This is the first edition of a regular spot which will be a brief piece from me, James Allan, President of the Yamba Chamber of commerce.

The aim of this spot is simply to initiate a conversation between the Chamber, business community and the community at large. Each month I will write a little bit about a business-related topic that is at the front of my mind. As anyone who runs their own business knows, there are hundreds of aspects to master in order to make it a success. Human resources management, accounting, marketing, legal issues, council and government relations, tax accounting, supply chain management, R & D, and the list goes on!

A Large company will have people, or teams of people, dedicated to each one of these myriad divisions, small business owners do it all themselves. If you ask me, that makes small business owners, like our members, truly remarkable people. It is pretty safe to say that I will not be short of things to write about.

As this is the initial piece, I will not get into anything too deep, – rest assured the deep dives will come – what I would like to mention this week is what I am calling “civic participation”. Recently I ran in the NSW local government elections as an independent candidate, although I did not get over the line, I sure learned a lot. One thing I learned is that people are generally unhappy about some aspect of the way the world is run. Whether it is a gripe with a local council or maybe a feeling of under representation at a federal level we all have something we wish we could change.

Luckily, we live in a place and time when we, as citizens, actually do have the power to make a change – if we are dedicated enough. The problem is apathy, there are frameworks and institutions that one can exploit in order to make their voices heard, all of which are enhanced by the power of community.

A prime example is a chamber of commerce (yay), if a chamber has enough members who all agree on something and are organised and committed their voice cannot be ignored, in my experience, people in similar businesses possess similar values and desires.

Business owners joining a chamber of commerce become greater than the sum of their parts when it comes to influence on the government they operate within, the same can be said for citizens in general. It is my belief that governments would serve their communities more effectively if everybody was to participate more actively in civic life.

This has been your first edition of the “Letter from the president” if you are interested in getting involved with the Yamba Chamber of Commerce or if you have anything to discuss please email us at yamba.chamber@gmail.com.

Until next time, El Presidente out.