President’s Welcome – December 2024
At the risk of stating the bleeding obvious, now is an exciting time to be in business on the Sunshine Coast and right now is an exciting time to be in business in Maroochydore. It also goes without saying that that now is an exciting time to be part of the Maroochydore Chamber of Commerce.
Before I look forward, it’s important to look back and see how much has changed over the last 12 months or so. We have a new Mayor in Rosanna Natoli, we have a new Councillor covering division 10 in Taylor Bunnag, we also have a new head of Economic Development and a new general manager of the Sunshine Coast Airport. Council’s newly appointed CEO John Barker commenced in mid December.
That’s essentially a brand new engine room driving our region forward. We look forward to working with all of these new people and those that have remained, in order to drive our region forward.
2024 also saw a new state Government elected with the LNP taking office including all major seats on the Sunshine Coast. We will continue to engage and advocate with these members in our bid to secure major infrastructure funding for our region. That said, we must be heartened by the unconditional commitment made by the Premier and his (locally based) Deputy Premier, on more than one occasion, to deliver passenger rail to Maroochydore by 2032.
Looking forward, the new CBD continues to grow as Walker Corporation, SunCentral and Council continue to build Australia’s only greenfield masterplanned community. New buildings including a multi-level carpark continue to emerge. Meanwhile, Walker Corporation has their first commercial building 50 First Avenue well underway and have recently announced their first residential building Sol and the new hospital building is emerging.
In November, Google Cloud and its partners announced that Maroochydore is set to be a new landing point for a high-tech subsea cable system which will pipe the highest possible volume of data from the USA, Australia and Asia. This is the second subsea cable connecting the Sunshine Coast to the world from Maroochydore and positions our region as a world leader in the reliability and resilience of digital connectivity in the Indo-Pacific.
The growth and development of Sunshine Coast Airport also goes from strength to strength with the recent announcement of year round international flights which will connect to Auckland and further abroad, to Asia and North America. On top of this is the airport’s ongoing development which will enhance its capability to take on more flights and even more commercial travellers.
I was fortunate to attend the hugely successful Business Awards Gala dinner recently. It made me (again) aware of the number of quality, significant businesses that call the Sunshine Coast home. I congratulate all of this year’s winners, particularly those who are members of our Chamber and the team that conducts the Awards.
One of the challenges for our Chamber is to keep up!! We do this in different ways such as our regular member communication and our Chambercast as well as our regular networking events.
To that end we need to be told about the good, the bad and the indifferent. As I say at many of our gatherings, please tell us if we are doing good things, please tell us how you would have us improve what we do and please tell us if there are things that we don’t do … but you would have us do.
A personal highlight for me this year was when we surpassed 350 paid up members. It is for those members and our sponsors that we do what we do. There is no doubt that they inspire us to get better and better. Achieving this milestone would not be possible without the great work of our Chamber executive team as well as White House International and our membership manager Sharon Dryden who has done an incredible job not only securing new members but also welcoming them into the fold and helping them achieve all the benefits of becoming a member of our Chamber.
We couldn’t do what we do without our executive committee, all of whom turn up and volunteer their time and make significant contributions, both in committee and subcommittee meetings but also at so many of our regular events and at other gatherings that inevitably attract invitations. I would like to acknowledge that commitment and contribution from each and every member of the executive committee. After this year’s AGM we welcomed Renee Cooper and Riarna Hellyer to our committee, both ladies are fantastic acquisitions to our dynamic team and we look forward to their contribution in 2025 and beyond.
The Chamber that we participate in and enjoy these days is to a very large extent, the result of the contributions made by the executive committee, both present and, very importantly, past members of that group.
We also couldn’t do what we do without our magnificent sponsors. We are fortunate to have a seriously impressive group of businesses who sponsor and support us; many of them have been sponsors for many years. We strive to promote those sponsors and ensure that they get “bang for their buck”. I would like to thank each and every one of our sponsors. Please seek them out and if possible give them your business or other support.
Lastly and by no means least, we could not do what we do without the exceptional support of Min Swan and her team at White House international including Hannah and Annika. Frankly, Min and her team make us look good! But not only that, they have a genuine understanding of the Chamber’s goals and what we want to deliver to our members. Thank you Min and your team, you are superstars.
2025 and the years ahead are exciting. As part of our commitment to our members and sponsors we have embarked upon a plan to ‘give back’. That plan is about elevating the benefits that members/sponsors receive and enhancing the membership/sponsor experience at the Maroochydore Chamber of Commerce.
Part of that plan is our launch event next February, breakfast with high profile finance guru Mark Bouris. We hope that gatherings that include presenters of Mark’s calibre will both expose our local business community to the elevated thinking and considerations that drive our high achieving businesspeople and, just as importantly, expose our significant quality business community to those high achieving businesspeople. At this stage there are just a handful of the 350 tickets remaining for sale, please secure your ticket ASAP to avoid disappointment.
Our Chamber has a great story to tell. Engagement with people such as Mark Bouris will enable us to tell that story as well as hear his story.
Thank you once again for your membership and participation with the Chamber during 2024.
Have a Merry Christmas. We all look forward to seeing everyone back safely in 2025.