Braidwood and Villages Business Chamber
Linda Ogilvie first got in touch with the Braidwood and Villages Business Chamber for purely practical reasons. At the time, she was overseeing the Made in Araluen Markets, as well as running the Hall.
A chance encounter at the Braidwood Show, during which she stopped to chat about putting a few events on the BVBC calendar, quickly developed into a deeper interest in the group. At the time, she was contemplating starting up a business of her own – something that went on the backburner when she saw that BVAC had advertised for an events manager.
‘When I read the description, I was like, “This is right up my alley,”’ she says with a laugh. ‘I was doing a little bit of that down here in Araluen, because I run the Hall here – I do all the bookings and the marketing and brochures for it, and now organise markets for it as well. So I thought, if I could do something like that but on a bigger scale with Braidwood and surrounds, even better.’
While each town in the region tends to have its own internal networks, Linda sees potential in a more cooperative way of organising things. ‘A lot of things get missed,’ she says, ‘especially when people don’t tell Council about them, or they’re just promoted on Facebook.
‘I think there's a lot of opportunity for cross-promotion, and for businesses to get the same target group,’ she says. She encourages people to get in touch with her before setting the dates for their events, so that she can see what else is on, what might be clashing, and where inviting other businesses or local community groups might help to boost an event’s tourism appeal.
‘There’s been a big gap in the market for communication within the community on different events,’ she says. ‘My role is to guide and support and bring people together and give advice. I had someone recently get in touch and ask drop by for a quick chat, and we wound up having coffee for 45 minutes.
‘It was really good to have a brainstorm. And I think they came away happy with the conversation as well.’
You’ve been looking at strategies for promoting regional businesses for a while now. If you are trying to get a business off the ground, and you don’t know where to start, what is one simple thing that you could do?
So, one really cool tip for people is to add your information to the Australian Tourism Data Warehouse , It’s a federal platform, and once your information is on the data warehouse – say you’ve got a special event coming up – everyone with a platform who might be interested in pulling together an events round-up, or a calendar, or a tourism story, can then pull that information through, whether that be QPRC or something like HerCanberra.
Once it’s on the ATDW, you don't have to liaise or email, or get lost in translation; it's there, and it will pop up, and people can spread the word to the designated places.
What else would you suggest?
It can be useful to connect people with Service New South Wales, or business services that the government provides as well. So if you’re having trouble with, say, social media, I’ve got a couple of contacts you can reach out to. Or if someone’s just starting a business – ‘Oh, you know, you should reach out to these government institutions.’ I’m becoming a bit of a data bank myself!
We also have Women in Business events you can come to, and are planning a few things down the track that we will hopefully be sharing soon.
I think there is sometimes a misconception that a body like the BVBC is only for fully fledged business owners. Can anyone just come along?
You can definitely come along to any meeting, and just listen! Obviously, whoever’s there will try to convince you to become a member, because the more members the better, but it’s also about really valuing input from the community.
A lot of people sign up just before they launch their business. Just come and introduce yourself, and say, ‘This is who I am, and I’m planning to do this and that.’ It just really helps to get to know people, and see what others are doing, and get the word out.
‘The best part of being involved is getting to know the community more. Getting to know people's stories, and who they are, and their journeys, and you know, where they've come from and where they want to go. The enthusiasm that people have about what they're doing – it's just so lovely to see.
Visit www.bavbc.com for more information.
0408 151 829