format less than ten years after the introduction of DVD. This is consumerism spiraling out of control, and to tell you the truth, I don’t want a part of it. If we do survive, I make a pledge here and now: TRASH SAYS NO TO BLUE RAY. We will stick to what we were meant to do: keep old and forgotten films on dilapidated technology in circulation. It’s the message, not the medium, which is important, and no amount of one-upping your friends with shiny new toys will prove me wrong. Or am I wrong? IS IT TIME TO MOVE ON?
APRIL 2008: After a five year struggle with the symptoms of manic depression, I’ve spent nine months of therapy dealing with an undiagnosed series of stress breakdowns. Now I’m finally starting to claw my way back to feeling “normal”. It appears, as I’m crawling out of the black hole and starting to conquer my inner demons, that all the good stuff is happening elsewhere - the study, the documentary, the TV show, the writing - and not in the business side of things. I do get the feeling that, by pushing my friends and loved ones away, not to mention existing and potential customers, I feel like I’ve been burning bridges for years to the point where I may have none left. You get to 38, you’ve been self-employed for almost thirteen years, and yet I work 90 hours a week for less than $250 a week. IS IT TIME TO MOVE ON?
When all may be lost, you have to pose the question: Is it worth the struggle to continue? The answer is, and always has been, a resounding YES. To put it simply, Trash is my baby. It was my dream project since I was 10 years old, and has been my reality for the past 11-plus years. Sure, I would love to be doing something else (writing? teaching? making movies?), but I would also want Trash to still exist. I may be down right now, but I will never give up on the dream until the bitterest of ends. Call me a dreamer and an idealist - this is how I choose to live my life.
Now is the time to stand up and be counted. Halt the Monoculture streamroller. It’s not too late to save the alternative to chain store video culture. Imagine a city with no Trash Video. If we disappear, so does the last independent video store in inner city Brisbane. Your choice is reduced, and is dictated by market forces. Do you want eccentric, different, indie, even if it’s messy and occasionally grumpy? Or safe, corporate, and lowest common denominator?
Sure, chain stores have a bigger range of DVDs. GIVE US A FIGHTING CHANCE TO COMPETE.
THE SOLUTION? (mostly written in March 2007 and more relevant than ever…)
Drop by the store and BUY or RENT SOMETHING. Just come to us for one week, even if it’s for a token rental from our relatively miniscule selection. Even if we are inherently creatures of comfort and habit, please step outside your comfort zone for one moment, jump on a bus and pay us a visit. You can stop us from going under by choosing to spend your money with us. IF EVERYONE RENTED $10 WORTH OF MOVIES OR BOUGHT a $10 MOVIE OR POSTER BEFORE THE END OF MARCH, WE HAVE A FIGHTING CHANCE OF SURVIVAL. Aren’t you tired of the Brisbane Lament: “I used to really like that place.” We all pay lip service to indie ventures yet spend our money elsewhere. You can reverse the process of independent stores going out of business by supporting them financially. VOTE WITH YOUR WALLET: do I choose to spend my money at an independently owned store, or am I happy to see my money go to making big business so big it crushes small business in the process? Spend a little cash with us in the next few weeks, and see what difference it makes.
Put credit on your account. Even $20 to use down the track whenever you feel the pinch. Or buy credit on someone else’s account, just to say you love them!
Adapt and survive. That seems to be the message coming through loud and clear: embrace the DVD explosion. Most emails lament our situation, yet acknowledge the need to transform the business to meet changing economic and cultural patterns. Long-term plans seem to indicate keeping rare VHS titles on the shelves while expanding the selection of quality DVD titles the chain stores neglect. We will still be a niche store catering to a niche market, but potentially capturing a considerable share of that market. Time to think laterally...
Sponsor a New Release DVD. Buy a title from the “SAVE TRASH VIDEO” lists at Avid Reader in Boundary St and JB Hi Fi in Adelaide St (available from Monday onwards), and donate it to the store. We will then give you the equivalent of the receipt in free rentals (plus you get to watch the movie first!), AND list your name on the front cover. You can be a part of Trash history!
Donate your unwatched DVDs and VHS to Trash. Most people watch a movie twice, three times? One customer has even lent us over 60 of his DVDs for an indefinite period - that means over $800 we didnt have to spend on new (and good!) rental stock - in return for free rentals.
Owe us money in overdue fees? Please pay all, or even some of the amount. Im sure we will be grateful as hell and offer to wipe the excess. Or (and this is a simple one), bring those non-returned DVDs back!!!
Donate cash. The time for pride is over. We have put a donation box on the counter, 'cos at this point, every silver coin helps.
Loan us some small amount, say $500 or $1000. We will pay it back in six months or a year, or when we can afford to. That way we can plow even more capital into buying new DVD stock. Meanwhile you can enjoy the luxury of free rentals for the period of the loan. Or just write off the amount and call it a gift, its up to you.
We will keep listening to good ideas, get marketing advice. Help us devise a workable advertising campaign. And above all, keep getting the word out that indie stores need your ongoing support.
Volunteer your services for a few hours a week or even once a month. Help us clean, do a leaflet run, offer me an extra pair of hands on an afternoon or evening to put movies away, and get a few free rentals in the process!
Benefit Shows. A solution proposed by many, but the sheer time and energy factor to set up and promote an event for possibly very little return, particularly at this moment in the shopís history, precludes me from the equation. If anyone would like to set up an event, or series of events, I would be more than happy to put my name to it. From Dana: “A Roller Derby, Marathon Soc Hop, anything that Happy Days did.... we do.”
Don’t throw away your VHS player, or get a cheap $30 machine from the Pawn Shop. We will even rent out VHS players for a week or weekend at very reasonable rates. Don't allow commerce to hoodwink you into believing DVD is the only worthwhile format. The truth is, DVD is not the indestructable format we believe (check out some of our 20-plus year old tapes and compare them to a six month rental disc, and see if the tapes skip and freeze or just refuse to play on your machine). Also, help us keep our VHS library intact and halt the process of cultural homogenization. If DVD becomes the sole format, your choices are slashed. Once half of our VHS stock disappears from the shelves, you may never see them again.
Keep the Grass-Roots Campaign Rolling To Save Trash You don’t need a Blockbuster advertising budget to get your message across. Show how grass-roots networks DO work, and make everyone aware how bad it is for small business to compete against the global corporatization of EVERYTHING. Do a blanket coverage of chat rooms, forums, bog sites, email networks.
So I guess our future is in your hands once again. DO WE SELL? DO WE SCUTTLE? OR DO WE WE KEEP GOING IN A MUCH BETTER SHAPE? If you come in and spend money with us over the next two weeks, we have a good chance of surviving the hump, evolving and thriving. If you don’t, we will wither and die. THE CHOICE IS YOURS. But don’t say “Man, I used to really like that place, it’s a shame it had to close down.” Use your power wisely to change things for the better, if that’s what you choose. Whatever happens in the next few weeks, at least you can say we gave it one last try.
Warmest regards and with fingers crossed, I again await your response.
Andrew
TRASH VIDEO: “Here one minute...”
1/73 Vulture St , West End Qld 4101, Australia
ph 07 38447844 (or intl code + 61 + 7 + 38447844)
OPENING HOURS: Monday to Thursday 12pm to 9pm, Friday to Sunday 10am to 10pm
EMAIL: trash@trashvideo.com.au
WEB: www.trashvideo.com.au or www.myspace.com/trashvideo
BLOG: www.trashvideobrisbane.blogspot.com
“SEARCH FOR WENG WENG” DOCO: www.andrewleavold.blogspot.com
SCHLOCK TREATMENT: www.schlocktreatment.blogspot.com
MY WRITING: www.mondostumpo.blogspot.com
Its a damn shame they had to move from the Valley ages ago; That was the biggest blow to them -imho.
Here is the reprint of their latest email...
Before you do anything further: please forward this to as many people as you can. We need to get the word out that small business, and not just OUR business, is under threat, but you can do something about it.
Three things happened this week to make me send this email. Firstly, a friend told me how they mentioned they were heading to Trash. “Ah,” said one wit, “West End’s Black Books!” That’s funny and tragic at the same time: We’re seen as cantankerous, rude, shambolic, devoid of customers and filled with old things no-one wants. In other words, a joke.
Second thing (or “ting” as Black Book’s Bernard would say) is the appearance of Red Room DVD on Boundary St. That’s ANOTHER chain store renting new releases to compete with. To rub salt in the wound, their window proudly proclaims, “DVD killed the video store.”
Thirdly: our phone was disconnected on Friday, and I didn’t have enough money to pay the reconnection.
Older customers may remember us sending out an email last March saying “we need your help”. At the time we were limping along, barely paying the shop rent let alone wages and new stock, and several grand in debt with no hope of ever making it from takings alone.
In our email I wrote: “We now make ONE THIRD of what we did in 2001. 2005: we were barely making enough money to cover new titles, and had to borrow thousands from my business partner to pay for them. The repayments were crippling - I stopped taking wages at this point just to get the business back on its feet 2006: We were barely making our phone bills and overheads. Still no wages, but I was cautiously optomistic. 2007: We cant even make shop rent. At what point do I put this dying beast out of its misery?”
The response was overwhelming. Donations flooded through the front doors in the shape of cash and new DVDs. Wihin two weeks we were out of the hole and buying stock again. Everyone loved us, and the future looked bright.
Within another two weeks, things ground horribly back to normal. The message - that we need ongoing support and not just token attention or charity - went unheeded. NOW IN APRIL 2008 we still make a third of what we need to thrive and survive. After a flurry of activity for the first few weeks of the “Save Trash” campaign, things went horribly back to normal - we had over a thousand new DVDs but no-one renting them. Instead of trying to sustain the momentum, I sank into a pit of depression, anxiety and despair. I’m not too proud to admit now that my pride took an absolute beating, and so I tried every escape valve to take a mental holiday from the badness. Not productive, I know, but that’s where my head was at the time.
ELEVEN BAD MONTHS IN A ROW have seen us sink further into debt - six grand’s worth of immediate bills in the shape of debt collector letters, over $25,000 in back taxes, and the Tax Office are ringing us weekly wanting their money. That’s $30,000 we need RIGHT NOW. And that’s to stop us from drowning, let alone treading water. Add another desperately-needed capital injection of $30,000 to $50,000 just to compete with the chain stores in the neighbourhood.
THERE’S THREE OPTIONS OPEN TO US…
1) SELL THE BUSINESS. A heartbreaking option, considering it was my Golden Child thirteen years ago. I guess children grow to adolescence and become more demanding, not to mention a severe financial burden. Maybe someone else can turn the store around. Any takers? Only SERIOUS offers, please. This is heartbreaking enough to have to be polite to vultures looking for what they believe will be easy pickings. I can see the potential and so can others, so please don’t insult me with a patronizing gesture.
2) LIQUIDATE. Sell the collection off in its entirety or piece by piece, and close the business down. The absolute worst-case scenario, but one I may have to face.
3) SURVIVE AND THRIVE. The hardest one to achieve, considering my ever-depleting well of energy, sanity and enthusiasm, not to mention complete lack of capital. Things would need to change and a lot of cash would need to be raised.
THE PROBLEMS: THEN AND NOW
-
MARCH 2007: “Chain stores have more money and can afford to pander to the general public. Indie stores just cant compete. People like new releases, shiny surfaces, branded corporate image. We are grumpy, untidy, at times arrogant and condescending, and dont share the publics fascination for new and shiny. Basically we are the Black Books of the video world, and while it seems funny from the outside, no-one really wants to shop there. We were forced out of the Valley six years ago by Blockbuster taking all of our custom. Now Civic around the corner on Boundary Street has done the same thing - it arrived around the time we started going majorly downhill.”
APRIL 2008: ...and continues spiralling downwards. How do we reverse the down trend? How do we make things good again?
-
MARCH 2007: “Brisbane is the place where novel ideas dont make money. We have the population, are tribal and suburb-centric. We tend to stay in a lot and say ìthats a good ideaî but only support it in spirit. Look at the fate of the following: Silver Rocket, Kent Records, Pippins, Fan Attic, Metro Arts Cinema, The Classic, The Boomerang, Schonell Cinema, Village Twin, Valley Twin... We outlasted them all, but only just.”
APRIL 2008: The key words are “only just”. “But you guys have been around forever,” we hear time and time again. “You’re an institution (that horrible word). Surely you can’t go under!” Well, institutions tend to be structures fuelled by nostalgia or good intentions that never pay their own way and usually have massive external funding to keep them going. We’re a business, and thus don’t qualify for arts grants or the like. Believe me, we’ve considered every option.
-
MARCH 2007: “Consumer patterns have changed. There’s less money around, and people have less spare time, and small business is suffering across the board. Our customers now rent one film instead of three or four at a time, and that can’t sustain a business. Also, consumers in general would rather own or download a movie than rent it, and besides, DVDs are much easier to burn for your friends.”
APRIL 2008: …and it’s only getting grimmer for video stores in general. It’s not just us, so I no longer take it personally. The question must be asked - is Trash Video an anachronism? Are we no longer relevant? IS IT TIME TO MOVE ON?
-
MARCH 2007: “We cant expect loyalty from our customers when we dont have a product to offer them. No new releases or back-catalogue titles for six months has killed off the last amount of good will from most of our customers. The irony is: we have more customers and more films on our database than ever. It just proves that a video store is like a hungry beast that constantly needs to be fed, and we have run out of meat.”
APRIL 2008: No new releases for the last six months have proved those words as relevant as ever. Depressingly so.
-
MARCH 2007: “New technology has killed us. We had no idea how swift the changeover to DVD would be; we figured at least there would be a dual system for a few more years. Instead, we were forced to replace our entire stock AND keep up with new releases. When you are a micro-business like ours with no absolutely capital reserves, and are (in the eyes of every financial institution, and who can blame them) a high risk investment, its impossible to even attempt to keep up with the flood of new DVD titles. So we are stuck with a store with over 80% VHS titles which are considered worthless and unrentable.”
APRIL 2008: Now we see the introduction of Blue Ray, a new format less than ten years after the introduction of DVD. This is consumerism spiraling out of control, and to tell you the truth, I don’t want a part of it. If we do survive, I make a pledge here and now: TRASH SAYS NO TO BLUE RAY. We will stick to what we were meant to do: keep old and forgotten films on dilapidated technology in circulation. It’s the message, not the medium, which is important, and no amount of one-upping your friends with shiny new toys will prove me wrong. Or am I wrong? IS IT TIME TO MOVE ON?
-
MARCH 2007: “I have worked behind the counter at Trash for eleven years without a break. Friends warn you not to make something you love into a business, and yet I forged ahead with Trash, and for the most part Ive had a blast. In the last few years the joy has been ground out of me. My long-term staff left and I couldnt afford to replace them, and so I became a one-person operation. Over the 2006/07 holiday period I worked for three months, every day for nine to twelve hours, without a break, for rent money. I’m tired, bored, jaded, cynical, and suffer prolonged periods of depression, anxiety and paranoid delusions directly linked to stress over my financial situation, which translate into deep-seated feelings of inadequacy and failure. I’m not trying to play the sympathy card - I’m just stating facts. It’s just not fun being me anymore.”
APRIL 2008: After a five year struggle with the symptoms of manic depression, I’ve spent nine months of therapy dealing with an undiagnosed series of stress breakdowns. Now I’m finally starting to claw my way back to feeling “normal”. It appears, as I’m crawling out of the black hole and starting to conquer my inner demons, that all the good stuff is happening elsewhere - the study, the documentary, the TV show, the writing - and not in the business side of things. I do get the feeling that, by pushing my friends and loved ones away, not to mention existing and potential customers, I feel like I’ve been burning bridges for years to the point where I may have none left. You get to 38, you’ve been self-employed for almost thirteen years, and yet I work 90 hours a week for less than $250 a week. IS IT TIME TO MOVE ON?
When all may be lost, you have to pose the question: Is it worth the struggle to continue? The answer is, and always has been, a resounding YES. To put it simply, Trash is my baby. It was my dream project since I was 10 years old, and has been my reality for the past 11-plus years. Sure, I would love to be doing something else (writing? teaching? making movies?), but I would also want Trash to still exist. I may be down right now, but I will never give up on the dream until the bitterest of ends. Call me a dreamer and an idealist - this is how I choose to live my life.
Now is the time to stand up and be counted. Halt the Monoculture streamroller. It’s not too late to save the alternative to chain store video culture. Imagine a city with no Trash Video. If we disappear, so does the last independent video store in inner city Brisbane. Your choice is reduced, and is dictated by market forces. Do you want eccentric, different, indie, even if it’s messy and occasionally grumpy? Or safe, corporate, and lowest common denominator?
Sure, chain stores have a bigger range of DVDs. GIVE US A FIGHTING CHANCE TO COMPETE.
THE SOLUTION? (mostly written in March 2007 and more relevant than ever…)
Drop by the store and BUY or RENT SOMETHING. Just come to us for one week, even if it’s for a token rental from our relatively miniscule selection. Even if we are inherently creatures of comfort and habit, please step outside your comfort zone for one moment, jump on a bus and pay us a visit. You can stop us from going under by choosing to spend your money with us. IF EVERYONE RENTED $10 WORTH OF MOVIES OR BOUGHT a $10 MOVIE OR POSTER BEFORE THE END OF MARCH, WE HAVE A FIGHTING CHANCE OF SURVIVAL. Aren’t you tired of the Brisbane Lament: “I used to really like that place.” We all pay lip service to indie ventures yet spend our money elsewhere. You can reverse the process of independent stores going out of business by supporting them financially. VOTE WITH YOUR WALLET: do I choose to spend my money at an independently owned store, or am I happy to see my money go to making big business so big it crushes small business in the process? Spend a little cash with us in the next few weeks, and see what difference it makes.
Put credit on your account. Even $20 to use down the track whenever you feel the pinch. Or buy credit on someone else’s account, just to say you love them!
Adapt and survive. That seems to be the message coming through loud and clear: embrace the DVD explosion. Most emails lament our situation, yet acknowledge the need to transform the business to meet changing economic and cultural patterns. Long-term plans seem to indicate keeping rare VHS titles on the shelves while expanding the selection of quality DVD titles the chain stores neglect. We will still be a niche store catering to a niche market, but potentially capturing a considerable share of that market. Time to think laterally...
Sponsor a New Release DVD. Buy a title from the “SAVE TRASH VIDEO” lists at Avid Reader in Boundary St and JB Hi Fi in Adelaide St (available from Monday onwards), and donate it to the store. We will then give you the equivalent of the receipt in free rentals (plus you get to watch the movie first!), AND list your name on the front cover. You can be a part of Trash history!
Donate your unwatched DVDs and VHS to Trash. Most people watch a movie twice, three times? One customer has even lent us over 60 of his DVDs for an indefinite period - that means over $800 we didnt have to spend on new (and good!) rental stock - in return for free rentals.
Owe us money in overdue fees? Please pay all, or even some of the amount. Im sure we will be grateful as hell and offer to wipe the excess. Or (and this is a simple one), bring those non-returned DVDs back!!!
Donate cash. The time for pride is over. We have put a donation box on the counter, 'cos at this point, every silver coin helps.
Loan us some small amount, say $500 or $1000. We will pay it back in six months or a year, or when we can afford to. That way we can plow even more capital into buying new DVD stock. Meanwhile you can enjoy the luxury of free rentals for the period of the loan. Or just write off the amount and call it a gift, its up to you.
We will keep listening to good ideas, get marketing advice. Help us devise a workable advertising campaign. And above all, keep getting the word out that indie stores need your ongoing support.
Volunteer your services for a few hours a week or even once a month. Help us clean, do a leaflet run, offer me an extra pair of hands on an afternoon or evening to put movies away, and get a few free rentals in the process!
Benefit Shows. A solution proposed by many, but the sheer time and energy factor to set up and promote an event for possibly very little return, particularly at this moment in the shopís history, precludes me from the equation. If anyone would like to set up an event, or series of events, I would be more than happy to put my name to it. From Dana: “A Roller Derby, Marathon Soc Hop, anything that Happy Days did.... we do.”
Don’t throw away your VHS player, or get a cheap $30 machine from the Pawn Shop. We will even rent out VHS players for a week or weekend at very reasonable rates. Don't allow commerce to hoodwink you into believing DVD is the only worthwhile format. The truth is, DVD is not the indestructable format we believe (check out some of our 20-plus year old tapes and compare them to a six month rental disc, and see if the tapes skip and freeze or just refuse to play on your machine). Also, help us keep our VHS library intact and halt the process of cultural homogenization. If DVD becomes the sole format, your choices are slashed. Once half of our VHS stock disappears from the shelves, you may never see them again.
Keep the Grass-Roots Campaign Rolling To Save Trash You don’t need a Blockbuster advertising budget to get your message across. Show how grass-roots networks DO work, and make everyone aware how bad it is for small business to compete against the global corporatization of EVERYTHING. Do a blanket coverage of chat rooms, forums, bog sites, email networks.
So I guess our future is in your hands once again. DO WE SELL? DO WE SCUTTLE? OR DO WE WE KEEP GOING IN A MUCH BETTER SHAPE? If you come in and spend money with us over the next two weeks, we have a good chance of surviving the hump, evolving and thriving. If you don’t, we will wither and die. THE CHOICE IS YOURS. But don’t say “Man, I used to really like that place, it’s a shame it had to close down.” Use your power wisely to change things for the better, if that’s what you choose. Whatever happens in the next few weeks, at least you can say we gave it one last try.
Warmest regards and with fingers crossed, I again await your response.
Andrew
TRASH VIDEO: “Here one minute...”
1/73 Vulture St , West End Qld 4101, Australia
ph 07 38447844 (or intl code + 61 + 7 + 38447844)
OPENING HOURS: Monday to Thursday 12pm to 9pm, Friday to Sunday 10am to 10pm
EMAIL: trash@trashvideo.com.au
WEB: www.trashvideo.com.au or www.myspace.com/trashvideo
BLOG: www.trashvideobrisbane.blogspot.com
“SEARCH FOR WENG WENG” DOCO: www.andrewleavold.blogspot.com
SCHLOCK TREATMENT: www.schlocktreatment.blogspot.com
MY WRITING: www.mondostumpo.blogspot.com
Its a damn shame they had to move from the Valley ages ago; That was the biggest blow to them -imho.