PRESIDENTS REPORT

"Coast's beating heart…" This was the headline on this week's edition of Kawana Weekly. It was the headline in relation to our monthly networking event held last week at the new Stockland Park Stadium.

The evening was a resounding success with over 115 business owners and community members keen to hear about the future of Kawana's health precinct, sports precinct as well as Stockland's plans for Bokarina Beach, Birtinya Island and of course Kawana Town Centre. What was clear from the night is the huge opportunities that will be open to the business community of the Sunshine Coast. Troy Wainwright from Stockland quoted a figure of over $1 million dollars each day over a 5 year period to be spent in Kawana for all of the developments that are going ahead- that certainly spells opportunity to me!

Two other points that need to be considered in relation to the developments however are firstly the process of getting approvals from Council and also the time lag between when the Private hospital will be opened (likely to be late 2013) and when the Town Centre will be finished.

In relation to the first point regarding approvals, the Chamber Executive are waiting with anticipation for the new Town plan to be released (this should be in the next month or so) to see what changes are being put forward for zoning of businesses in the Kawana Region. This is directly related to the plans that Stockland have to ensure that we attract the right types of businesses to the area and that those businesses that are needed will have areas that they can actually operate out of. What would be great to see is instead of having a building's use limited to 1-5 types of business activities, have the building zoned for all types of businesses with 1-5 specific exclusions. This seems to make sense to me, as it would save businesses many hours of heartache in trying to understand where their business could be housed and get businesses operating sooner in the ever-growing Kawana.

In relation to the second point- the time lag between the completion of the Private hospital and the Town Centre being finalised- currently there appears to be a 3 year window where Kawana still won't have a town centre after the first hospital is completed and work on the Sunshine Coast University Hospital has begun. There are two ways to look at this- firstly this spells OPPORTUNITY to me as a local business owner, or two- perhaps council needs to consider how the above process (zoning and council approvals) can be sped up to ensure that we have enough infrastructure in the area to support the many visitors to Kawana.

Regarding the future of the Kawana Waters Chamber of Commerce, our AGM is just around the corner. This is where, of course, our Executive Committee is formed. If you believe, as we do, in the importance of the Kawana Waters Chamber of Commerce and the future of our business community I would ask you to think about whether you would like to become involved. All, bar one, of our existing committee will be restanding for positions, unfortunately Amber James from Amber James Consulting has decided to stand down. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Amber (and Kristen) for the countless hours that they have dedicated to the chamber over the last 2 years and for of course being incredibly successful in raising the profile of our wonderful group! If you are interested in being a part of the Executive committee or being involved in one of our subcommittees we would love to hear from you.

Take care and hope to see you soon

Jo Hall

HOSPITAL UPDATE
On Thursday 1^st September The Official Turning the Sod Ceremony with Hon Geoff Wilson Minister for Health, to mark the Commencement of the new Ramsay Health Care Private Hospital being built on the Sunshine Coast University Hospital Site.

A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR 
Business Matters Magazine

I was so excited to be named the “Sunshine Coast Business Women’s Network – Micro Small Business, Woman of the year” on Saturday night. It just goes to show that if you find your purpose and follow your passion in no time at all you can achieve great things. Finding your purpose is something that we often leave to a time in the future, that we sometimes say, that’s not me but other people. I challenge you to look for your true purpose, your true passion and then I challenge you further to follow it. If you are already living it, then I challenge you to become the change you want to see in the world and start helping the rest of the world to follow their passion, to become a mentor in your industry. We can sit back on the side lines of life and we can commentate what we think should or should not be, as Ghandi said long ago, “we must become the change we want to see in the world”, or something like that. I choose to be part of the change, that is why you will not read anything negative in Business Matters Magazine, the mantra, everything we are about, my purpose if you like is to really make a difference to business on the Sunshine Coast, through education and motivation. By giving you the tools, the ideas, the education on things you can do for your business, and then hopefully inspiring you to make those things happen for yourself. This is my passion, my purpose. And my mantra now is to challenge everyone out there to really take on, becoming the change they want to see in their industry and standing out and standing up for what you believe in. I honestly believe that if you are not passionate about what you are doing and it doesn’t have meaning, that it is much more difficult to get up each day, much more difficult to love your life. Once you starting living what you believe in everything changes, everything becomes clear and the future absolutely will be different for you. It can’t be about money, it has to be about wanting to do something to make a difference, it has to be about wanting to really help others in some way. I absolutely believe that should you take that on, the money has no choice anyway but to follow. Magic does happen.

Thanks for reading. 
Vickie Magic

FOR YOUR DIARY
September 7th - Kawana Waters State College & AGM