THE AIRLIE Beach Rotary Club gathered on Monday (October 10) to discuss what it can do, to better service local businesses in the community.
The Rotary Club of Airlie Beach has been serving the community for more than 40 years, having been commissioned in May 1981.
On Monday evening, club members hosted a ‘Have your Say’ community forum, where they welcomed community members who represent any business to attend and discus how the Rotary Club can help in a post-COVID society.
Discussions were also focused on obtaining more members for the Rotary Club itself.
Project ideas include joining businesses together to tackle homelessness, joint scholarship with Zonta International, environmental projects, advertising for additional members, providing shade on Airlie Beach, and sporting club grants.
Members of the Volunteer Marine Rescue (VMR) Whitsunday brought forward the discussion of upgrading the signs at the boat ramp with QR codes, to better suit the growing population and numbers of people going out on the water.
“The number of people with boats and people going out to sea has increased dramatically,” Volunteer Marine Rescue’s Bruce Dahl said.
“The Rotary Club sponsored the signs at the boat ramps, but the problem is they’re all out of date now.”
“What we want to do is upgrade those signs to include QR codes and things like that, so if somebody is heading to sea and they’ve never used the boat before, they can scan that and get immediate safety advice.”
The topic of helping the homeless, through food packs and accommodation, was also heavily discussed.
Rotary treasurer Ian Johnston said, in order to get these ideas up and running, the club needed ‘more boots on the ground’.
“There’s a significant number of ideas, but the vast majority of those require a lot of activity to actually get out to the businesses,” Mr Johnston said.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have the foot soldiers on the ground to go out and door knock, or go around the business community.”
