Santos links Narrabri and Roma chambers

A new relationship has been formed between the Narrabri and District Chamber of Commerce and Roma’s leading business body following an introduction of the two groups thanks to Santos.

The two organisations recently met when the Santos Festival of Rugby was held in Queensland following its successful event held in Narrabri last February.

“It was a brilliant event for Narrabri with Santos investing heavily,” Mr Stewart said.

Because of the effort Santos put into the Narrabri event, Mr Stewart said he promised to attend the Roma festival.

Mr Stewart travelled to Roma with his wife Louise, who is a chamber committee member, and Santos put Mr and Mrs Stewart in touch with Roma Commerce and Tourism.

“They are a terrific group,” Mr Stewart said.

“They don’t know life without Santos.

“Santos has been in the region for almost 60 years.”

Mr Stewart said the Roma business group was delighted to meet with the Narrabri chamber.

“There are a lot of similarities between Roma and Narrabri,” he said.

“We agreed that the Roma and Narrabri chambers would form a mutually beneficial working relationship.

“Santos is a long-term partner of both chambers.”

Mr Stewart said both groups planned on holding reverse visits in the future, and Roma’s group would visit Narrabri when the town hosts next year’s festival.

“We’re all very excited and grateful that Santos has linked us up,” he said.

“This is another example of Santos’ desire to support and link communities.”

While in Roma, Mr Stewart said he had the pleasure of meeting a number of farmers who have had generations working alongside Santos.

“They said that partnering with Santos has provided them with an extra stream of guaranteed income allowing for the expansion of their operations and providing the ideal vehicle for ongoing family succession in overall business plans,” he said.

“Succession planning is a huge issue for the bush and is critical for our future. Chamber will be conducting an open Succession Planning Forum in The Crossing Theatre on March 23 to address this issue for Narrabri.

“The farmers said Santos was critical to the ongoing healthy growth of their own business and the entire area.”

Mr Stewart said the Narrabri chamber was one of the very few organisations that openly and deliberately supported Santos from day one.

“This support in all forms of media often lead to relentless attacks from those opposed to the industry. At the time it was almost impossible to recruit other supporting locals to openly join chamber in our effort as they invariably told us they feared attack on them and their business,” he said.

“However, they continued to privately support chamber’s stance. This was often a very lonely place for chamber to be. Of course, this situation has changed in the past two years since both state and federal governments have openly and seriously supported the Santos operation in Narrabri.

“In the beginning, chamber conducted 32 free information dinners in Narrabri featuring long time respected experts in the CSG field in order to provide accurate, quality information on operations and methods.

“These events allowed locals to gather industry facts in order to form a considered opinion on the industry.

“In excess of 700 people attended these events over the 32 deliveries.

“Chamber continued to publicly support Santos at all levels of government, industry and communities as we do today.

Mr Stewart said chamber has the strong belief that the healthy growth of Narrabri and district hinges directly on the commitment to and the retention of the region’s quality young people.

“Without this, we simply cannot survive as a healthy, vibrant community. To achieve this retention, it is critical to provide a variety of quality long term varied careers and professions so that our quality young people can commit, remain and happily contribute to this wonderful region and community,” Mr Stewart said.

“There is little doubt that healthy growth in the bush predominately comes from within. Organisations like Santos have the capacity to provide such careers whether this be from direct or indirect jobs and careers. This is the very reason our chamber took up the cause and supported Santos publicly from the very beginning despite finding this a very lonely position to take at times. Chamber has conducted numerous open community and industry information and introductory events not only relating to the CSG initiative but all other quality opportunities for our community.

“My trip to Roma to meet the Roma chamber and wider community definitely justified Narrabri chamber’s long term supportive stance with Santos.”