WOW New England North West is being put together by Jim Guider and Bob Kirchner, the team who produce the successful country music industry quarterly, the Country Music Bulletin and online news website (see links).

Jim's involvement with media evolved from working for two major record companies, CBS (now Sony Music) and EMI in Sydney where he gained the greater understanding of media marketing and its powers.

Jim created the concept of the Tamworth Festival Musicians' Headquarters in 1999 at the January Country Music Festival featuring trade exhibits, seminars and workshops as well as providing a haven for performers and the music industry.

Through the information provided at the Headquarters, it was discovered that the music industry was crying out for more information, and so the Independent Country Music Bulletin came into being.

Jim has been with the Bulletin since its inception as Advertising Manager which requires passion and committment  to The Bulletin, the only dedicated country music industry publication in Australia.

Horses have always been an obsessed passion of Jim's life and his involvement with them led him to working in tourism during the 1990s.

Jim worked with both national and international tourists at two North West NSW facilities, Echo Hills Station at Dungowan and Karanilla working cattle station at Quirindi.

His role covered everything from supervising tourist rides to driving the backpacker bus to collecting backpackers from Sydney.

Both stations were ongoing working livestock operations, where visitors were encouraged to take part in day to day activities.

Backpackers and coach tours were an integral part of both operations.

This experience gave Jim a close understanding and awareness of the fundamentals involved in running a tourism operation.

Bob has spent practically all of his working life (30 years) in the media or as an advertising/marketing/media consultant.

From 1994 to 2000, he was a partner in the Tamworth (NSW, Australia) based marketing consultancy and event organiser Max Ellis Marketing.

Born and raised in the small country town of Manilla (near Tamworth) Bob moved to Sydney in the early '70s where he spent just over a year as a copy boy with Australia's leading newspaper The Sydney Morning Herald.

He worked for almost a year as a cadet journalist with the Sydney suburban Forest & Shire News before moving back to Tamworth and working with The Weekly News.

In 1975, he joined Tamworth radio station 2TM as an advertising copywriter.

In the late '70s, Bob become an original member of the BAL Marketing team responsible for the early success of Ag-Quip (the biggest agricultural field days in the southern hemisphere) and the Tamworth Country Music Festival and Country Music Awards, Capital News, Star Maker and numerous Tamworth country music events and activities.

In 1984, he was appointed Manager of radio station 2MO in Gunnedah where he stayed for 10 years, successfully guiding the station through one of the most turbulent periods for the radio industry in Australia and one of the most trying of the nation's modern economic times.

In 1994, he returned to Tamworth to join Max Ellis and Kate Nugent in Max Ellis Marketing Pty Ltd (MEM) working with a number of clients as a marketing consultant.

He was also heavily involved in the organising and staging of MEM events including the biggest consumer exhibition in northern NSW, the Tamworth Home & Leisure Show and the launch of the Directory of Australian Country Music, the information bible of the Australian country music industry.

The Country Music Association of Australia (CMAA) was one of MEM's major clients and Bob gradually became more directly involved with the country music industry in his latter time with MEM, including work as the CMAA Secretariat Manager and creator of the organisation's nationally successful and recognised website www.country.com.au.

With a restructuring of CMAA operations and winding down of MEM, Bob has been working as a freelance consultant for advertising, marketing, public relations. the Internet and graphic production.

In 2003, with wife Leanne, he took over the Independent Country Music Bulletin from founders Cliff and Dee Giles and has been publishing that ever since.

Community-wise, Bob has been heavily involved on many levels.. including Rotary, chambers of commerce, Skillshare, Toastmasters, Gunnedah Rural Museum and the Australian Country Music Foundation where he currently serves as President.