Reclaiming the main street, weekend trading and marketing the assets the district already has were just some of the topics on the table at the Back to Business breakfast at the Tenterfield School of Arts on Wednesday morning.
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The event was billed as a networking opportunity and forum to exchange ideas, and that certainly happened under the prompting of Linda Tillman of the Tilma Group, who has been contracted to coordinate a major project to boost the town’s profile and ‘activate’ Tenterfield.
Exactly what that project is will be filtered out of a series of workshops starting March 22 and 23, where ideas will be brainstormed and prioritised, eventually coming down to a single project to achieve the best ‘bang for the buck’.
Tenterfield Shire Council has secured a $50,000 grant, with $30,000 to be expended on the planning phase and the remaining $20,000 earmarked for the initial project.
There’s a June 30 deadline for spending the money, so anything like a festival needing a longer time frame is out of the question although its set-up costs could be an option.
Ms Tillman said it was ideal that the money is already available to launch the chosen project, and other grants should be available down the track.
“But the only way it will work is to be engaged,” she said.
The 47 attendees at the breakfast were certainly engaged, identifying the best things about living in Tenterfield (quality of life, community, climate, business relationships, natural assets, diversity, proximity to coastal populations, ...) and the barriers to growing business (lack of weekend trading, small pool of quality employable people, parking, most small businesses being owner-operated and the time restrictions that brings, ...).
Suggestions for boosting the town, given an unlimited budget, included rerouting the highway, setting up an industry to provide local employment, and marketing the Tenterfield ‘brand’ digitally.
