I hope you find my writing and business tips and observations useful. My business and blog are dedicated to helping businesses communicate clearly and reach their potential.
Read, subscribe to my newsletter, enjoy!Tash
Victorian small business info line
Consumer Affairs Victoria has opened a free phone line specifically for small business people.
As a small business in Victoria, you can now get
- free information about your rights for products and services that don’t meet your expectations (did you know small businesses have rights to repairs, refunds and replacements like other consumers?)
- free information about resolving disputes between businesses
- a better understanding of relevant laws
- somewhere to report scams aimed at small businesses
You can access the info line by calling 1300 098 631 or emailing small bu******@ju*****.au – or find out more on the CAV website.
If you’ve used this service, what was it like? Did it help you get thins sorted quicker than you could have done by yourself?
Books for fire affected Victoria
I just found out about a book appeal at Borders. In short donate a good quality book to them (or buy a new book as a donation) and it will go to a school or library in a fire affected area. What’s more, Borders will match your donation with a cash donation of the retail value of your book (as if new) – the money will also go towards restocking the schools & libraries.
Getting books back to those communities seems important to me – a chance to ‘get away’ from the fires for a little while and give a sense of normalcy to them, plus helping those children learn.
I also like this idea for those of us who are given already and can’t give much more even if we want to. Donating books you don’t need doesn’t cost you anything but could make a huge difference to those who lost everything in the fires earlier this month.
I hope Borders have a lot of boxes to collect these books…
** The red cross is still taking donations if you prefer to donate cash.
Back from cuboree!
At the end of March, I wrote about joining 4,500 scouting people at the 5th Victorian Cuboree. I’ve been back home for a bit over a week now and am still exhausted from it, but figured it was time to report back!
The camp was a lot of fun – we were busy with activities all day and entertainment at night, lots of fun and walking around in the bush (well, the bush with lots of people and tents anyway!) We arrived on the Monday and came home (late) on the Friday.
We had some extra excitement with massive storms on the Wednesday – the worst to hit Victoria I heard, with winds hitting 130kms an hour! We were in the area of Victoria worst hit so we certainly were aware of the storm, lol. We spent nearly 8 hours in a strong marquee (rated to 90 km winds) with over 700 cubs and leaders, plus support staff – the kids coped with it really well which made the experience manageable. As leaders, we were really proud of how the cubs behaved well and accepted the limitations forced upon us – they lived up to their honour and promise of doing their best. In our pack, we had one tent damaged beyond use and two tents we considered at risk from a branch so we sent 12 of our cubs (plus some leaders) to sleep in the marquee although the rest of use slept in our usual campsite.
The entertainment consisted of a group of four wanderers looking for the 2010 Australian Jamboree – finding the 1908 jamboree, Rio’s carnivale and cuboree instead! Many of the cuboree cubs are now looking forward to attending jamboree.
I enjoyed being with the cubs – most of whom I didn’t know beforehand, plus three from my home pack – and we had a great bunch of leaders in our pack, too. Will I go again? I’d definitely consider it! Seriously, if the circumstances were right for me personally, then yes I would go again – but would ensure I had some extra time off to recover afterwards!
Would I send my own kids to the next cuboree (age limits allowing of course!), most definitely – I think it is a great experience for them.
Have you ever been to something like cuboree? Is it something you look back on fondly?
And I even learned a few things that may just come in handy as a writer and business owner 🙂 Watch for upcoming blog posts!
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