Why business chambers are critical

In this episode of Doing Disasters Differently, Renae is joined by John de Rooy, a respected business and community leader with a strong background in regional development and business chambers. A leader of the Malanda Chamber of Commerce in Far North Queensland, he’s spent years helping local businesses stay connected, supported, and resilient - especially in times of disruption.

This episode explores the vital role of business chambers in regional communities, highlighting how they foster resilience, support local businesses, and collaborate with emergency services to prepare for and recover from disasters. John de Rooy shares practical insights from Malanda, North Queensland, demonstrating the power of community-driven initiatives.

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Transcript

Renae Hanvin (00:07):  

Hello and welcome to Doing Disasters Differently: The Podcast with Renae Hanvin, which is all about inspiring you to start thinking and doing disasters a little bit differently too. Hello and welcome to this episode of Doing Disasters Differently with Renee Hanvin. I am really excited. I know I can't say this at most podcast starts, but I'm really excited about this one because we're talking about why business chambers are critical and everyone who knows me knows how much and how passionate I am about business communities. I'm talking to John DeRoy and he's a respected business and community leader with a strong background in regional development and business chambers. He is the leader of the Malanda Chamber of Commerce in far North Queensland and he spent many years helping local businesses stay connected, supported and resilient, particularly in times of disruption. Now I like to start with how I meet people.  

(01:10):  

Now I've never met John before and in fact, this is the first time that we've seen each other albeit virtually. So I was introduced to John as part of some work we're doing in the Tablelands region and he straightaway was like, "Yes, Renee, what are you doing? How can I help?" So to me, he's the epitome of what a fantastic person leading a business chamber, particularly in a regional community is all about. So I'm very, very excited to talk to John today. So welcome.  

John de Rooy (01:41):  

Thank you, Renae. Thank you for having me.  

Renae Hanvin (01:44):  

Oh, in fact, I think you're my first business chamber person, which I'm a bit surprised about. Oh no, actually, I think I did one about five years ago. Now Malanda, tell me where is it and what's it like running a business there?  

John de Rooy (01:58):  

Malanda's about an hour and a half southwest of Cairns up in the mountains. So we're about 750 meters above sea level. So even though we're in tropical North Queensland, we have an ideal climate of living in the rainforest, a lot cooler, about seven or eight degrees cooler than the tropical coast. So ideal area to live. The weather is quite often wet and rainy because we live in the rainforest, but that's really nice too. Malanda's a small country town where the main industries here are dairying and farming and a famous Malanda milk factory. We have a population in town of just over 2,000 people and probably a further thousand people in the neighboring countryside. As of many country communities, we're seeing strong population growth here as people search for a better lifestyle away from the city. To survive in business here, you need to be trusted by the local community and deliver consistent products and services that build your reputation.  

(02:55):  

We find that return business and consistent growth is largely driven by word of mouth in a small country town like Malanda.  

Renae Hanvin (03:04):  

And I'm going to touch on this a bit more in a minute because I actually have total FOMO, which is of course fear of missing out because Fiona from my team has been up in the Tablelands region and has been delivering some workshops and I was really excited to come up and see the community and see the little businesses, but I've been lucky enough to speak to so many business people in the community as well. And I think it sounds like a typical regional community whereby everyone knows each other and everyone, I guess, is supportive of each other to an extent, but also I guess everyone knows what everyone is doing. And I think business is obviously a key part of a thriving community. Would you say that in Milanda, that particularly the small businesses are really central to a thriving, resilient town?  

John de Rooy (03:53):  

Yeah, definitely. I think speaking from my experience, small business here has to be very adaptive to be able to move quickly when things change, but also be part of the community, because I think being a trusted part of the community and business goes a long way to ensuring your business continues.  

Renae Hanvin (04:11):  

Definitely. And I've been in the disaster space for 20 plus years, not that you'd know, of course. And I've always called small businesses the untapped golden nuggets and communities because the people who run the businesses, they're so connected into their employees, their suppliers, the local customers, the local community and many of them really do provide essential, not essential as well, but essential products and services. So when disruptions occur, I think small business people don't have the recognition that they should have, which is what I'm certainly trying to advocate and drive because they're often first responders when disasters occur, but they're also, they know the community and connected into the community so well. Now, business chambers, from your perspective, what role do business chambers play in strengthening community resilience in the before, during, and the after stages of disruptions?  

John de Rooy (05:07):  

Yeah, just speaking from my experience in Malanda, it's fortunate that we have some volunteers in the Malanda emergency team that are also chamber members. So we've established a very good link between the emergency team and business in the town. This strong link now ensures that when we have an impending cyclone, we have at least 30 stakeholders from business, sporting and community groups who meet with a disaster emergency team to check off readiness for the whole community. And this group remains active all the way through to recovery. It's very strong and all the leading business people are in it so they can prepare their business as well and ensure that the general public is looked after as well.  

Renae Hanvin (05:46):  

I love that. See, John, this is exactly why I needed to talk to you as a great example of what I would say in theory, best practice business chambers, because if you've got that cohort and you understand that having people who are in emergency management or leadership roles as part of the chamber so you can all come together, I guess, plan and prepare for how you're going to prepare together, respond and help each other and then recover because you do live in a extreme weather prone area, I guess that's awesome. Has it come about kind of naturally? Was it running and then people just sort of joined or did you just strategically go, "Oh, who else do we need here and how can we build those partnerships?"  

John de Rooy (06:32):  

I think it started because the local disaster management group in Atherton encouraged the small towns around the Atherton Tablelands to get involved and I think they've done a great job in encouraging all the small towns with their groups to get involved and make sure that we build networks in the country areas as well. Then we become the eyes and ears of the LGMG so they know what's going on because when there's a cyclone bearing down, you don't want to look out the window.  

Renae Hanvin (07:01):  

Totally. And I love that. So everyone's sitting in a government type role, please, please play this back again because as John just said, the small business people and the business people in the communities can have the eyes and the ears, they're on the ground, they're living it every day in the communities. They've got so much to contribute. So supporting the chambers and the business groups is going to help everyone, including those in government roles to do their jobs as well. And I love the fact that the local emergency group identified that and reached out to the business people. That's like super, super cool. Now, John, as you know, because you've been very amazingly supportive, every time I've reached out to you, it's like, "Hi, John, Renee from ready here. Can you help me share a survey or Fiona's coming up to town? Can you round up some of your business people?  

(07:46):  

" So we're delivering business ready together across the table and other regions in far North Queensland at the moment, which is all about microlearning. So that nudge theory, we're nudging people along in five minute learnings to build their knowledge and capabilities and just change some of the ways they do business so that they're doing better business in the good times, but they're really prepared for those challenging times ahead. And Fiona delivered a session recently, so she sent me a FO. Again, I had major FOMO. What did you learn from her experience that will help you and other businesses in your local  

John de Rooy (08:21):  

Area? Yeah, it was a really good idea for you to send Fiona or Fiona to come up here on a extended holiday if that's what it was because he and her husband, very personable and their personal experience in surviving the Kangaroo Island fires resonated firstly in that Kangaroo Island has a very similar population to Malanda and surrounds. So their experience, we could easily relate to what might happen here in a major cyclone. Her messages sort of reinforced the need to have more than one income stream and to build good personal relationships with your insurer and the trade people who you might need to help you rebuild. Also, she emphasized that you got to be prepared to work smart in the rebuild and recovery stage. And she also pointed out that there can be some positive opportunities that arise from a disaster as well. Like in her case, they were able to house all the recovery workers at their caribou park, which helped them to financially rebuild after the fires.  

Renae Hanvin (09:17):  

Yeah, I love that she's on an extended holiday. She's actually working, but she does. She gets in her caravan with her husband, Mark, and they cruise around to talk to communities because it's also important for her to actually spend some time in the community too, which I love. So she actually comes in and cruises around and then goes out and then comes back in to run the sessions. But yeah, she said, I think there's some interesting themes that come through too. And Fiona and I call them kind of aha moments where I think a lot of people, I guess, fall into business and they end up running a business, but perhaps they're not really great at business because you might be a chef who loves to cook and you go, "Oh, I'm going to start a restaurant." Well, it's not just about kind of cooking, it's obviously running the restaurant so that you're making a profit.  

(10:00):  

And I think a lot of people, including me, it used to be as well that you're so focused on, I guess, the tasks that you like doing, like serving your customers or whatever it might be, that those foundational components have been running a business are actually, you either don't know it or you don't really know what you should be doing or you're just sort of shooting along. So it's sort of like running along like a hamster. And I think Fiona, from what she shared with me that a lot of just the basic things like having three revenue streams, because if you've only got one and as you say, a disaster occurs or if the tourism sectors hit, et cetera, and then that you have no money coming in, then you have no business. So yeah, it's been really interesting her feedback as well as to what resonated with the local businesses.  

(10:47):  

And a key part of the program is that we've actually got 10 modules. So we did a survey up in the region to identify 10 themes that over 12 months the local business people have access to. And it's also about, I guess, creating these themes so that the chamber and other business groups and obviously the council and the great team at the table and regional council can kind of help keep the conversation going. So Fiona comes up and we share a program and then it's got topics that you in the community can keep talking about. Is this kind of information helpful for you so that you as a chamber can then, I don't know, once a month or something for the next 10, 12 months, keep those conversations going?  

John de Rooy (11:32):  

Yeah, I think so. We've got 10 topics that we've identified, three of them unique to this region, like outages of power, road closures because of landslides, our cyclones, communications, keeping the credit cards working in your business. So these were interesting things that we added in the tablelands area that you've adopted within the program. So that's really important for us to make sure the program is relatable to our local community and local business. One of the ones we found the most critical was that the lack of power, the loss of electricity, because usually when a serious cyclone hits up here, you can lose electricity from anywhere from a week to two weeks. So we've experienced the last cycle in here, Jasper, where we all lost power for like three or four days. So to actually have some resilience in your business so you can cope with that is really important and it's a major major effort and expense to set it up.  

(12:28):  

A lot of businesses have a generator set up or a solar battery set up. The long power outages cause because of the ergon and the tradespeople need to repair the network that's been damaged by this fire claim. And then one of the most important disruptions that affects everyone and there's a loss of communications because when the power goes out here, the mobile phone towers and the NBN towers are functioning. So that really leaves people with no communications at all, which is upsetting and difficult for people to deal with, but also quite dangerous if there's an emergency that they need assistance with and they can't get out with a message. So to assist with emergency common communications, our disaster group is building a UHFCB network in the country so that we encourage the community to add this to their get ready procedure and hopefully if they have no power at least they have one method of communication to get out and call for help.  

Renae Hanvin (13:25):  

And that's so cool and so important. And it's having those like what if, I guess, conversations. So like, what if the power goes out? How do we communicate? But I love the fact, again, a great example of local proactiveness to identify, well, this is probably what's going to happen so we need something different. And I think we actually filmed a couple of case studies with local business people. I know Jenny and Joanna from the local region, which was so great because that's what's really, I think resonates, as you say, when you can make the program relevant to the local area and then they see some local faces as well talking about their experiences. And again, you are a major support in identifying people for that. So thank you. Now going back to the chambers. So business chambers, again, I think are so important and really, really, really critical in many, many communities.  

(14:15):  

And I think they're slightly underrated and maybe underfunded because as we know, most of them are run holistically by volunteers. So in the disaster ecosystem, so obviously all the different stakeholders that exist in the disaster space, do you think that business chambers are recognized enough?  

John de Rooy (14:35):  

I'm not sure about greater areas outside of our local area. I don't have experience in that, but certainly on the Athena Tablelands, a link between the chambers and the community groups to the local disaster management group, LDMG, it's been built up over many years and is very strong. So I think in this area it's very positive and the TRC, the Tablelands Regional Council and the LGMG realize the benefit of building relationships with chambers and community groups. The Athens Tablelands is a community of small towns and rural living. These groups become the eyes and ears for the LDMG at disaster times. So they realize that is extremely important to keep a view of the whole Tablelands region. A small community like Malanda, the chamber's able to lead the business and community groups to engage in emergency management field. And also the fact that a small country town has a very neighborly and trustworthy character, the community is able to help those in need at difficult times because generally people are very generous.  

Renae Hanvin (15:42):  

Yeah, definitely. And I think, I mean, again, I think you are certainly showing a great practice or best practice approaches to the role a business chamber can play in connecting with council, et cetera. So what's the future's focus for the Malanda Business Chamber? What's on your horizon?  

John de Rooy (16:01):  

Well, we're currently building a new website as a vehicle for running a renewed membership drive. We've got 65 members in the chamber here, which is really good for a small small country town this size. It's really positive. But we feel that if we can adequately explain the benefits of membership, particularly we've got a lot of newcomers to town, then there's a good scope to increase the numbers. And our chamber, we have a vision which says to unite the Malanda Chamber of Commerce members to foster a sustainable progressive community. So the chamber's continually looking for ways to improve deliverability for all the community. This means that's equally an objective of ours as well as fostering good business practices. The good thing about this area too is that every small community group like the Lions Club, the CWA, the RSL, all these groups have great volunteers and we all get together with each other as well.  

(16:57):  

So the chamber becomes a bigger group in itself because of its relationships with other community groups.  

Renae Hanvin (17:05):  

Well, it sounds like just exactly as I've mentioned a few times, a great example of how chambers and the community and the emergency services, et cetera, all come together and collaborate. So a perfect example of social capital, I think I'd have to say. Now I always finish by asking the same question. So what two things would you like to be done differently in the disaster space, John?  

John de Rooy (17:27):  

Well, as I probably mentioned, the electricity issue is huge because Queensland's such a diverse, huge place when you have power outages, it takes a long time to get things repaired. So a big improvement for areas the government could provide reliable backup power to mobile and NBN towers in the country, which means to have decent batteries and solar or decent generators to ensure the communications are not lost in long times of disaster. As I said earlier, we can find this a problem with an emergency occurring or just people's mental health to be able to continue to communicate through times of disaster. Secondly, I think there's a real need to cater for the homeless and the people in need when we have these disasters to have a readily open place of refuge that people could come to and include in that area a home for their pets because we find that if we have a place of refuge, people won't come to it if they need to leave their pets at home, of course.  

(18:25):  

So it's important to have this area for people to come to when disaster strikes.  

Renae Hanvin (18:32):  

Yeah, that's great. I think there's some work done in ... I can't actually remember who did it, but I think there's actually been quite a bit of work. It might've actually been in Victoria around recovery centers that had pets. I worked with the Braidwood Serviceman's Club, which is actually like a golf club in New South Wales and they had actually got some grant funding. Mind you, this is back in about 2021 to set themselves up so the golf course could actually become a place that could take in horses and different pets. So I think you are absolutely spot on, John. I would not be leaving my house without taking my beautiful cat Norman. So yeah, having places whereby everyone has a place to go and they can take their pets is absolutely imperative. Thank you so much, John, for talking with me. We've been talking about why business chambers are critical and the role they play.  

(19:22):  

Again, you clearly are a fantastic leader and have got a really great, I guess, collaboration of business people and then councils and other people in community organizations in Malanda. So thank you so much for all your help and support in us delivering the program and it's been really great to chat with you today. Thanks so much.  

John de Rooy (19:41):  

Thanks, Renee. It's been a pleasure. Thank you.  

Renae Hanvin (19:52):  

I hope today's episode of Doing Disasters Differently, the podcast has inspired you to think a little bit differently about the role you can play before, during, and after disasters. Given the new era of more frequent and compounding disasters that we are now in, let's work together to build an all hazards disaster resilient future for all. Find out more about the work I'm leading as a social enterprise, building disaster resilience at resilientready.org. Don't forget to subscribe to doing disasters differently than podcast through your preferred platform, we'll see you next time when we discover new ways of doing disasters differently together.