CONGRATULATIONS again to the Gympie Chamber of Commerce on setting another new record yesterday, getting a diverse crowd of 150 to the Golf Club for its last breakfast meeting of the year.

Guest speaker Professor John Cole OAM was just as inspiring as Bernard Salt and painted a fascinating picture of what this region “has”, and how it needs to preserve and nurture what it values most - and what it is “best” at.

The big messages I took away were:

We need to rebrand our beautiful region the way we want to be branded - not the branding imposed on us by the decades-old gun control debate or our history with One Nation.

We need to decide who we are and who we want to be, and to then better communicate “who we are” to the rest of the world.

We need a more diverse and inclusive council (women and young people of Gympie region, we need you to put your hand up at the March 2020 election). An all-male, middle-aged, white council (and state and federal MP) is not a good look, does not send a good message and not an ideal team.

We need to get thie Bruce Highway Bypass happening asap and to reclaim our city.

We need to let people know the real Gympie region; not just the Gympie region they see as they drive through on the highway.

Gympie Regional Council announced at the meeting it would revealing the region’s new “brand” early next year, after extensive community consultation.

I look forward to that reveal and to taking this great region into the future.