Commerce Torquay welcomes new board members

COMMERCE Torquay has welcomed five new members to its board and is looking forward to a busy and prosperous 2022.

The not-for-profit business advocacy group held its annual general meeting last week, appointing Tom McGrath, Nicola Gladstone, Kate Wood, Valeri Tkatchenko and Ben Herde as non-executive board members.

Bells Beach Brewing’s Jeff Crow remains as president along with the six other executive board members – vice-president Robert Skehan, secretary Carmen Clifford, treasurer Greg Minter, Les Watson, Peter Petran and Michelle McDonald – taking the board to 12.

“We’re very excited to have new blood there,” Mr Crow said.

“We had a board meeting earlier this week trying to get a jumpstart on dates and stuff for next year.”

He said the mood among traders heading into 2022 was very optimistic.

“Everyone’s pretty confident that the government’s got all these lockdowns behind us, and everyone’s played their part, including the community, and now everything’s open and full.

“I’m in the same ballpark as everyone else running a business; having to put up with your business going from running at about five per cent output to 120 per cent output in a very short period of time has created its own challenges.

“So we’re all looking at bigger and better things.

“Everyone I’ve talked to is very happy about what we’re doing and where we’re going.”

He said all of Torquay and surrounds was anticipating the return of the Rip Curl Pro to Bells Beach in April.

“I can’t wait. Everyone’s really, really pumped for that.

“It’s such an iconic event in not only the world calendar but also the Australia psyche – everyone for a year is keen for that one event, it’s right up there with the Australian Open tennis and the Test cricket.

“It really hurt the actual soul and fabric of the town not to have it.

“We understood and supported the government in all that (cancelling the Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach for the past two years), but now it’s time to make sure it’s bigger and better over the next few years.”