The Rotary Club of Bunbury Leschenault in association with the Bunbury Chamber of Commerce & Industries conducts an annual leadership program called the South West Young Achievers Program. The program has been highly successful and SWYAP 11 will run from the 14^th-16^th October 2010.

The program is for young people (18 – 25 years) in the South West who are generally in the workforce and are demonstrating the potential to be future business and community leaders. 

Selected applicants will undertake a three-day residential training program designed to help them reach their potential. Sessions will include a range of communications skills, goal setting and time management, public speaking, financial management, leadership and much more. Previous participants have benefited enormously from the program and are already playing active roles within our community.

The course will commence at 8:00am on Thursday 14^th October 2010 and finish with a Gala Dinner at 6.30pm on Saturday the 16^th October 2010. The course venue will be the South Bunbury Football Club and accommodation will be at the Koombana Resort. The course is fully residential with meals and accommodation supplied. Participants are required to live in. 

This program has been generously sponsored by local business with the National Australia Bank being the major sponsor. As a result, participants (or their employer/mentor) will only need to invest $220 to attend. 

I invite you to consider nominating young people from your local government area to the program. You will be making a positive contribution to their future and an investment in your region and community. If you wish to support the program as a sponsor please contact me for information on 0418 666 089.

There are only 24 places available on the program with applications closing on 17^th September 2010.
If you have any question please contact Holly Kings on 9791 2292 or email holly@bcci.asn.au.

Click here to download the application form.

Auction off and running!

The 2010 Rotary Auction website is open for business! The website – www.rotaryauction.com.au – kicked off last week and all items were published in last week’s Bunbury Mail.

With dozens of items up for grabs, there’s some great bargains. Take a look at the DBC side of beef, the Tradelink toilet suite and the Bunbury Bearings toolkit. Looking for a makeover? Have a bid on the $50 voucher from Guys and Dolls Hairhouse. Or can’t get rid of those unwanted pests? Maybe a pest inspection by  Aussie Pest Inspections is what you need.

There’s plenty to bid on, but time is running out – the Auction closes in 6 days. So have a look today! And please help Rotary out by forwarding this email to your friends and colleagues.

Black Tie event a stunning affair

With all 240 seats sold out well in advance, the ‘Black Tie – Black Truffle’ Rotary Ball on Saturday August 14 at the Quality Hotel Lord Forrest was a glittering and memorable affair. The who’s who of Bunbury danced the night away to the sounds of Little Sister and Steve Johnson & the Flirtettes, and 4 regional executive chefs whipped up a storm in the Lord Forrest kitchens. The menus by Jim Mailes (Lamonts Margaret River), Russel Blaikie (Must Margaret River), Ian Frost (the Lord Forrest) and John Dudley (the Singing Chef) were simply stunning.

More importantly Auctioneer Cecily Robertson ensured those in attendance put their hands in their pockets for three very good causes – beneficiaries Men’s Sheds, Milligan and Youth Care. Items sold under Cecily’s fast and furious hammer included a week’s accommodation in the glamorous Les Grand Moulins France, a limo ride home, a Trek bicycle, 2 full pages in the Bunbury Mail and a helicopter ride. While still waiting on final figures, it is estimated more than $20,000 was raised from the evening.

About the Bunbury Rotary Auction

Here is an initiative that we are supporting that we think may well be of benefit to your business!

WA Small Business Benchmarks (WASBB) is an online tool that gives you an opportunity to confidentially compare your performance to other similar businesses every year, across a range of easy to understand measures. Even better, it is currently being offered to you for free!

The process is straightforward and designed to help you to define, track and compare your own version of best practice and small business success with minimal effort and no cost. The information required to benchmark your business is quick and simple for you to supply in one 30 minute session using a simple online data collection tool.  Once you have provided your business information you can be given an immediate ranking of your business, known as the SB² (Small Business Success Benchmark). This is a ranking against other similar businesses to yours, achieved without disclosing any confidential information to your competitors (a minimum of 4 similar businesses required for an SB² report to be released).

To keep you up to date in tracking your own performance, you are given password protected access to the data for the entire year. You will also have access to simple instructions on how to interpret and use the SB² output yourself, provided in plain English.

For the 2010 release, you should identify "INSERT YOUR ORGANISATION NAME HERE" to ensure you receive access to the tool at no cost.

The project has many sponsors and supporters in the WA small business community who are assisting by providing significant discounts and rewards to businesses that take part.  Visit www.smallbusinessbenchmarks.com/sponsors to see all of the goodies made available to participants!

We think you should also pass on this email to other business owners in your network to increase the value and accuracy of this tool for all businesses involved.

This project is part funded by Curtin University of Technology and is targeted at businesses with 20 or less employees. More information and an overview of the research output (including existing industry snapshots) can be found by visiting www.business.curtin.edu.au/wasbb . 

Coming In July......

We are supporters of WA Small Business Benchmarks, a free tool that could help you compare and improve the performance of your business, relative to other similar businesses in WA. This project is a small business community service run by Curtin University. There are many industry partners and sponsors offering thousands of dollars of incentives to all participants.

Business after Hours

Venue: South West Regional College of Tafe Robertson Dve Bunbury

Date: 25th May

Time: 5.30pm

RSVP- Monday 24th May to holly@bcc.asn.au