It’s official.
The Oberon Visitor Information Centre was named the best in NSW at a prestigious gala dinner hosted by Mike Whitney at the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre last week.
Our Visitor Information Centre won the Rod Murdoch Memorial Award for Visitor Information and Services against centres from much larger and well-known areas of the state, including Moree, Lismore and Nimbin, the Clarence River and Coast.
The Oberon, Blue Mountains and Jenolan Caves’ tables at the dinner were by far the noisiest, but the cheers were never as loud as when the girls from the Oberon Centre were awarded the coveted title.
It has been a long and hard road to reach this point. The awards were judged on a extremely detailed 30-page submission written by manager Jennifer Youman, which had to cover many aspects of the centre, including product, business plan, marketing, customer service and professional development, and sustainability and innovation.
The Centre then had two on-site inspections by regional and state judges in June and September, and some pretty intensive interviewing by the judges.
Evidently they were impressed, commenting that the passion and sense of fun they witnessed at the Oberon Centre was above and beyond anything they had seen anywhere else.
Jennifer said the judges were also extremely impressed by how the Centre used innovation to achieve its goals on a small budget, such as having wonderful photos of the district to promote Oberon through running the annual Photographic Competition.
Manager Jennifer Youman said she first entered the Centre in the awards not for the Centre itself, but so that Oberon people could have pride in their little town.
Jennifer said the team at the Centre, which includes Debra Marks, Joanne Barton, Lynne Causer, Sharon Gibbs, Sarah Cully, Vanessa O’Neil, Nicky Schrader, Megan Booth and Bethany Richards and herself, have all earned the award, as well as Director of Corporate Services John Chapman, who Jennifer named in her acceptance speech as “the best boss in the world”.
Jennifer said the difference at the Oberon Centre is that they do not content themselves with just handing out information, but show a sense of pride in Oberon itself.
“The Centre is a team effort, and our submission was about our casuals, our lack of money but innovations on how we managed to get things done, it was about our pride in this place, about how we believe in Oberon and its community, about working with other state government bodies due to limited funding getting more advertising done, and the information and knowledge that we all hold and share with visitors,” she said.
“Visitors aren't just a stastic for the future here. We want them to come back again and again to experience what we love about Oberon,” she said.
The Oberon Centre will now go up against the state winners from across the country in the National Awards to be held early next year.
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