That's what I feel like I've become, the sustainable sales lady, selling sustainability to Bundaberg!

On Saturday we had SustainaBundy flyers and business cards on a table at the Organic Gardeners group fundraiser with Tom Wyatt from ABC Radio, and by the end of the day nearly all the flyers were gone - welcome to our new members, and to those who might be thinking of joining us! Please feel free to reply and introduce yourself to the group!

Last night we had dinner at a local restaurant who sources a lot of their food locally - of course we gave them a business card and told them about the guide! Which reminds me, we now have generic SustainaBundy business cards with our logo and web address on them, with space on the back for members to write in their own information when they're talking to people in the community. Don't hesitate to contact us to get a stack for your own use. Anytime you visit a business within a 160km radius of Bundaberg (this includes Hervey Bay, Childers, Biggenden, Gin Gin, Miriam Vale, 1770, the lot!) be sure to suss them out and see if they're appropriate for the guide - let's develop those relationships! We also have unlimited @sustainabundy.org email addresses - if you would like one, just drop me a line.

I've taken this week off of work, so I can concentrate on pulling together advertisers and content for the 2008 SustainaBundy Directory and Guide. I spent the morning on the telephone with about 10 potential advertisers, giving them the SustainaBundy spiel and asking if I could email them some information about us and our guidebook project. Then of course, I emailed out several copies of the Information Sheet and Rate Card. I have another long list of people to contact tomorrow.

Dean worked on writing one of his articles for the guide (we still have some unassigned articles, if you'd like to contribute please don't hesitate to reply and put up your hand!) while I tracked down what information I could about legitimising SustainaBundy (getting an ABN, a TFN, a bank account, incorporation, etc). Dean and I are scheduled to meet with the folks at Bundaberg Community Development Friday morning to learn more. It may be necessary to incorporate or seek auspicing before we can accept money from advertisers. This may make it necessary to push all of the guide deadlines back a bit to accommodate. I'll keep you all posted.

While we were out running errands, we dropped off our application to become members of BMRG (cost: $1) and stopped in to a couple of local businesses and dropped of info sheets and rate cards. Coming from 13 years in the broadcasting industry in the US and spending a lot of time around advertising salespeople, this all feels awfully familiar - with the exception of the fact that we're not simply selling a bit of air time or some space in magazine or newspaper. This is much, much bigger than that, and we have the power to vastly change our region for the better. Chip in!

Oh, and before I forget, now that we're really getting a lot of members, I think it's time to schedule another get together. We're home all this week, so please hit reply and let us know if and when you might be able to stop by our place to talk relocalisation! Hope to see you all soon.