Valentine’s Day Markets

By Shane Wylie - executive officer

Behind the scenes it’s been a thoroughly interesting and at times frustrating journey dealing with state and local government regarding events.

Specifically, what classifies as an event and what is just normal business occurring and when you collate what a small business has to do it makes it very difficult to plan anything with certainty.

We do, however, have the Valentine’s Day Markets coming up on Sunday, February 14. The markets will run from 10am to 3pm with a love filled theme and entertainers positioned along the promenade.

$50 memberships

One thing has become very clear to me coming out of restrictions and that is the world has changed forever. In line with this we’re going to be focusing our efforts in the next two months on profiling every single one of our member businesses and just what they are doing post restrictions.

Last year our social media reached in excess of 10 million views. It’s an asset we have invested in with time, money and staffing and we’re going to put it to our members’ advantage even more than normal.

We’ve also just redesigned our website to be more reflective of what is happening as of right now.

So, if you’d like to take advantage of our socials and our website to ramp up your business exposure – docklandscc.com.au – then the already minimal annual fee is being waived until February.

Annual general meeting (AGM)

The Docklands Chamber of Commerce AGM was held last on November 12 via Zoom. Financials are posted on our website for 2019/20 detailing a loss for the financial year due to a heavy investment in profiling the case for permanent activation of Victoria Harbour and hosting the very first Docklands Business Awards. The executive committee now consists of:

Johanna Maxwell - returned unanimously as president

Daniel Hibberd - returned unanimously as vice president

Mo Hamdouna - returned unanimously as secretary

Glenda Archibald - returned unanimously as treasurer

Ahmad Trad – returned

Peter Kelly – returned

Wei Xiong - new member (Sebel Docklands)

Mark Scholem - new member (New Energy Physiotherapy)

Vanessa Muggianu - new member (Berth Restaurant and Events)

I’d like to personally thank our outgoing executives - Stacy Andronikos, Nicole Hill, Mark Sutherland and Athol Hodgetts •