The SBIA Surf Industry Summit had 85 attendees representing both brands and retailers.
Our day commenced with Industry stalwart Dougall Walker delivering the Industry keynote as an interactive questionnaire with our compère Damian Campbell.
Our agenda also included two important speakers; Environmentalist and Free Surfer, David Rastovich and Surfrider Foundation Chair, Susie Crick. Susie, reminding us of the all-important role Surfrider plays in the preservation of our oceans and Dave informing us of all of the proposed exploratory oil drilling in the Great Australian Bight and how our brands can get on board to help.
As part of his presentation Dave showed attendees a letter which is a statement of concern from the Australian surf industry, Dave is rallying to secure support from our brands to be included in the list of people on this letter and to get behind this cause. If you would like a copy of this letter for your brand or retailer to be involved, please email Lyndall at admin@sbia.com.au
We were also lucky to have Brian Walker from Retail Doctor deliver an informative session on the Australian retail outlook followed by WSL Chief Executive Officer Sophie Goldschmidt, who provided an insight into the evolving WSL World Tour which we look forward to hearing more about over the coming months.
For our interactive session, Clinton Fraser from Davidsons conducted a session with our attendees around small to medium enterprise concerns and provided a great example of a one page business plan.
For our final session in the agenda, the Summit had a facilitated panel discussion including Brian Walker, Phil Nicolle, Paul Burdekin and David Watson run by SBIA President Anthony Wilson with topics ranging from current issues facing Australian retailers, to shopping centres’ approach to leasing.
We would like to thank all our volunteer presenters for taking time out of their busy schedules to deliver their valuable content to our group. If there is any information you would like to obtain from these presenters please email admin@sbia.com.au
The next SBIA round table event is proposed for October this year, the date and location will be published on the SBIA website and newsletter.
