John McVeigh (Groom, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Earlier this month the Toowoomba Chamber of Commerce hosted the 2018 Heritage Bank Business Excellence Awards at our wonderful historic Empire Theatre in Toowoomba, with the indomitable Lee Faulkner as MC. This was a tremendous event showing the innovation and enterprise of businesses—particularly small businesses—right across the Toowoomba region. About 400 members of the business community were there, and my daughter Marita and I were very pleased to be guests on the evening as well. I want to acknowledge some of the category winners. In tourism there was Round Square Marketing. Hospitality and heritage bank business of the year was Monkey Business Catering. In the industry category there was Electrical Sensations. Retail was Classic Beauty Therapy. Professional and business was Straney & Collier. Community and not-for-profit was Kath Dickson Family Centre. Innovation had combined winners: Straney & Collier and the Pulse Data Centre. It was very pleasing to see the best regional business being Tentworld and future leader of the year Jason Doig, Head of Operations at JJ Richards & Sons in Toowoomba. The 2018 hall of fame inductee at these awards was the wonderful Stahmann Farms. I acknowledge all of those winners and all of the nominees. It's great to see the energy coming out of the Toowoomba Chamber of Commerce, ably led by Joy Mingay, the president.

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