Chamber News

Last year the Loxton Chamber of Commerce introduced the Loxton Gift Voucher which is redeemable through all of our member business stores. This has proven to be very successful. The Riverland Weekly ran a story outlining the benefit to our Loxton businesses.

By BRAD PERRY

LOXTON’S business sector is on the cusp of a new retail era with the introduction of gift vouchers topping more than $10,000 since being introduced in August last year.
In December alone more than $6000 worth of vouchers was sold, with the local economy given a welcome financial injection.
In fact, Loxton businesses are investing money into renovations and infrastructure upgrades with two stores in East Terrace renewing signage after a number of years. Loxton Chamber of Commerce’ Sonya Altschwager said the voucher initiative means the money is being reinvested into Loxton.
“This is $10,000 that’s being regenerated back into our businesses,” she said.
“I think it indicates there is probably a good healthy increase in the local trades because the local economy is a bit more prosperous.
“Warners and IGA are two good examples that they’ve renovated the front of their stores.
“So the businesses themselves are starting to put more money back into their infrastructure, which is going to make the main street look attractive to locals and it just spread a positive confidence amongst the community.”
Currently the Loxton Chamber of Commerce is working on its strategic plan with suggestions to use the boutique style of shops to the town’s advantage.
“We’ve got a unique situation in Loxton where we have boutique style stores,” Ms Altschwager said.
“The majority of them are family owned and we don’t have any large retail shops and it’s those boutique village style shops that are becoming very popular for the tourists these days.”
A proposal for a playground will also help local trade, according to Ms Altschwager.
“For the local people, it’s going to be a really good drawcard and it will join the Anzac Crescent businesses through to East Terrace and grow our whole main street precinct instead of stopping at the roundabout,” she said.

Left: Leslie Golding (Loxton Newsagency), Sonya Altschwager (Business and Events Manager, Glenys Proud (Evolve on Terrace)

5 x $100 gift vouchers were drawn by 'Santa' at 10am on Saturday 24th December. The winners were:

Yae Schoenhenzel, Loxton
Aileen Phillips, Berri
Mr S Wilkinson, Loxton
Mary Manuel, Mindarie and
Dianne Harris, WA.

Congratulations to these lucky five winners and thank you to the Gold Member businesses who supported this campaign during a very busy time.

A new initiative from the Loxton Chamber of Commerce is a Shopping Guide highlighting all our member businesses.

The Shopping Guide will be available to pick up at our member businesses, Council office, the tourist outlets and the Visitor Information Centre. The motivation behind the brochure is to promote our members and their contact details, encourage business to business recommendations, educate and guide tourists and visitors to member businesses all the while reinforcing our message that Loxton Means Business!

So if you have friends or family visiting you at Loxton make sure you give them a Shopping Guide to assist them with their shopping choices.

It was an early start for a few of the executive members on Sunday the 14th, the annual Loxton Goes to Sale trading day where the Loxton Gift Voucher was officially launched.

After finding our way to the roundabout through very thick fog, our task was to create 2 displays of gift boxes on either side of the roundabout to draw people's attention to the Gift Voucher. Many positive comments were received, so we think our mission was worth the effort.

The executive committee would like to thank Riverland Cabinet Makers for painting the boxes for us and for those that donated boxes.

The Loxton Chamber of Commerce and their Gold Members will be having a special Sunday Trading day on 14^th August 2011 from 10am to 4pm. In addition to this promotion (traditionally known as ‘Loxton Goes to Sale’) we will be launching Loxton’s Gift Voucher, available for purchase from the Visitor Information Centre and on our website - click here.

The Pines and Historical Village are partnering with the Chamber and having a special event on this day too: Sunday Family Fun Day at the Pines from 11am to 5pm.

View the TV Commercials for this event.

The recent Loxton Chamber promotion was '500 reasons to shop in Loxton', where shoppers had the chance to win $500 when they purchased from any of the Gold Member businesses.

The lucky person to win the $500 was: John Wishart of North Adelaide.
The Chamber wrote to John giving him the great news and he contacted us to say he would be 're-investing the money back into the town' as they are planning another trip to Loxton in the next couple of months! 

Above: Friends of the Village president Melvin Fielke assists, Loxton Chamber of Commerce chair Bronwyn Proud in drawing the l500 reasons to shop in Loxton' promotion draw. 

Loxton residents can expect to see innovation in the way the town utlilses East Terrace in the future, after a number of community leaders attended the recent 2011 National Mainstreet Conference in Adelaide.

Mainstreet Australia is a member-based organisation committed to supporting the traditional village shopping strips and town centres across Australia.

Loxton District Chamber of Commerce president Bronwyn Proud was one local representative who attended the event, which was held at the National Wine Centre.

Mrs Proud said the conference was 'absolutely fantastic'.

"It was a full three-day program and we had lots of guest speakers and presentations," she said.

"There were lots of case studies on towns the size of about 1,500 people, right up to inner city suburbs in Melbourne and everything in between.

"There was a huge amount of information which came out of it".

According to Mrs Proud, the conference focused on the importance of traditional shopping strips for towns such as Loxton.

"It's certainly about creating a vibrant main street because it is the heart and soul of the town," she said.

"But it also encompasses everything around that as well, including the activities, infrastructure and community groups which all centre around the mian street."

Mrs Proud said she was hoping to apply some ideas from the conference to Loxton's main street.

"Our shopping strip in Loxton is absolutely ideal to implement a lot of the ideas and concepts other towns have done because of the way we are situated and positioned," she said.

"We're in the process of formalising ideas so that we can share them with all of the stakeholders in Loxton.

:Certainly there will be lots of exciting things which happen in Loxton once we tick all the boxes and get through the whole process, which will be very positive for the whole community."

In addition, Mrs Proud said community involvement and ownership in any of the innovations was the key to mainstreet philosophy.

Mrs Proud thanked the Loxton Waikerie Council for financially supporting her attendance at the conference.

"We've always had a really good relationship with the council and this just goes to prove just how strong that relationship is," she added.

This article was written by Stephanie Casha and appeared in the Loxton News 1/6/2011.

A Celebration Dinner was held at the Loxton Hotel on the 31st May.

The main aim was to bring our Chamber members together in an informal way and celebrate all the positive things that are happening within the Chamber and the Loxton community as a whole.

Bronwyn Proud (Chairman) and Peter Ackland (CEO Loxton Waikerie Council) both spoke briefly of how important it is to be working together for the common purpose of our town.

We received so many positive comments about the evening and will no doubt will organise another dinner in the future.

Above: Grenfell Koch, Mike Vowles and Gary Mudge.

Above: Trevor Petch, Bruce Schubert and Sonya Altschwager.

Above: James and Pauline Jachmann.

Above: Faye Taylor, Mitch Gibbs and Sally Searles.