THE Narooma Chamber of Commerce elected a new committee at its annual general meeting last Wednesday with several new faces joining the team.
“Well what a fantastic turn out to our AGM,” president Nigel Jackson said.
“The atmosphere was very positive and it seems we are all looking forward to working together to make a difference in 2010.”
Mr Jackson said he was pleased to have a representative from the local Aboriginal lands council as well as several other locals with considerable expertise in marketing and events management.
(Pictured) THE NEW TEAM: The newly elected Chamber of Commerce committee is (back row) Niels Bendixson from Threesquared (brand development and marketing), president Nigel Jackson from Mystery Bay Cottages, Mark Anderson from Narooma Plaza Management, vice president Matt Deveson from the Whale Motor Inn & Restaurant and treasurer Scott Muir from the ANZ Bank; (front row) Mark Coppin from Montague Coffee, Vanessa Mason from the Wagonga Local Aboriginal Land Council, John Gibson from Early Bird Worm Marketing and secretary Rachael Niemoeller, who has an events management background.
Mr Jackson thanked to committee members who have stepped down from the committee - most of whom will still be helping out in some way including Ben Bate, Kate Jackson, Mark Hawker, Narelle Bate and Renee Kemp.
He said he was delighted to accept the position of president for what would be his fourth and final year in that position.
The committee received a debriefing from the Friends of the Blues, including funds raised with Ben Bate thanking all for their hard work.
Blues Festival concert promoter Neil Mumme attended and thanked the Friends of the Blues for all their hard work and again explained the offer he received for the business was too good to pass up.
The chamber also discussed what the new focus should be for Narooma with Mr Jackson saying there should be a focus on Montague Island, whales and the areas natural beauty.
“Our challenge is to make sure that when people think of Montague Island, they think of Narooma,” he said.
The chamber was also working on the Christmas banner program, while there were also opportunities to have year-round banners similar to Batemans Bay new banner program.
The good news was that some of the recent announcement of $100,000 in funding for the Batemans Bay chamber of commerce was filtering down to Narooma.
The new Committee will meet in the next week or so to finalise the top level of the new structure and then will be recruiting for sub-committees
Power “brown outs” to be addressed
Country Energy has offered to attend the Narooma Chamber of Commerce December 1 meeting to discuss problems with brown outs and local infrastructure.
This follows comments made by local publican Paul O’Brien at the chamber’s meeting last week regarding ongoing problems with power fading out and spiking, which causes problems for freezers and other electrical equipment.
Mr O’Brien said the problem was big enough that insurance companies had identified Narooma as a problem area, and he encouraged local businesses to contact Country Energy individually.
The chamber is asking for members to submit questions so they can be forwarded to Country Energy.
Biodiesel from seaweed
The Narooma Chamber of Commerce is excited about opportunities associated with generating biodiesel from large ponds were seaweed is grown.
Chamber members recently attended a meeting in Bega where a private biodiesel company spoke about the opportunities in the local region.
The seaweed would be grown in the large Olympic-pool size ponds and then harvested and processed to make biodiesel, with chamber president Nigel Jackson saying he was keen to get more information on the concept that was seen as “clean and green” and could generate dozens of jobs.
Summer bus debate heats up
THE Narooma Chamber of Commerce last week had an intense debate on the merits of having a “summer bus” program to take home people after a night on the town.
The chamber had been approached by the Eurobodalla Shire Council road safety officer to see if there was support for a bus on New Year’s night.
The chamber was told the town’s two clubs had given support for the bus, but publican Paul O’Brien expressed reservations based on a number of concerns.
Mr O’Brien said people causing problems were not likely to take the bus and New Year’s night was a relatively quite night. He also said the bus would have a negative impact on the town’s taxi service.
The chamber then heard about how anti-social behaviour in the Midtown area was causing problems for local business and residents.
Email a friend
Favourites
Del.icio.us
Facebook
Digg
StumbleUpon
MySpace
Reddit
Newsvine
LinkedIn
Kwoff
Twitter