Well-Being Australia had developed for this Whitsundays main land coastal rural area 20 minutes south of Proserpine an Art Prize, a community on-line newspaper (www.mpbnews.org) and the third project was establishing an annual business luncheon.
All this had come about as Well-Being Australia developed the "Basil Sellers Laguna Quays Respite" cottage which opened in 2011 for missionaries home and abroad to take timeout and has been phenomenally utilised with a constant stream of double booking enquiries.
This in turn had been chosen as there had been 9 years of visiting the area on our Well-Being Australia Country Town Tours with athletes and coaches (Whitsundays and Mackay) so one led 'hand-in-glove' to the next (as it were).
The Basil Sellers Midge Point Art Prize was initiated last year with the launch of the 2014 Art Prize on Saturday 10 May and in July last year when the small hard copy local newspaper on A4 paper (The Chronicle) closed it's doors, the same people came on board for an on-line version which one of young writers, Josh Hinds, created for the community.
Sandwiches at the Business Luncheon
Business Luncheon
There are 1200 people in the Midge Point – Bloomsbury area and only a handful of businesses compared to say the Tweed Heads region where we live with 75,000 people. Developing a business luncheon was not going to be an easy thing.
Yet for the past three years I had developed many links in this small business community and being a member of both the Moruya and Tweed Heads Chambers of Commerce I felt there was a good line in this instance for such a community event.
And so it was, Thursday 8 May after considerable publicity and the effort of Bloomsbury resident and home business mum Stephaine Laffin, the Midge Point – Bloomsbury business luncheon was launched.
Three years of community action illustrating that Well-Being Australia was a giver and not a taker bore good fruit and a broad cross section of the business community attended representing property development, real estate, building, SES, restaurant, home business and others.
Mark with property developer John Lyons
The gathering met at The Point Tavern who in turn provided sandwiches and took three distinct but interwoven directions.
First was my introduction and preliminary comments from a pastoral experience where a family with their children at university sought advice as to how they might financially maximise their wealth encapsulated in their family home. They sought the advice of a building consultant, a builder, a real estate agent and a financial planner. Everyone came back with conflicting advice and in the end they did nothing.
Then using the internet a web site depicting the local area was bought to the screen illustrating employment, housing, community, income, ages, occupations which created considerable discussion.
But not as much as the third component that of discussing the Commission of Audit's recommendations to Government. For the following 50 minutes those at the business luncheon waxed lyrical within a setting of safety and with like minded concerns.
The consensus was that this should become an annual Midge Point event and with this community event so welcomed, it illustrates that a little imagination creates a breadth of ministry.
Horses on Midge Point Beach
Dr Mark Tronson is a Baptist minister (retired) who served as the Australian cricket team chaplain for 17 years (2000 ret) and established Life After Cricket in 2001. He was recognised by the Olympic Ministry Medal in 2009 presented by Carl Lewis Olympian of the Century. He mentors young writers and has written 24 books, and enjoys writing. He is married to Delma, with four adult children and grand-children.
Mark Tronson's archive of articles can be viewed at www.pressserviceinternational.org/mark-tronson.html
