www.bingara.com.au Goes LIVE!

June 6, 2007

The launch of Bingara’s website www.bingara.com.au gives Bingara a window to the world, according to Bingara and District Vision 2020, Garry McDouall.

About 60 people attended the launch at the Roxy Theatre on Friday night, and were, in the words of Vision 2020 website committee chairman, Don Capel “marched through” the site by website developer, Tim Blakely and website manager Georgina Sinclair. The website was projected onto the large screen, enabling all in attendance to see how the site works.

“(The development) represents a very significant development for the community,” Mr. McDouall said. “We of Vision 20/20 have been beavering away for the couple of years of our existence to put together a package of material to promote the town and district.

“We started with the ‘Imagine’ brochure, we then went through to work with the community to develop the Vision document, which ties in with the Strategic plan and the management plan of Gwydir Council, and now we have the website.  “This gives us a pretty formidable set of tools from which to promote the town and district.”

Mr. McDouall said the website, which he described as a very sophisticated and attractive site,  meant that the many backpackers who came through Bingara over a number of years could “access their memories” by logging onto the site. “It also gives us a promotional tool which can be refreshed and updated. In that way, it is very superior to the traditional printed medium that we have used for promotions.

As an interactive tool, people can give feedback on areas they are interested in, enabling the identification of specific target markets.

Mr. McDouall said the website was a very valuable tool for business, education and communication.

He thanked committee chairman, Don Capel, for the development work he had done towards getting the website up, and website manager, Georgina Sinclair, who he described as “dedicated, enthusiastic and fastidious.”

You will have seen a lot of announcements, the new hospital, the Bingara Narrabri Road which has the potential to change our tourist outlook, all sorts of interesting things happening at the Roxy, all present Bingara as a ‘happening place’ and I think this website will play a very important part in that,” Mr. McDouall said.


Garry McDouall, Georgina Sinclair, Tim Blakely, Don Capel

Committee chairman, Don Capel said that the importance of the internet as a marketing and communications tool is increasing every day. “We may or may not enjoy messing about with computers and the internet, but we are aware of the value of the internet as a marketing and communications tool.

“Bingara now has a site that will fill those roles, and of which I hope the community will be proud.”  “The site is a community site, instigated by Vision 2020, but is owned by the Bingara community, and is for the benefit of our community of Bingara,” Mr. Capel said.

He said the website would be used to promote Bingara to the world, and to by used by local people to keep informed about what is happening in the local community.

“Bingara tourist officer, Jenny Mead, has been involved in the project right from the beginning, and we thank Jenny for her input.

“Use (the site) to keep with what is happening in the community. We see the role of the website as being a totally different one to role of the newspaper, and we see that the two will complement each other as time goes on.  “We have been working with Nancy Capel to mesh those two roles in together so that we will work together.  We have been aware, right from the very start of this project, of the valuable role that the local newspaper has in a small community like ours.

Homepage
“I have a goal that within a very short time, every computer in Bingara will have bingara.com.au as its home page, and if  we encourage everybody in the Bingara community to have bingara.com.au come up every time they turn on their computer, we are well on the way to achieving what we want to achieve.

“We all know that Bingara has a very generous and supportive community. This has been underlined to me numerous times during the time that we have been working on this project,” Mr. Capel said.

“Principal of the Bingara Central School, Peter Macbeth has allowed us extensive us of the facilities of Bingara Central School, the technical facilities are top notch.

“Erik and Noelene Ozols heard us talking about how we were going to organise things, and Georgina said that we really need a lap top computer.  Erik and Noelene said they had one they were not using, and gave it to Georgina to use.

“Martin Hansford, the guru of sound, made sure everything is in order for tonight, Martin came in and made sure everything was right, and then came and rechecked, and came back again and double checked, he is wonderful person generous with his time as well.

“Gwydir Shire Council is underwriting the project for a year, to allow us to get the project underway, and we are very appreciative of that. Without this we just would not have made a start.

“Georgina has contributed well above and beyond the call of duty, she was employed by 2020, she is employed one day a week, closer to seven days a week. I think we should also recognise, Scott and the girls, for their work in assisting Georgina.

“Finally all those other people who have taken an active interest in development of the site, from the spelling checkers and the very productive ideas people, who have regularly been in contact with Georgina or myself or Garry, it takes everybody who is involved in this thing to make it work.”

Mr. Capel explained the site will be funded by business advertisers who will pay to promote their businesses on the site. “Community groups and not for profit organisations will be given the opportunity for a presence on the site at a reduced cost,” he said.

“The site will be continually upgraded to make sure all the information contained within it is right up to date.

“If we can get everybody in the community using the site, it should come up very high on search engine searches.”

Mr. Capel explained the more use the website has the higher it will come up on search engine searches. “We need the support of everybody in the community  to achieve our goal, of promoting our district  in the very best way possible,” Mr. Capel said.

Story courtesy of The Bingara Advocate.