With the entire state in lockdown, The Chamber ramped up its efforts last month to help bring businesses together and offer support.
To start, we set up a local business survey for Scone and surrounding suburbs to respond to. This is helping to give key insights we need around local challenges as well as current supply chains and producers in the region to help form a true buy-local-scone campaign and support network. From here we ran a series of online forums so that local businesses could discuss their issues and ideas in a supportive and collaborative way. We continue to offer support in any way that we can while continuing to plan for the future where lockdown is behind us and we can start to rebuild our lives, businesses and community.
Local Business Survey
Preliminary results are in. You can see all non personal data collection here including not reports on the impacts of the Pandemic as well as locally sourced product trends, supports needed etc.
Online Local Business Support Forums
The Chamber ran a first of its kind series of online Local Business Support Forums throughout the last week of August. We thank our volunteer facilitators Amanda Riordan and James Burns for their valuable time. We must say – what a positive experience they were. It was wonderful to have the business community come together and discuss what is going on for them, some positive and negative experiences they are facing and some ideas about support and community engagement.
The number one topic of discussion was most definitely ‘Community’. It is more apparent than ever that while it sounds like a usual catch-cry, in-fact, we are all in this together and it’s our community that is going to get us through this difficult time. There were stories about how supportive the community has been through lock-down, and if it were not for that support “we would not still be here” – more than one business said.
Thank you to those who are doing all they can to help keep our small businesses running now and into the future. And please, don’t stop. These businesses need you now more than ever. We are so honoured to be part of a community who truly support each other in times of need.
We plan on continuing to run more support forums very soon.
Express Your Interest to be invited to future forums by emailing info@sconechamber.com.au
Government Funding, Support and Advocacy
Speaking with many local businesses recently it is apparent that the current government funding is in no way adequate to keep many of our small to medium businesses out of trouble and through this lockdown, if it goes on for much longer. Many of our businesses are pivoting their service offerings and staying positive which is great to see, however some just don’t have the option and even the ones who do, many are still barely covering costs. We acknowledge this is an urgent issue and want you to know, we are advocating with state government members right now. There is an urgent need to look at funding from a regional perspective and we are doing all we can to be a voice for our local business community. Please if you would like us to be a conduit to our Local MP or have any further thoughts or opinions on this. Get in touch.
Be sure to keep an eye on our GUIDE TO COVID19 RELATED SUPPORT page for all the up to date information and support services available to businesses through COVID and beyond.
Women in Business Micro Series
The Chamber are in the middle of discussions with Upper Hunter Women in Business and local business LivMedia to run an online micro training series. We are excited by what will come from the partnership – stay tuned for some exciting announcements to come.
Featured Business Blog – Call Out To Local Businesses
As part of our Buy Local Scone initiative, we are putting a shout-out to any local Scone Business to be part of our Local Business Blog. We will do all the work for you, we just need you to say yes! We are developing a local business blog where we feature stories about our wonderful local businesses and then share the stories far and wide. Please get in touch if you would like a feature done about your business.
Now is the perfect time to remind your customers you’re still here!
Get in touch at info@sconechamber.com.au
NEW MEMBERS
A big thank you and welcome to all of our newest members:
Connect With Us
We are here to support all businesses. We invite everyone to join our growing and connected business community. Simply subscribe to our newsletter, follow our Facebook or LinkedIn social pages or become a member. Simply visit our website or email info@sconechamber.com.au for more information.
MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL
If you are already a member and need to renew your membership you can do so here. All 20/21 Memberships are now expired and require renewal. We thank you for your ongoing support.
BECOME A MEMBER
The Scone Chamber relies on memberships to exist. By becoming a member, you are helping a local organisation support local business. Chamber memberships also help to build a strong and connected local business community – whereby we are all working together. Membership is only $110 per year and comes with an array of Member benefits, where our members always come first.