WINTER arrived right on schedule with single digit temperatures greeting us each morning. This has accordingly affected the number of tourists and visitors in town with most businesses feeling the economic pinch at the moment.

There’s not much we can do except for getting our town and businesses ready for the approaching spring and summer.

The chamber has organised to buy a quantity of LED Christmas lights, which will be made available free to members’ businesses for December and January.

We are hoping this will ‘brighten’ up our town and give it a more ‘Christmassy’ feel. We are also trying to arrange for a large pine tree to be lit up for Christmas.

These and other ideas are important to attract the important and necessary summer tourists.

Our new web page is well under way and should be online on target in July.

Members are encouraged to look at their current listings and send to us any changes or improvements.

More and more people now use the local chamber sites to get a feel for a town or community before they visit or move to a town.

If you have a business and want to be found, make sure you belong to your local chamber.

We discussed the need for a local town map that is easily found when entering Yamba for the first time.

Many visitors do not realise that we have many surf beaches, for instance.

We feel that a prominent, easy-to-read map on a noticeboard on the side of the road would be a benefit to all newcomers.

As always, there is a need to encourage everyone to ‘shop local’.

We support this idea and will follow through on the suggestions that have been put forward to us.

The winter months make this as important as ever to support.

We do not like to see any business struggling to the point of closure and if we all buy local then the money stays local and comes back to help you in some way.

It’s our AGM next month and the usual time for volunteers to be scarcer than ever.

Please support your town by helping your chamber and help us to help you.