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Crow’s Nest & District Tourist & Progress Association Inc
AGM Wednesday, 22 April 2008
Welcome to the Annual General Meeting of our Association, and thanks for being with us tonight. Thanks, too, to our hosts, The Sundowner Coffee Lounge. The Association is a member of Toowoomba and Golden West RTA. Our Treasurer, Branton Woodhead, is on the Board of Toowoomba and the Golden West and so we are able to link in with this important body. I would also like to acknowledge the support we have had from the Crow’s Nest Shire Council, and we look forward to working with the Toowoomba Regional Council.
Another active year. We hold open meetings almost every month of the year, and find them a great way to share information and ideas on what is going on in the area.
Some of the things we organised in 2007-2008 that are worth mentioning were:
• The Christmas Lights competition
• The Local Book. Using more colour, and under the editorship of Christine Steel, the Local Book has been very well received by the business and general communities. Again, we are hoping to have the 2008-09 volume out as early as possible in the new financial year, so if there are any additions or adverts, please let us know.
• The What’s On Calendar. These are distributed to our members and the media.
• The Christmas in the Park
• The Crow’s Nest Festival. 2007 saw our 26th. This time we had a Festival sub-committee, consisting of Baden Brown, Ann Lomas, Bob Holland and Crystal Stark. Thanks to all who contributed. This year the Crow’s Nest Festival will be held from Friday 17th October until Sunday 26th October. Several events have been confirmed so far – Crow’s Nest Day on Saturday 25th , the Poets Breakfast on Sunday 26th and the Highfields State School fete on Saturday 18th October.
If you, your business or organisation would like to add an event to the programme, please let us know. We are very pleased to have Graeme Stevens join our Crow’s Nest Day sub-committee, and Gordon Patterson and myself will co-ordinate the Kynoch to Crow’s Nest part of the ten day festival.
• Thanks to Grahame Rogers, the website www.crowsnest.info is available for world-wide perusal. Many thanks to Grahame for his dedication.
I would like to thank both Crystal Stark and Bill Cahill for being the Crow’s Nest Shire Council reps to our Association over the last year. We appreciate your support. We are very much looking forward to working with the Toowoomba Regional Council. At a recent monthly meeting, we decided that at the beginning of each monthly meeting of the Association we would have a session where members of the public as well as a couple of representatives from local Associations, invited on rotation, together with our own members would draft some input into the Council, as our contribution to making the Regional Council more inter-active.
Recently we saw the passing of Life Member Russell Williams. Working with the Show Society we have added the Russell and Bev Williams memorial class to the Photography section of future shows, including the next one. Speaking of the Show, we were very proud to once again sponsor a Miss Showgirl entrant. Emma Birch did us proud, and we were pleased to support her at the Show Ball last Saturday. Thanks Emma.
We have made some contact with the Carnival of Flowers team, with a view to entering the procession and participating in the festival.
Many thanks once again to the team at the Hampton Visitor Information centre. The hard work that goes into the VIC is paying off with increased visitor numbers to the area’s attractions.
An interesting activity we conducted over a two-month period was to compile a list of over 40 items of interest in and around Crow’s Nest township itself. We may develop a brochure along these lines in the future. We are looking at getting Tall Timbers book back into the market place. We take an active place in community discussions – such as the recent council amalgamations, and we try to “progress” this part of Queensland.
In closing, I would like to say that great teams make associations such as this one “tick”. Many thanks to Gordon Patterson and Baden Brown, our Vice-Presidents, Branton Woodhead, our Treasurer and Ann Lomas our hard working secretary. I invite each and everyone here tonight to grab an Application for Membership form and make this Association an even more effective one. We all have day-jobs, and I really appreciate the volunteering of time by all associated with us.
Many thanks.
Jeff Close
President
22nd April 2008.
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