Hello to our vibrant local business community!
The Chamber of Commerce would like to hear from you on what are the most important issues that are affecting you in order that we can discuss them in one of our upcoming meetings. Please send any input to me directly at my email above.
We have several updates on Chamber meetings that will be of great interest and I would like to highlight other happenings in town:
Meet the Candidates: September 10 Tuesday at 5pm
Meet the Council election candidates! Yes it’s time, on 10 September we will be having elections for Bellingen Shire Councilors and Mayor. We will have a gala evening event at the Memorial Hall for you to meet the candidates directly. Mark your calendars please and watch this space for more information on the evening event. You are all welcome to our Meet the Candidates event.
October Business Event:
We are planning to host a meeting for our members and business friends to address some of your issues that have been raised (so please let me know what you would like to discuss).
Additionally, we have invited the NSW Business Concierge team to meet with you directly, as their service can help you with government services or opportunities to sell your services or goods to the government.
Taranta Festival: November 1-3:
Website: Taranta Festival
The Taranta Festival will be held in Bellingen over 3 days and will culminate on Sunday November 3rd with the closure of Church Street area to allow for the parade and food festival. The theme of this year is “Belonging” and will include music, art, food, and much more with a focus on family activities. The Festival Director is Salvatore Rossano and you may contact him for more details at tarantafestival@gmail.com, especially if you are a local food producer or want to volunteer on this fun day event.
We would like to thank the Bellingen Shire Council for their success in winning a NSW grant for supporting the Bellingen Open Street event! The grant from NSW Open Streets Program aims to inject vibrancy into our community streets by bringing the community together with activities and events with select street closures.
The Open Street program will also include the Urunga Spring Fiesta and Dorrigo Christmas Market, bringing an opportunity for all of us in the community to meet in the streets!!! The event organizers are Urunga– umbl@umbl.com.au and Dorrigo – admin@dorrigo.com. Feel free to contact them for more information.
Cash is king:
This is a reminder to all our friends and members of the importance of our local economy and how using cash to pay for goods and services keeps the money in the local economy and creates a local circular market. As we all have noticed with the major banks retreating from regional areas, it has become harder to withdraw funds locally and leaves us with third party ATM (auto teller machines) for cash withdrawals at a significant cost to our residents due to the ATM service fees.
We would like to thank the valuable role the local BCU bank and our local Australian Post Office for making cash available in our community and for the other valuable banking/payment services they provide our community.
Join the Chamber of Commerce
Are you a Bellingen business owner who would like to be a part of our business chamber? The Chamber is run by a volunteers who represent the interests of local businesses, supporting the growth of a strong local economy for the benefit of our community. Find out more here on our new website Benefits of joining the Chamber of Commerce
Last but not least
In closing, we are very proud of our vibrant and unique businesses that we have in our town and Shire. A special mention this month for Planet Lighting of Bellingen whose international business has been a big success. They are lighting up the Paris 2024 Olympic Village with their LED Puck lighting system. Also, a shout out to Ziggy Wild Foods who has been selected again by Investment NSW to showcase at the Melbourne Fine Food Festival their unique local products and flavours from our Shire. Last year’s Fine Food Festival in Sydney led to their first international orders to be shipped to Thailand and the United Arab Emirates.
Libby Park is President of the Bellingen Chamber of Commerce
