April General Meeting Minutes

General Meeting

13 April 2022
Held at Camden Valley Inn, Camden

The meeting was opened at 6.30pm

Welcome & President’s Report – Steve Moore, President

Steve welcomed everyone to the meeting and agreed with the vibe in the room that it has been a busy month.  He welcomed Peter Sidgreaves MP, Tony Perich AM and Cathy Perich, Life Members Ian Wolf and Adriana Care, past President Shaun Pereira, President of Campbelltown Chamber of Commerce Carlene Cardona and tonight’s guest speaker Jillian Bullock.

Many were forced to negotiate another once in a lifetime flooding event and Steve reminded everyone of the assistance being provided by the various levels of Government.  Camden Council has setup a business support page on their website collating all of these resources.  If anyone could use assistance in accessing this support, please speak to one of the members of the Board.

Continuing with Camden Council, Steve made members aware of the newly launched Project Narellan.  This is part of the Greater Sydney Commission’s Western City District Plan which has identified Narellan as one of six ‘Strategic Centres’ in the Western Parkland City.  This means it will become an increasingly important part of the region’s future, with additional jobs, services, and homes.  In response, ‘Project Narellan’ seeks to establish a new vision for Narellan as a strategic centre.  Council is currently seeking feedback via their website on this vision and are holding several engagement sessions beginning with workshops on April 26 and 28.  The Board will be sending out specifics on how to get involved in Project Narellan, and he strongly encourages all members to participate in this initiative and guide this process from a local business perspective.

At the end of March, the Chamber was proud to support Gregory Hills Next Gen Rotary Club in their running of the inaugural ROVE awards recognizing vocational excellence.  This was an inspiring event recognizing the efforts of local employees across a variety of industries who have worked so hard over the past few years.  There were some amazing stories told from very deserving award winners at the presentation night.  Congratulations goes to Gregory Hills Rotary Club on a successful event.

Steve made mention on that same morning, he along with many people involved with the Chamber attended the memorial service for Harry Hunt OAM at Casula Powerhouse with many more who streamed the event online.  The celebration of Harry’s life and contribution to the local community was truly inspiring, he will be sorely missed by many and the Chambers thoughts remain with the Hunt Family.

It has been announced and Australia now finds itself at the beginning of a federal election campaign.  This will be the first federal election since the beginning of the pandemic and poses the chance for a mandate on our economic recovery among several other key issues impacting our community.  For the vast majority of people who reside in the electorate of Hume, 7 candidates have nominated for the electorate to choose from.  The Board is excited to announce that the Chamber has organized a special breakfast event next month to introduce each of the candidates to members and guests in the form of a discussion panel.  This event will give attendees the opportunity to hear the policies of each candidate as well as ask them questions with the panel to be moderated by Jim Marsden OAM.

The breakfast will be held on May 5th the week before our May general meeting.  It will be a 7:15am start and tickets are now available on the Chamber website.

Tonight’s meeting setup is by table/seat raffle and the Board hopes you enjoy the difference and meeting new people.

Lastly, Steve wished everyone a safe a happy easter break and see as many as possible at the events in May.

Apologies

Arnold Vitocco – Narellan Town centre
Roland Blackstone – Secretary
Jean Alim – Governance Director
Sandy Bartlett – Membership Director
John Gannon – Macarthur Lady Funerals
Melissa Duncombe – Mortgage Express
Amy Woodley – Start Fresh Accounting

Secretary’s Report – Karina Rauch, Treasurer

Karina advised the Minutes from 9 March were on the website.  The Minutes were moved by Anne Parnham, seconded by Carla Upfill and accepted.  Any business arising please contact Roland Blackstone, Secretary.

Treasurer’s Report – Karina Rauch

Karina presented the Treasurers Report as of 31 March 2022.  Total income $11,480, total expenses $12,554, net deficit ($1,068).  Current cash at bank is $128,370.  The report was moved by Josephine Byrnes-Luna, seconded by Carla Upfill and accepted.

Sponsorship Update – Nicole Cusack, Sponsorship Director

Nicole advised that the new financial year sponsorship packages were on the table to look at.  Anyone wishing to commit to a sponsorship for 2022-2023 please contact her.  All sponsor applications will be considered and closing is 24 June, and if there are too many then first in will be successful.  She then introduced the following sponsors for their presentations:

Bronze Sponsor Presentation – Pania and Rowan Gregson, Pest Go

Bronze Sponsor Presentation – Warren Saunders, Premise

Silver Sponsor Presentation – Karena Nicholls, Coutts Lawyers & Conveyancers

Silver Sponsor Presentation – Barry Jones, Jones XL

What’s On – Carla Upfill, Meetings Director

Carla advised the following upcoming events:

• Campbelltown Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday, 20 April from 6pm at Club Menangle
• Gledswood Family Farm Day on Sunday, 24 April from 10am
• Anzac Day Camden RSL Sub-Branch Dawn Service from 5.15am at Camden Bicentennial Equestrian Park Memorial Site
• Camden Council Paws in the Park on Sunday, 1 May from 9am
• Kids of Macarthur Health Foundation Corporate Golf Day on Friday 6 May 222 from 7am at Macquarie Links International Golf Club
• Youth Solutions Charity Golf Day on Friday, 13 May at Campbelltown Golf Club
• Odyssey House Business Women’s Lunch on 13 May 2022
• Lifeline “The Push Up Challenge” June 1-24
• Kids of Macarthur Health Foundation Viva Las Vegas Ball on Saturday, 4 June at The Club Campbelltown from 6pm

Membership Update – Kirsti Reynolds, Marketing Director

Current financial membership is 125 financial, 5 life members, 27 sponsors and contra sponsors, CIN 1 member and 5 new members, totalling 163. 

Of this is 4 new member that has been reviewed and approved by the Board – Event Prop Hire by Joanna, GiftLinx, Melinda Griffiths Lawyers, and Workability Rehab.

Member Shout Outs:

• Carla Upfill of Carrington Care thanked Ian Wolf of Tony Wolf and Son Quality Printers
• Anne Parnham of Campbelltown Lighting Centre thanked Rowan Gregson of Pest Go
• Alison Attard of BNI Sydney South West thanked Susan Johnson of Finance 4 Growth
• Barry Jones of Jones XL thanked Garth Lewis of Alpha IT

Member Spotlight promo draw for May 2022 general meeting – David Harvey of David Harvey Auctions.

Members Facebook promo draw for May 2022 – Lauren Jones of Jones XL.

Member spotlight was presented by Pest Go as part of their sponsorship presentation.

Speaker Presentation

Carla Upfill welcomed and introduced Jillian Bullock of LinkedIn Ninja Down Under

• If you aren’t on LinkedIn, here’s what you are missing
  740 million people on LinkedIn as of March 2021
  9 billion impressions weekly
  Only 3 million are regular content creators
  Enormous Content Creation Opportunities
• How many people in Australia
  740 million members worldwide
  11 million members in Australia
• Your Google/LinkedIn Ranking
  Every LinkedIn profile is on the 21^st most popular website in the world
  Are you the top one for your name?
  Exercise – Google your own name!
• 57% view LinkedIn on a mobile device
• Opportunities for B2B
  94% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn for content marketing
• 50% year on year increase in engagement on LinkedIn since 2016
  Went up by 55% during Covid 19 lockdown
  Back down to only 26% as we start to return to “normal”
• Content is indexed on Google (when done right)
  18.1% of LinkedIn content traffic comes from Google (Tech Crunch April 2020)
• No 3 Biggest mistake business owners make on LinkedIn
  LinkedIn your 24/7
  Silent Sales Person
• No 2 Biggest mistake business owners make on LinkedIn
  A picture is worth 1,000 words
  Where are your images
• No 1 Biggest mistake business owners make on LinkedIn
  No personalisation and taking people offline for a chat
  Using bots to spam instead!
• Building rapport on LinkedIn
  Virtual coffee anyone?
• An active member is regular and content up every 30 days
• Difference between personal and private
• Articles – look at your headlines
• Profile pic has 4 settings
  Change background every quarter – seasonal, sale
  Use Canva
• Featured section (add a new section)
• At least put your logo in top right of screen
• Free -vs- Premium
• Use filters
• LinkedIn QR Code

Q&A session:

• Kiandra Ogden – is B2B easier?
  • Yes, B2C is harder to find
• James Welch – how many # to use?
  • Daniel Waf says between 3-5
    Jillian says 3-4 and No 5 is yours
• Nicole Cusack – should you see their # suggestions?
  • Research how many are following the #s
• Maureen Thorpe – where does a Bride look for Celebrants?
  • Not LinkedIn, more celebrant to celebrant
• Ahmed Radi – is it worth doing sponsored ads?
  • No, most expensive
• Steve Moore – ? SEO specialists?
  • Headline correct, straight under your name

Lucky Door Prize

Hamper from Premise – won by Clarissa of Access Law Group

Dinner voucher from Coutts Lawyers & Conveyancers – won by Shaun Pereira of C21 Pereira Group

Closing Remarks – Steve Moore

Steve thanked everyone attending and supporting, especially all those businesses who sponsor the Chamber, tonight’s speakers and the staff at Camden Valley Inn. 

Special breakfast event of Hume electorate Federal Election candidates on Thursday, 5 May at Trackside Menangle from 7.15am.

The next general meeting will be on 11 May at Menangle Country Club with guest speaker Rod Stowe, former Fair Trading Commissioner.

There being no further business, the meeting was closed at 8.25pm.