	{"id":91667,"date":"2023-03-14T04:56:55","date_gmt":"2023-03-13T17:56:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/ballarat\/?p=91667"},"modified":"2023-03-08T12:10:15","modified_gmt":"2023-03-08T01:10:15","slug":"combined-not-for-profit-opens-new-branch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/ballarat\/news\/combined-not-for-profit-opens-new-branch\/","title":{"rendered":"Combined not-for-profit opens new branch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A MERGER between two aged care and disability support services now has taken physical shape with an office in Ballarat.<\/p>\n<p>With Merrimu absorbed into Annecto in 2019, branch staff celebrated their launch in Wendouree last month.<\/p>\n<p>Carolynne Smith, general manager for the Western Grampians region said the new space will be a contact point for the organisation\u2019s offerings.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis was a logical next step to have a retail space where people can come in and have a talk about what services we offer,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was to let everyone know Merrimu is still important to our clients and are now part of Annecto.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBefore this, Merrimu were based at our group services in Alfredton and Annecto were more Melbourne-based.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The not-for-profit provides home care packages for people in the region and variable NDIS support.<\/p>\n<p>Merrimu was established in Melton in the 1970s with a focus on western Victoria and branched out to Ballarat in 2014 while Annecto started in the 1950s and has 16 offices Australia-wide.<\/p>\n<p>Ash McNeight, acting operations manager for specialist support said the new space gives the organisation a physical presence for the community.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s good just having a real space where people can come in and chat,\u201d he said. \u201cThey may not want to know about services. They might walk past and be curious about what we are.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe want to try to get more of that community involvement in here as well. It doesn\u2019t just have to be groups we facilitate.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A MERGER between two aged care and disability support services now has taken physical shape with an office in Ballarat. With Merrimu absorbed into Annecto in 2019, branch staff celebrated their launch in Wendouree last month. Carolynne Smith, general manager for the Western Grampians region said the new space will be a contact point for [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/ballarat\/news\/combined-not-for-profit-opens-new-branch\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":198,"featured_media":91668,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-91667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Combined not-for-profit opens new branch - Ballarat Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/ballarat\/news\/combined-not-for-profit-opens-new-branch\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Combined not-for-profit opens new branch - Ballarat Times\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A MERGER between two aged care and disability support services now has taken physical shape with an office in Ballarat. With Merrimu absorbed into Annecto in 2019, branch staff celebrated their launch in Wendouree last month. 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Photo: TIM BOTTAMS\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\\\/ballarat\\\/news\\\/combined-not-for-profit-opens-new-branch\\\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\\\/ballarat\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Combined not-for-profit opens new branch\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\\\/ballarat\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\\\/ballarat\\\/\",\"name\":\"Ballarat Times\",\"description\":\"\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\\\/ballarat\\\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\\\/ballarat\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\\\/ballarat\\\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Ballarat Times\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\\\/ballarat\\\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\\\/ballarat\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/logo\\\/image\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/static.timesnewsgroup.com.au\\\/prod\\\/uploads\\\/sites\\\/9\\\/2021\\\/10\\\/BALT.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/static.timesnewsgroup.com.au\\\/prod\\\/uploads\\\/sites\\\/9\\\/2021\\\/10\\\/BALT.png\",\"width\":739,\"height\":98,\"caption\":\"Ballarat Times\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\\\/ballarat\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/logo\\\/image\\\/\"}},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\\\/ballarat\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/ef2cb0351151f52788a4263e854228dc\",\"name\":\"Tim Bottams\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\\\/ballarat\\\/author\\\/timbottams\\\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Combined not-for-profit opens new branch - Ballarat Times","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/ballarat\/news\/combined-not-for-profit-opens-new-branch\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Combined not-for-profit opens new branch - Ballarat Times","og_description":"A MERGER between two aged care and disability support services now has taken physical shape with an office in Ballarat. With Merrimu absorbed into Annecto in 2019, branch staff celebrated their launch in Wendouree last month. Carolynne Smith, general manager for the Western Grampians region said the new space will be a contact point for [...]Read More...","og_url":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/ballarat\/news\/combined-not-for-profit-opens-new-branch\/","og_site_name":"Ballarat Times","article_published_time":"2023-03-13T17:56:55+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1000,"height":667,"url":"https:\/\/static.timesnewsgroup.com.au\/prod\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2023\/03\/IMG_9692-scaled-e1678237798640.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Tim Bottams","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Tim Bottams","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/ballarat\/news\/combined-not-for-profit-opens-new-branch\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/ballarat\/news\/combined-not-for-profit-opens-new-branch\/"},"author":{"name":"Tim Bottams","@id":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/ballarat\/#\/schema\/person\/ef2cb0351151f52788a4263e854228dc"},"headline":"Combined not-for-profit opens new branch","datePublished":"2023-03-13T17:56:55+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/ballarat\/news\/combined-not-for-profit-opens-new-branch\/"},"wordCount":252,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/ballarat\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/ballarat\/news\/combined-not-for-profit-opens-new-branch\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/static.timesnewsgroup.com.au\/prod\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2023\/03\/IMG_9692-scaled-e1678237798640.jpg","articleSection":["News"],"inLanguage":"en-AU"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/ballarat\/news\/combined-not-for-profit-opens-new-branch\/","url":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/ballarat\/news\/combined-not-for-profit-opens-new-branch\/","name":"Combined not-for-profit opens new branch - Ballarat Times","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/ballarat\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/ballarat\/news\/combined-not-for-profit-opens-new-branch\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/ballarat\/news\/combined-not-for-profit-opens-new-branch\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/static.timesnewsgroup.com.au\/prod\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2023\/03\/IMG_9692-scaled-e1678237798640.jpg","datePublished":"2023-03-13T17:56:55+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/ballarat\/news\/combined-not-for-profit-opens-new-branch\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-AU","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/ballarat\/news\/combined-not-for-profit-opens-new-branch\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-AU","@id":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/ballarat\/news\/combined-not-for-profit-opens-new-branch\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/static.timesnewsgroup.com.au\/prod\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2023\/03\/IMG_9692-scaled-e1678237798640.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/static.timesnewsgroup.com.au\/prod\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2023\/03\/IMG_9692-scaled-e1678237798640.jpg","width":1000,"height":667,"caption":"Contact point: Annecto Ballarat\u2019s Carolynne Smith and Ash McNeight are two of 12 staff members at the recently established Wendouree office. 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