Country Town Tours have been a feature of Mark and Delma Tronson's ministries for 27 years and have taken the pair to a number of places in regional Australia. The tours give people in rural communities the chance to participate in a number of outreach activities.
These activities are customised according to the expertise of the touring 'role model' and over the years these personnel have included athletes, coaches, professionals and people from the corporate realm.
In preparation for the tours there is a lot of careful planning and collaboration with host communities to make sure that locals know about the event and the type of presentations to be offered….and in the past, the workshops have been a huge hit!!
In conjunction with the presentations and workshops that over the years have been standard to the tour, locals have also had the opportunity to enjoy:
o men's and women's breakfasts;
o dinners for a wide range of groups;
o service club meetings; special visits to youth groups, schools, churches, community groups and prisons;
o guest appearances at sports events, rallies, and business or Shire council functions; social visits to farms, bonfires, barbeques and barn evenings.
Delma Tronson is humbled to have been invited to bring her well publicised, creative hand crafted 'Christmas card-making' tutorial on the Country Town Tour. The workshop will be conducted with the ladies from the townships of Wahgunyah and Corowa, as an outreach morning.
When a Country Town Tour (CTT) is in town, it depends on the host community for hospitality and support. Like all country folk, when outreach functions are held, the locals pulls together and supply 'meals on wheels' for the visitors as the team goes from one outreach to another. Although we know some of the men enjoy cooking, in most cases CTT depends on the stalwart country women to organise and provide all this hospitality.
Delma's craft classes have been created to benefit the host community's women. The tutorials are designed to give the ladies a break from their hectic hospitality based roles to engage in a creative, rewarding and artistic activity.
This year's trip to Wahgunyah will be even more exciting for Delma's husband, Mark Tronson, a former locomotive driver. Wahgunyah is the home of the Heritage Park and Railway Museum and the base from which the highly prized monthly 'On Track' Railway e-magazine is produced by local man Dave Moyle and distributed around Australia and overseas.
For the past two years Mark has been writing the monthly Footplate Padre article for 'On Track' and it has become a hit….not surprising when you look at Mark's credentials.
In the past 32 years as a minister Mark Tronson has written 24 books, sixteen of them on train drivers' anecdotes and on field hockey. This connection with working people and sportsmen, which is also reflected by his Australian cricket ministry of 25 years, has provided him with a wealth of ministry inspirations for appropriate presentations on these Country Town Tours.