As our retailers and tourism operators are preparing for what we hope will be a busy Christmas period, many are preparing for a break to spend time with loved ones and rest up ready for another huge year in 2012. 

• 11 Breakfast Before Business meetings (average attendance 65)
• 11 Business After Hours Networking Functions (average attendance 50)
• International Women’s Day Luncheon attracting close to 300 women
• Small Business Forum with Michael Pascoe (over 150)
• Business Excellence Awards with 300 in attendance
• Professional Development and Cluster Group meetings
• Junior Chamber of Commerce monthly meetings and activities
• Home Based Business Network meetings (and new website)

• Hair Cut or Clothing Vouchers
• Restaurant or Cafe Vouchers
• Tickets to the movies/theatre (we have both) or one of our local attractions (go the the discoverballina website for ideas – link below) 
• An overnight stay somewhere lovely (where better than Paradise..)
• A local tour voucher - river/sky/ocean – there are plenty to choose from
• Hampers of local produce made up at Ballina Visitor Information Centre or filled with scrummy treats at one of our Delicatessens 
• A piece of locally designed art or craft
• Pamper or massage voucher
• Homewares, music, plants ALL HERE IN BALLINA!! 

 

 

Wow what a great turnout for the AGM with over 55 members making time to come and have their say on board representation for the 2011/12 year. Not bad considering it was held smack bang in the middle of school holidays.

Visit the Chamber Structure Page of the BCCI Website to see the results.

As always Chamber members had the opportunity to Meet the Candidates. Five of the six candidates in the State election attended for a Panel Discussion. Each candidate spoke uninterrupted for 10 minutes and then members participated in a Q&A.

Home Based Business Network Social Drinks – Wednesday 27 October 5.30 pm @ The Henry Rous

Junior Chamber of Commerce meeting – Wednesday 3rd November 7.00 am @ Crowley Village

Business After Hours – Tuesday 9th November 5.30 to 7.30 pm – hosted by Fleurs Restaurant @ Comfort Inn All Seasons

Breakfast Before Business – Wednesday 17th November 7.00 to 8.30 am – keynote: Robyn Henderson, Networking Guru @ Ballina RSL

Chamber Christmas Party – Friday 10th December @ Deli 4U – 7.00 pm til late

Phone Nadia 6681 5049  with queries or to register

 

 

 

 

‘Maximum resonance with minimum effort’ is a central tenet of the Linklater approach to voice training, which this month’s guest speaker, actor and voice coach Christina Koch has practiced for the last eight years.  The concept is not a foreign one to business owners, who inevitably aim for maximum efficiency in all aspects of their practice.  Christina introduced the group to the ways that connection with an audience can encourage the alert relaxation which allows vibration, and therefore vocal resonance, to thrive. 
 
Christina Koch is a theatre practitioner (voice coach, actor, director, producer) of over fifteen years experience in Brisbane, working with the Queensland Shakespeare Ensemble, Queensland Theatre Company and the Bell Shakespeare Company during that time. Over the last few months she has worked as a voice coach, notably delivering the ‘Shakespeare’s Playground: Resonance, Persuasion, Memory, Play’ workshop in Dorrigo and for the Armidale Chamber of Commerce, to excellent feedback and requests for extended return workshops.
 
Since 2002 Christina has trained locally in the Linklater approach to voice training with master teacher Rob Pensalfini, Artistic Director of the Queensland Shakespeare Ensemble, and internationally at Shakespeare and Company in Massachusetts, where she then returned as a guest participant in a workshop on Shakespeare’s Rhetoric.
 
Back in Australia, she applied this learning to her direction of a cast of senior legal practitioners, including the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Queensland and the former Attorney General, in a reading of Twelve Angry Men for the Queensland Shakespeare Ensemble.
 
Christina was assistant director to John Bell AO on Bell Shakespeare and Queensland Theatre Company’s 2009 co-production of The Alchemist, and was scriptwriter and project coordinator for Kerry O’Brien’s Hypothetical at the 2009 Australian Public Sector Anti-Corruption Conference.