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Canberra Today 15°/17° | Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Rotary clubs offer a hand to small business

President of the Rotary Club of Canberra-Weston Creek, Ash Pagett…“Some businesses might use this breakfast advice and assistance to get a grant, some might use it to help grow their businesses in other ways.” Photo: Lily Pass

THE Rotary Clubs of Canberra-Weston Creek and Belconnen are running six, free business breakfasts for small and micro level businesses to address a dire situation faced by the sector. 

Many of the businesses fell through the cracks of the bigger support initiatives that the federal and ACT government implemented during the COVID-19 period.

President of the Rotary Club of Canberra-Weston Creek, Ash Pagett, says he wants these businesses to not only survive, but thrive in their quest for sustainability.

“About two thirds of Canberra’s employees are employed by small businesses, with about 30,000 small businesses in the ACT, and many of them are struggling,” he says.

“Some businesses might use this breakfast advice and assistance to get a grant, some might use it to help grow their businesses in other ways.”

Ash says anybody can apply to come, and there will be compelling guest speakers, many of whom are small-business operators themselves. They will be providing information and tips on business planning in line with the six themes of the breakfasts.

“The people attending will probably be well-intentioned, highly driven and have probably thrown a lot of their own money and effort behind their business ventures, but some of them maybe aren’t business-educated.

“People may not have thought about a business plan and a structured approach to business development and establishment, or don’t understand the nuances of regulation around staffing and HR. IT might be something that’s completely foreign to them. So, we’re trying to aim the breakfasts at kickstarting anybody, we’re starting at the easy end.”

Ash says the breakfast themes came about through trial and error, but they eventually settled on final themes of information technology, building a better business, business peer support, structure for sustainability and finally, media advertising.

Through a partnership with the Rotary Club of Belconnen, Ash is hoping to “get the message out to the businesses that really should attend”.

“It’s northside, Belconnen, and us as southside, we’re going to try and spread the good word across our populations and regions.”

And, Ash says it’s heartwarming seeing the clubs work together.

“We did attempt to kick this off during my predecessor’s presidency period, but it was just impossible with all the lockdowns. We are charging ahead with this now though.

“It is amazing the power that just a small club like ours, with 35 members, can put behind something, as well as not failing to diversify our effort on international projects and youth projects. We’ve been really busy despite covid and it’s been quite heartwarming.”

The breakfasts will run once a month on a Wednesday in 90-minute sessions, from 7.30am, at the Raiders Club in Kippax.

Breakfasts will run on May 25, June 22, July 27, August 24, September 28 and October 26.

“The aim is to get the people in, sit them down, give them a breakfast and some information and then get them out so they can prosecute their businesses and become profitable,” says Ash.

Originally, 114 years ago, Ash says that Rotary was built on big businesses, and whenever there was a problem they would throw money at it. Now, it’s a little different.

“We’re more about throwing some effort behind the problem, a little bit of money but we’ve retained the ethics and importance of vocation as being the underpinning of what Rotary is, this is a vocational service project.

“We did have big ideas initially around this, that we could really ramp it up, but we’re keeping it simple for the first year and we can see what we can do in the second year.”

Register via eventbrite.com.au

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Lily Pass

Lily Pass

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