The GALTA team headed to Melbourne for the Midsumma Carnival over the weekend 9th-12th February for what turned out to be a brilliant success at many levels.
Jeff flew in from Airlie Beach, Peter from Adelaide (quick ‘day visit’ on Saturday for the Board Meeting), Brenton & Stephen from Adelaide and Phil from Alice Springs.
Some of the team in Melbourne.
Friday evening’s networking function held in the lovely back garden area of Ian Johnson’s 169 Drummond Street (gALTA MEMBER # 11) was just delightful. Our sincere thanks to Ian (and his little dog Daisy) for sharing their home with us for a few hours. Ian has been a very long time GALTA member and supporter so him being able to host us was just tremendous. A lovely, well maintained and inviting property. 169 Drummond has served the gay & lesbian travelling community well over many years and is a firm ‘return stay’ experience. The GALTA team were joined by several local members and a few interstate ‘fly-ins’ including the boys from All Gay Cruises, Vincent & Jane from Pink Pocket Guide and Gary from Tasmania.
Saturday’s meeting was agenda-packed and busy. Apart from the usual meeting procedure, we warmly welcomed our New TNQ representative, Jason Pask from G&L Escapes who joins us with a very impressive track record of network building in the region. Queensland boasts by far the largest membership of any jurisdiction in Australia with a huge range of gay & lesbian travel product. Jason will work to build strong links with all those businesses and we welcome his local product knowledge and experience. Jason will also work closely in that networking arena with Josh & Shannon from The Pink Guide. Josh was also able to make the board meeting so we were keen to learn from him as to ways in which we can build the GALTA branding into the region.
We also welcomed to the team Tony Filippi, GM of Mecure Hotel in Ultimo, Sydney. Tony has become the regional rep for the Sydney area and will be another great asset to have on board. As with Queensland, we want to build the GATA branding into the very busy and thriving Sydney networks and welcome Tony’s support to help us build this.
Much was achieved in the meeting and we look forward to growing ourselves forward over the next several months.
The highlight of the weekend was our attendance at Midsumma Fair Day in the beautiful Treasury Gardens in the East Melbourne area. Following some early morning rain, the day blossomed into a stunningly sunny one. People flocked to the venue to bask in the warmth and investigate all that was on offer. We had something like 3,500 people through our marquee from 11am – 6pm, which was just fantastic!! Member brochures & collateral literally flew off the stand!! Many thanks to Brenton & Stephen who took time out from their busy family visit schedule over the weekend to deliver several boxes of TSDs and other member collateral they’d driven with from Adelaide. They were also able to assist with the set-up, which was very helpful. The larger, more ‘fluid friendly’ marquee set up allowed lots of people through the space with lots of questions about domestic travel options and some overseas. Jeff & Phil along with the ‘boys from Queensland’ assisted the visitors and fielded many of their questions. It was a very successful day indeed.
Phil Walcott
NT Regional Director
18/02/07
