Creativity and collaboration the key to boosting business, tourism and employment
A full house of local business owners, creatives, council and tourism personnel joined forces to brain storm how creative collaboration can boost tourism, business engagement and employment in Moree on Thursday 10th April 2025.
The hands-on engagement workshop was facilitated by Julia Warner of Jule Jarner and created connections between businesses and organisations and promoted creative ideas on how they can work together.
The workshop covered how to best gain engagement, examples of creative events, the importance of local event evaluation and data and included break out brain storming sessions. The groups had to come up with ideas on how to collaborate their different businesses into a joint window display, ideas for a signature event for Moree, how to increase awareness and engagement for businesses and events, and worked through a Creative Engagement Checklist.
Some of the innovative ideas included: several businesses sharing a shop space to split the cost of the rent and also divide the time required in the shop; large screen showcasing businesses and events, posters of events on in Moree, self-guided tours (QR Codes of audio, access maps, nature trails), music come and try sessions and jam afternoons, positive stories publicised, collaboration with school students.
Julia provided a wealth of valuable resources including: Sensory Exploration Stations, Think Outside the Box, Creative Engagement Checklist, and Key Stakeholders in Arts, Culture and Tourism.
Kate McGrath (Engagement and Development Manager New England North West Facilitator) and Vivien Clyne mentioned various grants available.
Vivien Clyne from Moree Plains Shire Council advertised that businesses will be able to put in an Expression of Interest to have a pop-up store for up to 3 months for only $1 and cost of the electricity bill. This is to create more foot traffic in the main street and fill the empty shops. Attendees were encouraged to register for the Moree Business Burst via a link on the MPSC facebook page recent post.
Tyler Macey promoted The Social Link monthly networking event where local business owners, creatives and professionals can connect and work on making these collaborations and ideas come to life. These will be held on the last Thursday of every month from 5pm – 7pm. Drinks and nibbles provided. A subscription fee is required.
Testimonials from the workshop include:
“Jules was an engaging facilitator. Great venue. Valuable networking, diverse range of ideas. Excellent choice of caterer. Thank you for hosting this workshop, encouraging businesses to collaborate.”
“Wonderful informative event.”
“Fantastic opportunity to network and inspire new creative ideas and steps forward.”
“Great fun to chat and remember why we love what we do.”
All attendees believed the workshop allowed for networking and contributing to ideas for Moree, gave examples of how creativity could be used to increase tourism, business and employment, and invited them to continue to collaborate and action the ideas moving forward. Attendees gave the workshop 4.8 stars out of 5 stars for stimulating ideas and collaboration for increasing tourism and business in Moree.
We look forward to continued collaboration, idea sharing and watching these ideas become reality.
This workshop was possible due to funding by the Local Initiatives Fund Workforce Australia.