Voice of Real Australia: When the going gets tough ... you know the rest

To say that 2020 had been a tough year would be the understatement of the century.

The start of the year was scorched into the memories of the nation and needless to say the stranglehold of the COVID-19 pandemic has clawed its way into every facet of our society.

Despite the tough times, hasn't it been good to see the resilience of our communities and also the confidence of some businesses that are expanding despite the extraordinary times.

Best friends from Lithgow on the NSW Central Tablelands, Florentina Dulceanu and Nicole Purdon, have strapped their runners on to help shed a light on domestic violence.

The virtual challenge, Run Against Violence, is asking people in groups of up to 20 to walk or run 1300 kilometres from Broken Hill to Sydney.

The aim of the challenge is to start conversations about family violence and rip down taboos in talking about the subject.

New jobs have been few and far between lately, but the expansion of American burger chain Carl's Jr into Dubbo will bring 60 jobs to the city.

With almost 4000 burger restaurants around the globe, this will be the chain's first outlet in western regional NSW.

"We can't tell you what our plan is for the opening, but I'll be able to say almost certainly the people of Dubbo will be camped out the front of the restaurant a day or two before it opens," CJ's group managing director Andrew Firn said.

The NSW city of Tamworth came to the rescue of NRL team the NZ Warriors this year and offered them a home for the past 148 days so the players could continue training and games.

The team left Australia on Monday and finished 10th on the ladder after they ended their run with a win against Manly on Sunday.

While this year's Bathurst 1000 might have had a 4000-person crowd cap put on it, the city has become a frenzy of activity leading up to what will be this year's championship finale.

Sign writers there have revealed it takes about 800 litres of paint to touch up the iconic Mount Panorama sign in the lead up to the Great Race.

Finally, while it's been a tough time in media recently Australian Community Media, the owner of this publication, has expanded.

Two new titles are being added to serve communities across NSW, the first is the Northern Beaches Review which launches on Sydney's Northern Beaches on October 8 and will be letterbox-dropped to 65,000 residents.

The other is the Northern Rivers Review which will circulate in areas around Lismore, Ballina, Richmond River and Byron Bay from late October.

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