{"id":125238,"date":"2024-01-17T04:32:42","date_gmt":"2024-01-16T17:32:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/surfcoasttimes\/?p=125238"},"modified":"2024-01-11T10:36:53","modified_gmt":"2024-01-10T23:36:53","slug":"les-watson-made-life-member-of-commerce-torquay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/surfcoasttimes\/news\/les-watson-made-life-member-of-commerce-torquay\/","title":{"rendered":"Les Watson made life member of Commerce Torquay"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>COMMERCE Torquay has honoured long-time member Les Watson with life membership of the organisation.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Watson received the award at the Torquay group&#8217;s annual general meeting and Christmas celebration, held at the Torquay Wine Store last month.<\/p>\n<p>His invovlvment with the organisation dates to July 2011, when he was invited to a committee meeting of what was then known as Torquay Commerce and Tourism.<\/p>\n<p>The president at the time, Martin Duke, invited Mr Watson to run a customer service session for the businesses of Torquay, which was attended by more than 80 people.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Watson later joined the committee and has served under then-president Barry Sutherland and incumbent president Jeff Crow ever since, running the Business Breakfast events and After Surf networking events.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Watson said the life membership was a total surprise to him.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_125239\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-125239\" style=\"width: 249px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-125239 \" src=\"https:\/\/static.timesnewsgroup.com.au\/prod\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/01\/LesWatson_47010.jpg?_t=1704929668\" alt=\"\" width=\"249\" height=\"522\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static.timesnewsgroup.com.au\/prod\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/01\/LesWatson_47010.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/static.timesnewsgroup.com.au\/prod\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/01\/LesWatson_47010-143x300.jpg 143w, https:\/\/static.timesnewsgroup.com.au\/prod\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/01\/LesWatson_47010-489x1024.jpg 489w, https:\/\/static.timesnewsgroup.com.au\/prod\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/01\/LesWatson_47010-768x1610.jpg 768w, https:\/\/static.timesnewsgroup.com.au\/prod\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/01\/LesWatson_47010-733x1536.jpg 733w, https:\/\/static.timesnewsgroup.com.au\/prod\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/01\/LesWatson_47010-977x2048.jpg 977w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 249px) 100vw, 249px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-125239\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Les Watson with his Commerce Torquay life membership. Photos: SUPPLIED<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think one of the vice-presidents said to me the year before &#8216;You know you&#8217;re next in line&#8217;, but it was just a throwaway line.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I do what I do, and I&#8217;m going to do what I do, and the rest just happened.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When I first started, I didn&#8217;t have a business in Torquay; hilarious!<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;People would ask &#8216;But why are you doing this?&#8217; Because of the love of the people, the town, the whole shebang &#8211; it was just what I wanted to do to help, and here we are a decade later.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I like community, I like the opportunity to put people together, and bring people together, the networking opportunities.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Mr Watson is well known in Torquay as the MC of the Business Breakfast and After Surf events, which have pulled crowds of more than 100 people at their pre-COVID peak.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_125241\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-125241\" style=\"width: 424px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-125241 \" src=\"https:\/\/static.timesnewsgroup.com.au\/prod\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/01\/RobertSkehanVP-Le_55397-e1704929720763.jpg?_t=1704929723\" alt=\"\" width=\"424\" height=\"565\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static.timesnewsgroup.com.au\/prod\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/01\/RobertSkehanVP-Le_55397-e1704929720763.jpg 768w, https:\/\/static.timesnewsgroup.com.au\/prod\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/01\/RobertSkehanVP-Le_55397-e1704929720763-225x300.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 424px) 100vw, 424px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-125241\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Robert Skehan, Les Watson, Martin Duke and Jeff Wall.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Because I&#8217;ve done very large gatherings in Sydney, I said to myself &#8216;We can do that here in Torquay; it&#8217;s not hard&#8217;,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We did the first one, and it was so successful&#8230; it literally was &#8216;We&#8217;ve done this one, who&#8217;d like to put their hand up to be the next venue?&#8217; and someone in the crowd said &#8216;Oh, we&#8217;ll do that&#8217; and it just continued to snowball from there.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Mr Watson has two existing businesses, Get More Time and Creating Sucess Coaching, and will launch a third, Surf Coast PD &#8211; which stands for both &#8220;personal development&#8221; and &#8220;professional development&#8221; &#8211; in February.<\/p>\n<p>The AGM saw Jeff Crow re-elected as Commerce Torquay president, with the rest of the board for 2024 comprising vice-presidents Robert Skehan and Sarah Minter, treasurer Anthony Santilli, secretary Carmen Clifford, and committee members Les Watson and Will Hamilton.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>COMMERCE Torquay has honoured long-time member Les Watson with life membership of the organisation. Mr Watson received the award at the Torquay group&#8217;s annual general meeting and Christmas celebration, held at the Torquay Wine Store last month. His invovlvment with the organisation dates to July 2011, when he was invited to a committee meeting of [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/surfcoasttimes\/news\/les-watson-made-life-member-of-commerce-torquay\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":125242,"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-125238","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 v27.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Les Watson made life member of Commerce Torquay - Surf Coast Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Torquay Commerce celebrates long-time member Les Watson with life membership. 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