Managing director of Ebono Institute and major sponsor of The Generator, Geoff Ebbs, is running against Kevin Rudd in the seat of Griffith at the next Federal election. By the expression on their faces in this candid shot it looks like a pretty dull campaign. Read on
Scott McDonald is a partner in McGarry’s, treasurer of the South West Chamber of Commerce, an advocate of tax reform and a farm boy in the big smoke who still gets a wistful look in his eye when he talks about the land.
Westender spoke to Scott about the challenges facing business today as seen through the eyes of a chartered accountant and business adviser – that’s how McGarry’s formally describe themselves. We started with an overview of the firm itself.
McGarry’s is a small partnership, not terribly interested in becoming a big one. The partners do not want the organisational challenge that comes with more than a dozen people. The firm has plenty of business, mostly small to medium enterprises, with the median around the $10,000,000 per annum mark and no client reaching much beyond $100,000,000 per annum.
Their preferred clients, though, are dynamic, growing organisations.
“It’s not only more interesting, there is actually a lot of satisfaction in helping someone build something up.”
Scott joined McGarry’s from Price Waterhouse Coopers, where he was just another employee in a big corporation. He did not want the challenges of a single partner consultancy – “it can be a bit lonely” – mostly because he values the input and balance of expertise that colleagues can offer.
McGarry’s deals mostly with organisations employing ten or more people. There are similar challenges, though, to many smaller companies.
“The lack of resources means that there is not always sufficient expertise to deal with complex issues. It is hard for the owner to step back from the business and work ‘on the business not in the business’.”
Scott knows this is not as easy as it sounds. As an accountant and financial adviser, he understands all too keenly that bringing that expertise in-house adds overheads which eat into the bottom line. He observes that every business is different but it is always difficult for the owner to step back from the hands on process of making money and invest the time into planning strategically.
One of the satisfying things about seeing his clients grow is observing the economies of scale kicking in. He notes that external requirements, such as compliance with regulations, handling tax and so on are much easier in larger companies.
When I push him in why McGarry’s has chosen to stay small, he notes that success does not depend on growth, but growth does provide some interesting accounting challenges.
“That’s the stuff that is fun to do,” he says with a twinkle in his clear blue eyes.
Scott is one of the many business operators you can meet at the South West Chamber of Commerce. (www.chamber.org.au – I know, it’s a great URL, isn’t it?) and Westender plans to work closely with the Chamber to deliver the resources that business needs.
If you have a business story that might be of interest to other Westender business readers leave a comment below or contact me directly on info@westender.com.au
Your correspondent made the grave error last night of leaving the sane madness of 4101 and heading into the suburbs to see the new movie Gravity.
I will not mention the movie for the moment, other than to say “I loved it”, because Gina Baker’s review will appear here after she dishes it out in her dulcet tones to the listeners of 4BC on Monday morning.
No, this piece deals instead with the unbelievable horrors inflicted on me by the well-meaning but totally-misguided management of the Cinebar at Rosalie.
Now it is only fair to frame these remarks with the observation that I go to the movies to engage in narrative escape therapy.
If I want to view a film-maker’s output and nothing more, I head over to PirateBay or my favourite legal download site, thank you Mr Plod, download and view.
If I want to show someone else, I whip up a hoummos, pick whatever is fresh from the garden, invite them over and connect the household media server to the downloaded item.
I head to the movies when I am sick of my house, my own company, social interactions and the everyday.
My absolutely favourite form of narrative escape therapy is a brilliant performance with live people on stage of some form, but that is not always affordable or available.
My love of the movies is on the record, see my ode to iMax from July. A good 3D action film there offers an immersive experience equivalent to bungee jumping out of a plane into a waterfall.
So, with my colours nailed firmly to the mast and a clear conscience, I can now tell you what unfolded at the Rosalie Cinebar when I went out of West End last night.
A queue – nothing unusual there, though the impatient people behind me who thought it unfair that they should have to queue when their movie started in five minutes should have warned me in large flashing letters PRIVELEDGE, PRIVELEDGE, PRIVILEDGE.
A $21.50 ticket price. Paying $8.50 for a 2D movie in Cinema 5 ($10.50 for 3D) might have spoiled me but the only thing that prepared me for a price north of $20 was the fact that everyone in the foyer had a glass of wine and an ancestral memory of Bubbles at BIFF lulled me into thinking that there might be a drink inlcuded in the ticket price.
A half hour wait on choc-tops. “Give me your seat number and I’ll bring them into you, I’ll just have to get them ready.” And yes, Thomasina, I did check with them that they had heard me correctly and that we were talking about the humble choc top. “They’re out the back, I just have to check that they are ready.”
Now, I’m not the sort to taste the wine and send it back, I don’t argue with chefs: I took these first three signs that Dorothy and I had left Kansas in my stride. Vive la difference, this is all part of the adventure of going outside one’s own postcode and visiting foreign parts.
Full bar service is available right into the most gripping part of the fillum
An expensive cinema with handcrafted choc tops and snooty customers? Hey that’s what some people call living.
I sat in the foyer as Dorothy enjoyed her dry-cider and watched the XRay women and fat-rich-white-dudes soak up the pretension of atmosphere.
As we wandered into Cinema 4, I began to understand the deal. The seats were in pairs, with a little table between them, spaced out at intervals that would make a five star European restaurant green with envy.
The lighting was lush and low, and every table was lit with a downlight that highlighted the drinks and canapés of those who had been served already. The Cinebar is a cinema restaurant. Well more accurately, a cinema-bar.
My pretension gland finally kicked in, shaking loose the shoulders, pulling the cheek muscles into a smile. Hell, I had paid more than twenty bucks to see a movie, now I was going to live a little. Look at me, I’m as pretentious as you are.
And then?
And then the movie started but the choc tops had not arrived. This was a little disconcerting. I don’t mind seeing a movie without a choc top, but if I am going to eat in the movie, I like to be prepared before the movie starts. I want to be able to focus on the fillum and I do not want to rustle papers or packets and interrupt the other fillum goers around me. A little bead of anxiety settled into the pit of my tummy, corrupting the purity of the Narrative-escape-therapy.
And then?
And then the waiters started creeping in and out, putting things on people’s tables, taking away dead sailors and new orders. That, I found totally disconcerting.
As you know, this is my escape.
I want to leave the world, this world, and I want to enter the world that the film maker has created. Completely.
I want to immerse myself in surround sound, a crystal clear screen that completely fills my vision.
I do not want people creeping around me, hovering over me, asking me if there is anything they can do for me. I can get that at a restaurant, strip club, corporate box at the football or some of my more elegant friend’s houses.
So when a cheese platter with olives, crusks, dip and big flat biscuits arrived, I waited a moment, conferred with Dorothy as quietly as possible and agreed that this could explain the reason that the ”chock tops” had to be prepared before they could be brought to us.
Our conclusion?
“Give it a few moments, then tuck in.”
About seven minutes later, I began munching happily on haloumi, sucking the oil off the olives and crunching on the crackers. Yum. The pretension gland had almost overruled the anxiety and narrative escape therapy interruption annoyance.
And then?
And then a different wait person arrived and said that there was a half hour wait on the choc tops and did I want to wait or order something else.
What I wanted, actually, was to watch the movie. That was, after all, the purpose of driving across the river through some inner northern suburbs and looking for a parking spot after all. Since the movie had already started and was incredibly gripping and intense, I did not bother to say all this I just waved the wait person away and got back to the business of escaping.
And then?
And then the first wait person arrived again with another plate of food including a bowl of chips.
“Mate, there’s a mistake,” I said. “I didn’t order all this.”
“You didn’t order this food?”
“No I ordered a couple of choc tops.”
“Choc tops?”
“Yes. Ice creams.”
“What about this?” – wait person indicates half eaten plate of food and waves insistently.
“Mate, just leave me alone. I want to watch the movie. We can sort this out later.”
Of course, at home, if you are interrupted you can press pause and then rewind and get yourself back to the point where it all went pear-shaped. But at the movies you trade this flexibility for the total immersive experience where you are in the moment and can experience everything the characters in the movie experience at the same pace they experience, well … that the movie maker wants you to experience it.
From that point of view the CineBar offers the worst of both worlds. My movie has been interrupted, irrevocably, I have blown my money on an expensive movie ticket and on some hand crafted choc tops which have somehow morphed into a cheese platter. Into the bargain I have had an argument with a waiter that I did not ask for and am decidedly unsettled and distinctly anchored to this world not the one the film maker has offered to take me to.
And then?
Well after what turned out to be, thankfully, a great movie, I felt much better and headed back to the candy bar to get the missing choc tops. The young serving person was surprised I had not been given my money back and offered it to me on the spot. I took discretion as the better part of valour and the eight dollars fifty cash, found Dorothy and left.
And so, dear reader, your correspondent humbly suggests that you consider the so-called advantages of the combined cinema restaurant in detail before you head for distant climes to see a moving picture in such surroundings.
Do not let my personal feelings influence you. Indeed, I have been most diligent in ensuring that you are fully informed of my personal foibles, preferences and prejudices. I relate this tale in such detail to simply ensure that you have all the facts at your fingertips when you next make your viewing decision.
I thank you for your attention and if you get to taste the choc-tops, please tell me what they’re like. I’m now intrigued.
Perks! – the Yarts Minister gets up close and personal with a dancer from Circa
Queensland Minister for the Yarts, Ian Walker, told balletophiles at the Brisbane City Hall on Monday night (See Queensland Ballet 2014 story) that one of the surprises of becoming responsible for the Yarts has been drinking Chablis, eating oysters and seeing Ballet at that crowning jewel of Queensland culture, the Ekka.
“The Ekka sure has changed since I was a kid,” he quipped to a ripple of laughter from an empathetic audience.
Now, Westender actively promotes the art of being genuine and open as a fundamental starting point for success in business, public life. (See last week’s John Buchanan story) There is no point in belittling Ian Walker for growing up like most Queenslanders with the great outdoors and the rugby as the main cultural reference points, and European culture as a distant and vague ancenstral memory.
What is important, though, that those of us in the Arts, art administration or public life, recognize and deal with the natural tension between the highbrow arts that largely survive thanks to taxpayer funding and the interests of the broader populace.
Chair or the Sydney Opera House Trust, Kim Williams rips into Mark Latham as a prime example of a proud philistine in the lead article of October’s The Monthly.
He quotes Latham, “Classical music, opera and ballet are insufferably boring. But that’s how the elites like it, safe in the knowledge that people below their station in society are unlikely to join them in the jewellery-rattling rows of the Opera House.”
Then Williams tears him apart, describing the worship of ignorance as “similar in nature to creationism, with its willful sacrifice of science on the altar of personal opinion or triumphant, absolutist ‘belief’. It demeans the nation. Enough.”
Other commentators have made similar observations about the attacks on academics as being an elite, while billionaire miners are somehow seen to be “ordinary Australians”.
What is ordinary, or ‘normal’, is constructed in the media in much the same way as the enemy is constructed as less than human. When artists, musicians, dancers, single parents, gays, unemployed, disabled, academics and university graduates are all vilified as being something other than ‘normal’, we are left with a fairly small part of society that is supposedly unwilling to put up with the rest of us.
The trick used by the media and politicians is to claim that we are all normal except for <today’s target group>. That way, the fact that there is no ‘normal’ is never called into question.
What was really interesting at the Brisbane City Hall on Monday night is that there were lots of families, including quite a few that I know who live here in 4101, who had dressed in everything from their formal best to their favourite tutu, to find out what the Queensland ballet is going to do in 2014.
Queensland ballet director, Lee CunXin, has brought all the elegance and refinement of being Mao’s last dancer together with his great down to earth love of the people to create a program of popular classics that will bring the people to ballet. Nutcracker as a regular Christmas treat will create a tradition of ballet going that has a long term impact. The world premiere of a new production of Copelia and the Australasian premiere of Sir Kenneth McKillon’s Romeo and Juliette will build bridges between “ordinary” people and “highbrow” culture.
Let’s hope that Yarts minister, Ian Walker’s refreshing naivette and honesty about his lack of exposure to European culture segues into a genuine appreciation of the wonder of learning rather than a nasty put down of the higher things in life.
As the 16th of 19 ministers listed on the Queensland cabinet’s web page http://www.cabinet.qld.gov.au/ministers.aspx, with a portfolio that covers “science policy, strategy and investment, digital economy, chief scientist, innovation policy, strategy and programs, research and development coordination and planning, international collaborations, administration of Crown copyright and intellectual property, government information and communication services and delivery, archives, Smart Services Queensland, Queensland Shared Services, and Arts Queensland”, the Yarts are clearly not too high on the governent’s agenda.
It is up to all of us to make sure the government understands that we, the people, love Art and want it in our faces as much as possible.
Local West End artist Jaye Irving is one of the leading Australian artists exhibiting at Skygate’s Art with Altitude festival from 24 to 27 October 2013.
Jaye’s amazing 5m high bamboo sculpture, Steam Punk Flight, is one of 20 larger-than-life sculptures that can be explored at the free contemporary art festival, presented by Brisbane Airport Corporation.
Set on the greens of retail precinct Skygate; Art with Altitude is not your traditional art festival. As well as the amazing sculptures, the festival’s free, family-friendly, four-day program includes QAGOMA children’s art workshops, Queensland Theatre Company performances, live music and street performers.
JAYE IRVING – Steam Punk Flight
Steam Punk Flight stands as an edifice of times gone by. This five metre high bamboo sculpture alludes to exploits of Don Quixote and the lonely ancient windmills linking the vision of stream driven paddle boats encapsulated in lowtech woven bamboo.
Utilising the strength and natural flexibility of nature’s giant grass, this interactive child friendly sculpture hearkens to a time gone by… a ball driven interactive BOO machine.
Something about the beauty and natural elegance of bamboo has intrigued West End-based sustainable architect and bamboo artist Jaye Irving for nearly 12 years.
This intrigue has led him on a journey around the world exploring the fresh and flowing forms suggested and discovered within the vocabulary of Nature’s Giant Grass.
As one of the leading members of ‘The BooCrew’, a gambit of ephemeral structures have emerged filled with the fun and vibrancy of festivals and continue to explore the space between the modern and the ancient.
Governments favour street furniture that generates advertising revenue
For many years people have heeded the call and ‘done the right thing’ by using the bins. Now its Council’s turn.
“It’s important for council to continue its good work and lift its game to match the demands of a city with more and more people.” said WECA President Darren Godwell.
“This one isn’t a hard ask -Council just needs to double the number of rubbish pick-ups.”
“The physical constraints of the footpaths and the demand from many thousands of peoples rule-out the appropriateness of larger bins” added Godwell
Godwell points out that “standard, narrow footpaths can’t handle more people, more street signage, more outdoor dining, more clothes racks, more furniture and larger bins.
Council may find itself exposed to an increased public liability and potential payouts for failing to provide the public with safe and adequate footpaths in one of its highest traffic streets.”
As part of WECA’s Safer Streets initiative, the Community Association is asking City Council to increase the frequency of its rubbish collections from the public bins provided along Boundary and Melbourne Streets in West End and South Brisbane.
“It’s a public health and safety issue. When council approves all the extra outside dining plus approves all the extra bars and licensed premises over the last ten years it happily took the extra revenues from permits and applications. Council has pocketed the extra money, now its time to use those funds to sustain services.”
Since 1995 local business and community interests of West End have initiated urban improvements. A year later the result was Brisbane’s first ever Suburban Centre Improvement Program (SCIP) where fit-to-purpose street furniture and infrastructure refreshed one of Brisbane’s last remaining retail high streets. WECA members and founders were active in that local initiative.
Most of Australia’s finest musicians are suffering for their art, according to new University of Sydney research.
More than 80 percent of 377 professional orchestral musicians surveyed reported having experienced physical pain severe enough to impair their performance.
Fifty percent of the musicians reported moderate to severe performance-related anxiety while 32 percent had symptoms of depression.
The findings, published in the Psychology of Music online, are based on the first study to examine the relationship between self-reported performance-related pain, performance anxiety, and depression in professional musicians.
The research was undertaken by Professor Dianna Kenny of the School of Psychology in the Faculty of Science and Dr Bronwen Ackermann, School of Medical Science.
Their study of members of the eight state and opera orchestras in Australia has implications for how best to treat performance-related pain.
“The survey found 84 percent of professional classical musicians have experienced pain severe enough to interfere with their performance. Half of those surveyed reported that they were currently experiencing pain,” Professor Kenny said.
“There is a strong relationship between the severity of performance-related pain and music performance anxiety. Those reporting more severe pain also reported higher music performance anxiety.”
Music performance anxiety can manifest itself as trembling, shaking, elevated blood pressure and heart rate and cognitively as dread, worry, rumination or catastrophic thinking.
“Seventy-five percent of the musicians showed the expected relationship between pain and depression. Those reporting no depression were also more likely to report little to no pain. Those reporting some depression reported higher levels of pain,” she said.
Professor Kenny believes the respondents who reported pain but not depression warrant further investigation.
“Of most significance was a group of 25 percent of respondents who did not report depression but reported the highest pain severity.
“These results suggest some musicians might somatise their pain. This means that they may convert their psychological distress into muscle tension which leads to physical pain.
“The implication of these findings is that physically based treatments of performance-related musculoskeletal pain that do not address associated anxiety and depression might not prove to be effective,” Professor Kenny said.
