The Hunter Business Awards have been presented for the year and the Tomaree Business Chamber is celebrating after taking out the category of best business chamber for the second year in a row.

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The Tomaree Business Chamber proudly accepted the award for the best local chamber at the Hunter Business awards on Friday night, the chamber’s board is absolutely thrilled with the result.

Chamber President Leah Anderson told News Of The Area, “With a rapidly growing membership base; 3 years ago we had just 40 members, and now we have 230; we are a strong voice and advocate for business right across the peninsular.”

The Chamber has recently formed local business precincts and has been getting out to speak to local business owners which is proving to be a huge success.

This year the Chamber has held 3 very successful and well attended business precinct meetings, at Anna Bay, Shoal Bay and Nelson Bay.

A great example of some of the outcomes from this is our chamber advocating for the rejuvenation of the Anna Bay Town Centre and the resultant $350,000 commitment from Council, including a 7 day makeover with the legendary David Engwicht from Creative Communities International.

In Shoal Bay we are advocating for changes to parking and more amenities, and for Nelson Bay we successfully lobbied Port Stephens Council to commit to $1.4 million to knock down the unusable multi deck car park and create more parking.

The other 2 precincts that Chamber is working with are Taylors Beach and Soldiers Point.

Chamber are also in heavy discussions with TAFE to bring the pre-election promise of a $7 Million dollar TAFE Connected Learning Centre in Nelson Bay to fruition and next week we have professor Alex Zolinsky, Vice Chancellor of Newcastle University coming to meet with us in Nelson Bay and we will be discussing what opportunities we have for University presence on the peninsular.

“Our quarterly business breakfasts are always a great success and we regularly have around 100 business people attend, network, and listen to very informative speakers,” she said.

The Tomaree Business chamber has a wonderful group of volunteers that assist with the day to day running of the chamber and a very active board of directors.

Business development manager Peter Clough is instrumental to growing our membership base so rapidly.

We look forward to attending the State Business awards in Sydney in November this year where we hope to bring home the best business chamber award for NSW.

By Marian SAMPSON