New business group

By Jade Lawton
BUSINESS groups in Berwick, Narre Warren, Cranbourne and Hampton Park will soon work in unity under an umbrella organisation.
The Berwick Village Chamber of Commerce, Cranbourne Chamber of Commerce, Narre Warren Chamber of Commerce and Hampton Park Networking Group joined forces on Friday for this year’s second Monash University Berwick Business and Education Group (MUBBEG) breakfast.
The group was established to link the university’s Berwick campus with local businesses. It meets every two months for a breakfast seminar, with guest speakers invited to present a topic of interest to small businesses.
Berwick Village Chamber of Commerce president Harry Hutchinson said the move would benefit all businesses concerned.
“We will join together, rather than each struggling along in our own little way … we have a little growing to do, and we need to look at it hard and decide an easy-to-remember name,” he said.
Narre Warren Chamber of Commerce president Bob Burns said the respective groups first came to a loose agreement two to three weeks ago.
“We have agreed to establish five business breakfasts next year, with each hosted in turn. This is an innovation we have been moving towards for some time,” he said.
Mr Burns said the group would be able to forge strong links with secondary colleges, Monash University and Chisholm TAFE, which would be beneficial for both employers and students.
“This is a really positive step in the right direction. We believe it’s a really valuable initiative for our members and the community – university leavers need to find employment and employers need to find good workers,” he said.
Deputy Head of Monash’ Business and Economics Faculty, Danny Khoury, said the seminars helped the University engage with the community.
"We see it as having benefits for all concerned – from the Faculty’s point of view, we get timely feedback from the business groups about issues of importance to them. This enables us to schedule events which will be informative to business and help it deal with those issues. As the relationship develops, the Faculty hopes that this will lead to useful research opportunities for its academic staff," he said.