The 2012 South Burnett Exposed Expo attracted 1750 visitors over two days

June 24, 2012

The South Burnett Regional Council will re-evaluate its role in the South Burnett Exposed Expo after suffering a significant loss on this year’s event.

At its monthly meeting last week, General Manager Community & Economic Development Eleanor Sharpe told the meeting that while the Expo had attracted 1750 visitors over two days and made a cash profit of $488, the reality was quite different when the cost of staff time to organise the event was taken into consideration.

Ms Sharpe said that while there appeared to be support from exhibitors to run the event again next year, Council would need to “re-evaluate its role” over the coming six months.

One possibility would be to engage an events manager to facilitate the event.

Ms Sharpe estimated the total time required to organise the Expo amounted to 240 hours.

Another possibility could be to scale back Council’s involvement.

The event – held at Kingaroy Town Hall on April 15-16 – was the result of amalgamating last year’s South Burnett Biz Expo with the CROW-FM Home Show.

The 2012 Expo attracted 40 exhibitors and a total of 80 people attended the 19 business workshops which were held in conjunction with the event.

Sponsors contributed $18,000 towards the  running costs

The previous year’s South Burnett Biz Expo ran on a single day (April 8, 2011) at the South Burnett TAFE College and attracted about 300 visitors.

Council Spends All RADF Funds

The South Burnett Regional Council spent all its RADF funds over the past year, the first time this has ever occurred.

Cr Cheryl Dalton told last week’s Council meeting the State Government contributes $90,000 to the Regional Arts Development Fund each year through Arts Queensland and the South Burnett Regional Council contributes $26,000.

This money is then used to fund local arts-based projects suggested by the South Burnett community which satisfy RADF funding criteria and which are approved by Council’s RADF Committee (which is made up of community members and Council repesentatives).

Cr Dalton said in previous years a lack of projects had meant that not all funds were used.

But this had turned around in the last year.

Ratepayer Will Get Trees Chopped Down… Eventually

The South Burnett Regional Council will remove three trees from the roadside at Campbells Lane in Murgon which a property owner believes are a threat to her rental property.

However, the ratepayer has been told this will occur at some point in the future that Council is currently unable to specify.

Alternately, the property owner is welcome to remove the trees herself if she doesn’t wish to wait… at a cost of $2000 per tree.

At Council’s monthly meeting last week, Councillors were told that a ratepayer had written to Council in early January 2012 requesting the removal of three trees from the road reserve adjoining her rental property.

Council investigated and found none of the trees posed any immediate threat to nearby buildings or passing road traffic because they were not suffering from any disease or other factors that “threaten the integrity of the tree structure”.

If Council agreed to the ratepayer’s request to remove the trees immediately, the funds for the work would have to be taken out of the existing roads maintenance budget, which was stretched more than usual by the wet Spring and Summer seasons, at the expense of other projects.

However council had no objection to the removal of the trees. If the ratepayer wanted to pay the cost of Council acting on the matter immediately, the work could be undertaken using a contractor at a fee of $2000 per tree.

Otherwise, Council was happy to have the trees listed for removal as part of a scheduled funded training program for council trainees learning how to use chainsaws.

This would be at no cost to the ratepayer but council would be unable to say exactly when the trees would be cut down by its chainsaw trainess, because they already have a full schedule of targets.

Council Waives Building Fee For Tourism Association

The South Burnett Regional Council has waived a $360 Building Application Fee for the Blackbutt & District Tourism Association who want to buuld a new tourist attraction in Blackbutt.

But Council has refused to refund a $150 Document Lodgement Fee on the project.

The association wants to build a Bullock Wagon Memorial at 69 Hart Street next to the existing Visitor Information Centre to encourage more tourists to visit the town and make use of the centre’s facilities.

Council was told that having regard to the “community nature and local historical signficiance” of the project, it was appropriate to waive the $360 Building Application fee.

But since Council had already received the $150 Document Lodgement Fee – and in light of similar previous decisions on matters like this, as well as its own internal policies – the SBRC decided it was going to keep the money.

Mayor Sets A Cracking Pace

South Burnett Mayor Wayne Kratzmann has added a monthly Mayor’s Report to Council meetings to keep both his fellow Councillors and ratepayers “in the loop”.

The report summarises what the Mayor’s been doing and who he’s been holding meetings with from one Council meeting to the next.

The initial report – covering 26 days from May 21 to June 15 inclusive – showed the Mayor had taken part in 51 meetings, discussions or consultations, including two meetings in Toowoomba with the Regional Tourism Board.

These were in addition to the Budget discussions and Council committee meetings that have been ocupying most Councillors’ time since the Local Government elections.

Sonia Champney, Cr Cheryl Dalton, actor Martin Sacks and Mayor Wayne Kratzmann at the opening night of the 2012 Big Screen Film Festival

Film Festival A Big Success

The Big Screen Film Festival seems likely to continue to attract support from the South Burnett Regional Council after recording a near-record attendance this year.

The annual event is run by the Council in conjunction with the National Film and Sound Archive in Canberra.

This nationally touring Festival showcases new and classic Australian films. The South Burnett is the only location in Queensland where it’s screened.

This year’s film festival was held in Nanango and Kingaroy over three days (May 18-20, 2012) and drew a total audience of 1839 guests.

Community and Cultural Services Portfolio holder Cr Cheryl Dalton said this year’s attendance figures were roughly double the audience that the Festival attracted in 2009, and only fractionally down on last year’s event (which had one extra film screening).

“I think everyone who went to this year’s Festival really enjoyed it,” Cr Dalton said. “The Nanango Cultural Centre is a great venue for film screenings.”