By JESSE GRAHAM
THE YARRA VALLEY’S Chambers of Commerce signed off for the year with a Christmas breakfast earlier this month, receiving an update on the railway restoration works in Yarra Glen.
The Healesville, Mount Evelyn, Yarra Glen and Lilydale Chambers of Commerce, along with the Warburton Valley Community Economic Development Association (CEDA) gathered on 3 December at Yering Meadows Golf Course for the breakfast.
Around 150 business owners and community representatives attended the breakfast, where Yarra Glen Chamber of Commerce president Alex Lagerwey updated the members on recent events, including the Healesville 150th weekend and a historic truck show in town.
Yarra Valley Railway (YVR) vice-president Brett Whelan then ran a presentation, updating the members on the work to restore the rail line between Yarra Glen and Healesville.
Mr Whelan said that the YVR development was completely run by volunteers, and that the amount of volunteer hours each year soared from 3000 hours in 2007 to 40,000 in 2010.
“This year, already, we’ve clocked in 40,000 hours – probably by the end of the year, we’ll be looking at 45,000 volunteer hours,” he said.
“It’s truly massive.”
Anthony Turner, who co-wrote the award-winning book Are U Ready? Surviving Small Business Disaster, also ran a presentation on business risks and potential catastrophes, such as the Black Saturday bushfires.
He said that, for businesses, there were four important stages when it came to business ‘disasters’ – planning, preparation, response and recovery.
Using the example of a person who backed up their business’s computer files multiple times and stored some back-ups off-site, only to have all of them destroyed in the bushfires, he said business disasters can range from minimal to catastrophic.
He urged businesses to consider backing up data online through cloud-services, such as Dropbox, and to prepare alternate arrangements if their current premises become unusable due to fire, floods or another disaster.
Mr Turner said an important aspect of avoiding small business disaster was not to have the mentality that disasters will only happen to other people.
“Disasters don’t care – they impact whoever is in their path,” he said.
