Hi Peter,
Thanks for the email and thank you for the work Mainstreet Australia are doing supporting small businesses and shopping strips in these unprecedented and ever changing times.
Our shopping village, Maling Road in Canterbury, usually buzzing with 70 busy retailers has slowly reduced to essentials – food and health. Some of our cafes have adapted to Take Away and are keeping things ticking over – thank goodness for coffee addictions!
Our Marketing coordinators, Stavros and Circe from Marketa, have been so incredibly professional and invaluable during the past few months and we have needed them to such a large degree, that while initially they thought they would be out of a job, they have actually never been busier – communicating with our Traders, our Committee and Council. Many of our older Traders who do not use their own social media are especially being assisted by our Coordinators. The information that they are supplying around financial assistance, negotiations with landlords and letting our customers know how they can continue to support Maling Road has been coming daily.
Due to this ever changing landscape I know that I could not manage my own business and distributing all of the necessary information to our Traders without them. It has been stressful enough working on my own business, I really had little time or capacity to help 70 more Traders. That is what Stav and Circe have done and we thank them from the bottom of our hearts. I would definitely support any initiative to keep them employed. We really could not get through this without them and WHEN this is over we will need them to relaunch. Please let me know if there is anything that the Maling Road Business Association can do to assist going forward.
Keep well,
Athena Katopodis
Practice Manager
President Maling Road Business Association
