(It was) an important part of Eurobodalla's business history, way back in 2002, when Southern Phone was created by some locals from Moruya, who had a vision for a not-for-profit telco that would support councils around NSW. Those local persons, along with $4.77 million funding from the Australian Government, set up a business model which proved to be a success; so successful that their customer base expanded beyond NSW to councils from Cape York to Zeehan and from Bega to Broome.

The idea of a not-for-profit telco centre in Moruya was based on one objective: to create "jobs in Moruya and the shire". Southern Phone became one of the big employers in Moruya, currently employing 115 part-time permanent employees from the shire.

The Moruya Business Chamber has been told by Southern Phone that over the past years, with the introduction of the NBN, the telco business is challenging and difficult and it requires tier-two telcos like Southern Phone to grow or leave. The proposed sale of Southern Phone to AGL indicates that the Moruya based telco wants to grow.

The sale agreement for Southern Phone states that for the next three years it will be "business as usual", a statement that is welcomed by Moruya Business Chamber. Moruya is a low-cost, high-quality option for high-quality Australian-based call centre services and the best outcome for Southern Phone and the shire is for AGL to grow the Moruya site, be committed to NSW South Coast regional jobs and in return receive support from business and residents of Eurobodalla Shire.

Over the past 18 years Southern Phone has been a success story for Moruya and the shire; now with AGL diverging into the telco business through the purchase of Southern Phone, Moruya Business Chamber and shire businesses are counting on AGL to become part of the Eurobodalla business environment for the long term.

I'm the manager of the Eurobodalla Health Service physiotherapy department and wanted to publically acknowledge a lovely act of kindness recently bestowed on us.

The donation was sparked by a previous client of ours, who identified during his treatment, post total knee replacement, that the small skateboards were an excellent resource for moving the knee post-operation.

He had a stay in our Sub-Acute Rehab Unit and then was a member of our "Bees Knees" outpatient exercise group on discharge. Both of these services previously had one skateboard that was shared between clients. The outpatient group can have up to eight clients at a time, all with recent knee replacements. Unbeknownst to us, he approached the Tuross Head Men's Shed to enquire about them making us an additional skateboard. The Shedders went one step better and their president Wayne Brockman and secretary Ray Wilkes turned up to our October staff meeting with four new skateboards!

As you can see in the above photo, they are already being put to good use and as a department we really wanted to acknowledge their kindness and support.