Presidents Report

2019 Annual General Meeting
Southport Chamber of Commerce & Industry Inc.
Presidents Annual Report

This is the end of my first year as President. It has been a year of quite significant change for the Chamber.

Our member numbers were down and we made the difficult decision to reduce some recurring overheads.

Rebecca Coleiro had been the part time administrator of the Chamber for many years and she graciously took the opportunity to retire after helping us to transition the management of the Chamber administration. This included moving out of our office we had shared with David at Headline Creative for many years and digitising our records and moving to more virtual processes.

Gold Coast Central Chamber of Commerce held 2 SGMs seeking to change their name to Gold Coast Chamber of Commerce. We successfully opposed the first attempt but they succeeded on a vote at the second SGM. Recently the OFT required Central to publicly notify the application to change the name and Southport along with Greater Southern, North, and Mudgeeraba jointly signed an Objection to the name change.

We held a very successful Spit Master Plan Forum function at the SYC earlier this year.

Thanks to Noel Grummitt who is retiring from the Board for all his support and input into the running of the Southport Chamber over many years and, while his regular involvement will be missed, he will still attend events and help out with PR and External Affairs where he can.

Thanks to Darren Brent for his assistance on the Board over the last few years.

Thanks Lorraine Lovatt of Maylake for sponsorship of the Chamber and GC Business Hub hosting of meetings in the Boardroom and providing share space for our office and the offer to do same for another 12 months.

Thanks to the whole board and to all new members and renewing members.

For the year ahead - lets continue the good events we are doing and make the Long Lunch a signature event and streamline administration and get more regular with advocacy and public opinion.

Ian Kennedy
President Southport Chamber of Commerce.