May Business Month 2018

In 2017 Mount Barker Council partnered with the Adelaide Hills Council to deliver a pilot program across the hills called May Business Month. The premise of the pilot was based on the fact that if a business-person in the Adelaide Hills region wanted to work on their own professional development, they often had to travel to the Adelaide CBD and further afield to do so. So was born an ambitious program of workshops, seminars and networking events for the benefit of the hills business community.

Drawing on the learnings from last year it was clear that businesses were more interested in the ‘nuts and bolts’ of running a business – things like taxation essentials and good record-keeping and less so in the more esoteric topics like ‘Innovation is not an App!’

The 2018 line-up was easier to plan and deliver as the two councils empowered people and organisations to run their own activities whilst giving support where needed. The full program was marketed via a central information website where registrations could also be taken.

May Business Month 2018 was officially launched on May 1^st at an event called BizLink which was hosted by John Chapman, the Small Business Commissioner for SA. The focus of BizLink is to bring together a range of providers whose main aim is to support businesses – everything from the ATO, AusIndustry, nbn, EPA, Business SA, Revenue SA, Office of the Training Advocate and many more.

The event set a record with 72 registrations and in turn this set the tone for the rest of the program with many activities booked out and some repeated due to popular demand.

During the month well-known media personality and journalist Graeme Goodings delivered a workshop called the ‘Art of Public Speaking’ and one attendee remarked that he was really pleased that the Councils ran it again this year as part of May Business Month as he missed out last year. He also brought his young teenage son along because as a parent and business-person he knows that public speaking is a necessary skill at any age – a great outcome!

Water, water everywhere …

Mount Barker District Council and SA Water are working together to establish an irrigation precinct in the eastern Mount Lofty Ranges which will stretch from Mount Barker to Murray Bridge. The precinct will distribute recycled water from Council’s wastewater treatment plant and untreated River Murray water from SA Water’s Murray Bridge–Onkaparinga Pipeline to contracted customers.

At present the Mount Barker district produces approximately 1.4 GL/yr of recycled water. Due to growth within Mount Barker, the supply of recycled water is expected to increase to 3.6 GL/yr by 2045. The aim of the precinct is to create a ‘green industrial scheme’ where the above flows are supplemented by the Murray Bridge–Onkaparinga Pipeline supply. As the recycled volumes increase, it is expected that the Murray Bridge–Onkaparinga Pipeline flows will be reduced. The anticipated combined volume of the scheme is 5 GL/yr.

Hudson Howells, an independent market research company, has been engaged by SA Water and Mount Barker District Council to investigate market interest and demand for recycled waste water use. We are conducting a short online survey to gauge industry interest in the scheme and are putting together a program to investigate this interest through a process of in-depth interviewing and dissemination workshops in the coming months.

If you have an existing business or are considering investing in a new business that would benefit from access to recycled waste water, we would like to hear from you. To learn more about this opportunity and register your interest, please follow this link to complete a short survey. Neil Howells of Hudson Howells is available should you wish to discuss this project in further detail on mobile 0419 848 777 or via email or contact Council at business@mountbarker.sa.gov.au.