Presidents Winter Report

Well 2009 has been a successful and busy year for Bellingen Chamber, with our membership more than doubled from last year there’s a fresh energy for all sorts of things from all sorts of people. Our executive is at capacity again with Marie-Josee Shurey joining as a non office bearing member and we look forward to an active and productive rest of the year. That’s not to say that business isn’t hard currently – I think we all know it is but it certainly helps to be able to access fellow business people in the business environment that you live/work in. We will endeavour to bring you ‘good value’ speakers at each of our breakfasts this year as well as make you aware of other workshops/seminars that we think may be useful and wherever possible we will send a representative to these events to report back to members with the ‘good stuff’

Speaking of breakfasts, our Spring breakfast is on 4th September at the Bellingen Golf Club (another new Chamber member), and will continue our commitment to bringing you speakers that can help with environmental sustainability in business as well as improving the “bottom line”. The Spring speakers will be Steve Coates of GO4 Multimedia and Flying Fox Multimedia speaking on e-commerce and search engine optimisation, together with Gwen Hannah of Building Wisdom, speaking on “greening your workplace” and creating a healthy business.

The Chamber is a founding member of the Bellingen Sustainable Business Alliance (BSBA) which came out of our Autumn breakfast and comprises The Chamber, Bellingen Shire Council, Oz Green, and the Waterfall Way Centre. Two sustainable business forums have been conducted since BSBA’s inception with fantastic attendance including business people from all parts of the shire and indeed a number of attendees from Coffs Harbour and Southern Cross University who are very interested and supportive of what we are doing in encouraging Bellingen to be a leader in Sustainable Business Practice.

The Chamber is also a founding member of the Waterfall Way Centre (WWC) which was recently successful in securing some ongoing funding from the Council’s tourism and economic development budget and the WWC continues to be a valuable asset for the Bellingen Shire that is a great example of industry working hand in hand with local, State and Federal Govt to provide a facility that benefits both the business and general community. The Chamber has recently purchased a PA system with 2 cordless microphones that is housed at WWC and available for hire at reduced rates for Chamber members there is also a laminator owned by the Chamber at the WWC, again available for use by Chamber members at reduced rates.

Well there’s lots more I could tell you but there’s only so much room so let me finish with a big thank you to all of you for being members of BCoC – your financial support and active involvement both by email and in person is most appreciated. If there’s something you’re passionate about that you think the Chamber could get involved in tell us about it. The best starting place is an email outlining your thoughts/plans to the executive – coordinator@bellingenchamber.com.au followed by a meeting with all or some of the executive to help move your project forward. A big thank you also to our coordinator Suzi Haworth who is doing a wonderful job and to my fellow executive members who have all been a great help & support.