Members Update – July 2022

Greetings and a warm welcome to our members and special guest, Councilor David Law - Division 10 Councillor of Sunshine Coast Council.

A special thanks to our hosts tonight, The Pavilion Eumundi and the Tiki Bar for providing generous hospitality to our chamber.

I am please to present my President's report to the 2022 Annual General Meeting covering our achievements over the past year.

I'm proud to make this declaration on behalf of a nimble, agile management committee, whom, without their dedication, none of these achievements could have been made possible.

Some of our key achievements include:

Continued below....

2020-21 did have an impact on local businesses, with a number of members deciding to discontinue their membership with closure and/or financial hardship. However, we have still seen a steady growth in new memberships from a diverse range of industry types as new businesses opened or progressed through change of ownership. Whilst we said goodbye to some, we welcomed others, which did increase membership over the past year.

At the beginning of this financial year, we were able to announce the return of Chamber breakfast functions. In March we organised for several key speakers including Paul Garcia from CCIQ and Melanie Anderson from Tourism Noosa, and it was one of my happiest moments as Chamber President as I listed to business owners in Eumundi voice their concerns to key industry leaders and representatives regarding the impact that Covid shutdowns and restrictions were having on small business.

Networking events throughout the year has also focused on key matters for members, and Eumundi businesses such as the Eumundi Placemaking project with our last networking event hosting Sunshine Coast Council representatives who provided an overview of the latest phase of the placemaking project and answered specific member questions. With approximately 50 people attending this event, it was well worth the exercise.

As a result of networking efforts of the management committee, Chamber has been able to build closer relationships with Sunshine Coast Council, State and Federal Government as well as Visit Sunshine Cost, Noosa Tourism, Regional Development Australia and CCIQ.

As a consequence Eumundi Chamber is recognised as a key community group to connect local businesses with these affiliate partners and major stakeholders.

We particularly want to acknowledge the ongoing support of Counsellor David Law and his willingness and capacity to work collaboratively with Chamber in the interests of our members and the local business community. His efforts are sincerely appreciated.

We were also the successful recipients of a grant through the Sunshine Coast Council's Community Partnership Program. This funding was monumental for Chamber as the Management team continues to build an even stronger partnership with Council over the next few years as we progress delivery of member services, and facilitate access to support aligned to members' needs.

We have also been engaging more with other regional chambers for the purposes of understanding common issues that are faced by others in the wider region, learning ow to do things better.

The Chamber Management Committee have continually kept in touch with Council's Placemaking Team through the year to ensure the project ran as thoroughly as possible so that the apppropriate attention was given to upgrades of our main street.

Cr David Law was able to secure additional funding for the Placemaking Project, and Chamber wishes to again thank David Law for his efforts that add material value to the opportunities of the township.

The last round of community consultation focused on whether Council had heard the community, and if they had got it right. We did everything we could to encourage business owners to participate in this process and we look forward to hearing from Council in the near future regarding what works will be done and by when.

In conclusion on this point, I would also like to thank Craig Manley for his tireless efforts in bringing the main street traders of Eumundi together to provide Council with the feedback they needed to get on with the process. Your time and contributions Craig are very much appreciated.

Entering my fifth year as a Chamber Representative Director of ECCO Ltd trading as Experience Eumundi, we're moving on from the fallout of from the lockdowns, human resource allocations and curtailed market operations. We have relaunched the Eumundi RV Stopover in the carpark, albeit with a number of operational changes to enhance the visitor experience for visitors to our town.

I would like to thank my fellow Chamber Representative Director Cindy Suters for her hard work on the Experience Eumundi Board. Her insights and thoughtful analysis has helped shaped Chamber's position in Experience Eumundi.

I would also like to thank Bamik Baker who is the Marketing and Communications Manager for Experience Eumundi. Cindy and I have had the pleasure of overseeing Bamik's work in destination management and Bamik's attention to detail and passion for all things Eumundi shines through in a number of promotional videos for our township.

Bamik has been instrumental in helping craft a fresh, new look for Eumundi branding, and it's paid off brilliantly in the video series created about various aspects of Eumundi's identity. Building on that series, she helped to create our recent submission in the Top Tourism Town Awards for Queensland, where we hope to do very, very well this year having progressed to Finalist in the 2022 Top Small Tourism Town category.

We have also continued working closely with ECCO's Experience Eumundi team to create opportunities for Chamber members and to ensure matters such as our website and the promotion of member services is done as efficiently as possible and in a way that delivers the best value to our members. This is accomplished through our ever-expanding Chamber EDM, which has seen member involvement through contributions to new items, and hot deals with consistently high open rates each edition, which is exciting.

We've benefited from an increased social media engagement and growth in followers on Chamber's FB page since the beginning of the year, and will continue to work closely with Experience Eumundi's Marketing expert, Bamik Baker, to hone our message across the social media environment.

Our Vice President continues to invest her time and effort to streamline our channels of communication and ensure we're getting the most from our investment. We are truly blessed to have Cindy on our Management Committee, with her skills and attention to detail as well as her contributions as a volunteer for the business community, which has been outstanding.

A number of current management committee members have agreed to continue participating, with a slight change of roles.

We sadly lost to retirement, Treasurer, John Stone, who completed four successful years on the management team, embracing the challenge to assist with modernising Chamber's website, membership CMS, accounting software and financial systems through integrated technology and processes.

I will be stepping back somewhat, for work reasons, as President and have nominated for the role of Vice-President. It has been a true honour to be President for the past five years but time commitments have demanded I step aside and relinquish the top job to our capable Cindy Suters moving forward.

We will be swapping our positions, I will be in the role of Vice President, and Cindy will rightly take on the role of President. I greatly appreciate the support from the community while President, and I look forward to supporting Cindy in her new role.

Cindy and I have also nominated again for the ECCO Director Positions for the next year.

As no other nominations were submitted for the management committee positions or as representative directors on the ECCO Board, I wish to thank all our members for having confidence in our ability to represent chamber and we all look forward to the year ahead and building on our past achievements.

In conclusion, I would like to acknowledge the dedication and contribution of our tireless executive committee, Louise Formosa, Cindy Suters and Craig Manley for their efforts and valuable contribution over the year. It has made the role of President a lot more pleasant when working with such a committed team.

I would also like to acknowledge the efforts throughout the year of volunteers and members that have helped make 2021/22 a very successful year. It has been an honour to be the President of the Eumundi Chamber.

I look forward to seeing 2022 continue the upward trend of success for our growing Chamber, and appreciate the support of all our members moving into 2023.

Thank you

David A. Perez
President
Eumundi Chamber of Commerce Inc

Eumundi Chamber of Commerce Inc acknowledges the traditional owners, the Kabi Kabi/Gubbi Gubbi people of the land on which we live and work. We pay respect to local Indigenous Elders past, present and emerging and extend respect to all other First Nations Peoples in our Community.