A week of paper-stuff: legals and financials--budget finalisation for Toowoomba and almost there for the Bay, hiring of new marketing assistants for SiQP, and contractual arrangements for travel providers.  Anita is working with great thoroughness and very impressively, to get our tourism marketing into top gear.  We were working against the clock as the USQ lawyer was leaving at week’s end on leave, and another deadline made life that bit more pressured than I needed.

 

The big disappointment was finding out that I can’t be at the launch of SoTB.  It is being held in the morning of December 15, and that afternoon I am chairing the final meeting of the USQ 2007 strategy committee, and hosting Christmas drinks with all and the Mayor and V-C.  Still, Scott and Stafford and Anne are heading up there to fly the flag and get some work done.

 

 

The costume shop  is starting to move along as well.  Carolyn Taylor-Smith the designer assisted by Edward Foy (Macbeth-to-be) spent a day on Tuesday working on creating costume “special effects” with foam rubber materials.  I’m sure the guys at Clark Rubber would have been not a little amused or perhaps bemused, to see a young man and a mature lady excitedly checking out their stock of rubber thonging and other materials.  I would love to have been a fly on the wall.

 

The end of the week saw a flurry of emails and communication with the OC team at Fraser Coast who are steering Shakespeare on the Bay.  Their first meeting on November 28 was later than I had expected, and the result is that there is some probably justifiable anxiety by them that they are behind in their planning.  This needed some quick intervention.  A trawl through the minutes of the meeting, several phone calls and emails later, and I was able to leave the office last night feeling that some of this mild level panic had been assuaged!  At least some key players are now making the connections they need.

 

And then I had the rumblings of an idea this week about the obvious lack of tourism infrastructure for the city and the region.  Met with Cr Michelle Schneider for a welcome end of year drink on Tuesday night at the Spotted Cow pub downtown.  Ruby is one of the organising committee for the Festival, and has the TCC portfolio for cultural development and tourism for the city.  She’s keen to speak further on developing what I think could be a grant to get some development money from the state.  I’ve mailed the V-C on this, and hope that his support means we can get cracking on developing a good submission.  The lack of contacts with hospitality providers by our tourism industry has been an absolute eye-opener for me.  Simply amazing!