Amber Gardner appointed CEO MHARMB

The Board of Mount Hotham Alpine Resort Management Board (MHARMB) is very pleased to announce the appointment of Amber Gardner as MHARMB’s new CEO.  Amber has been appointed after a national recruitment search was conducted with over 70 Australian and international applicants for the role. 

Amber most recently held the position of CEO of Tourism North East (TNE), and joins MHARMB with extensive and relevant experience in tourism and Alpine resorts. 

As CEO of Tourism North East, she led the delivery of a range of strategic supply and demand tourism initiatives across the High Country, with visitation to the region growing by 43% and spend by 74%.  Successful projects included TNE’s cycle tourism masterplan, which attracted $12M in Government funding.  Her success has resulted from very effective collaboration, working closely with a significant range of diverse stakeholders in government and industry. 

Prior to her role at TNE Amber spent 10 years at Mt Buller as Director of Marketing Sales and Business Development.  This role included leading a team of 30 people in marketing and communications, visitor information, events, product development and operational functions. 

“Amber is well known and respected in the North East Community and has a real passion for the Alpine environment. She knows Hotham very well through her role at TNE,” said Maxine Morand, MHARMB Board Chair.

TNE Chair Ross Passalaqua congratulated Ms Gardner on her appointment.

“Amber has played a key role in positioning TNE as the premier regional tourism Board in Victoria. Her skills and experience make her an ideal candidate for the Hotham RMB CEO role,” he said. “We look to working closely with her to continue the growth and  development of North East Victoria as a key tourism destination.”

The Board and the MHARMB team look forward to welcoming Amber when she commences her role on 3 February 2020.

Dinner Plain Winter Primary School - 2020 expressions of interest

The seasonal primary school run by Bright P-12 College at Dinner Plain is now inviting expressions of interest for the 2020 snow season.

The Dinner Plain campus runs from the week after opening weekend in June until the September school holidays.

Expressions of interest for enrolment of primary students for the 2020 winter season must be received by the school on or before 4.00pm 28th February 2020.

Families will be notified by the school about whether they have been accepted by Friday 6th March 2020.  

The Dinner Plain Campus does not accept secondary student enrolments as there is no capacity to provide a comprehensive curriculum and cater for students' specific secondary education needs. 

Available options for secondary students are:

• enrolling at Swifts Creek P-12 School and accessing the buses from Dinner Plain to Swifts Creek 
• an Absence Learning Plan from the student’s base school; or
• private tuition and supervision. 

Parents/Carers of secondary aged students need to make their own arrangements.

Click on the link below for more information.

Annual Clean Up Day - Tuesday 26th November

Our environmental and waste management team are conducting our Annual Clean Up Day on Tuesday 26th November!

We welcome everyone to join us, see details below:

• Meet at 9am in the Resort Management Board Transit Lounge

• Gloves, Garbage Bags and Lollies supplied.

The areas we will be tidying will be Basin houses, Swindlers, Summit, Slalom Gully etc.

If you are unable to help at 9am, you are more than welcome to join in at anytime for the amount of time you can spare.

The clean up will be conducted until 12pm – then we will be having a sausage sizzle in the transit lounge / village square area.

Any questions please contact Bev Lawrence by email or on 0427 592 696

Are you bushfire safe?

With the warmer weather starting with a bang, it's critical that your properties are prepared for summer risks.

1.    If you remove your fly screens during winter please ensure you replace them on all openable windows as soon as possible.

2.    Please remember to keep your sites maintained, grass kept short, all building waste to be in a skip or trailer (not on vegetation), gas turned off (including pilot lights) if not using, power/lights off to detract moths.  No wood or combustible materials to be stored under balconies unless completely covered in fire proof cover.

3.    If you are unable to do your site maintenance (brush cutting) and would like the RMB to assist, please contact Nick Malkin via email by 16 December 2019.  Rates apply.

4.    Refer to hard waste collection dates and information - next collection is after Easter but if you have urgent requirements, please call us and discuss your options. 

Refer to our summer preparedness guide for more information on summer activities and resort information.

Please note our office will be closed from Monday 23 December 2019 and reopen on Thursday 2 January 2020.
There will be outdoor staff on the mountain during these times.

Snow Monkey at Jack Frost for summer recreation needs

Snow Monkey at Jack Frost is open weekends over summer, supplying your summer equipment hire needs. You can hire a bike, use their rack for bike maintenance and repair, and pick up riding gloves, socks, hats, fishing gear, sunscreen and more! eBike hire coming soon.

Open 10am-4pm every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Phone:  03 5759 3663

Winter events - send them early so we can promote them

You may have noticed that during the 2019 snow season we promoted Hotham events by setting up Facebook events, complementing the website listings and social media posts.

The benefit of Facebook events is that people who register their interest in the event listing will get reminders about your event, keeping it 'front of mind'. 

When you start scheduling your winter events, send them to us so we can set them up on our Facebook page. 

If you are setting up your own Facebook events on your page, consider inviting the Mt Hotham RMB Facebook page as a co-host so the event appears on our page too. The advantage of doing so is that when you update your event, the updates will flow though to the event on our page. 

Events

Ride High Country Research Briefing (Free)

Tue 26 November 2019, 10:00 am to 12:00 noon - Rutherglen Wine Experience and Visitor Information Centre, 57 Main St, Rutherglen, Vic 3685. Don't forget to register!

Data Smackdown (Free)

Mon 2 December 2019, 3:00 pm to 6:00 pm - Location TBA Eskdale, 3701. Don't forget to register to be updated about the location!

TNE has conducted comprehensive research and gained valuable insights into many of the key market segments currently visiting the High Country.

Tourism businesses are encouraged to attend this session on Monday 2 December which will offer an informative and inspiring overview of the findings of each report, across Walk High Country, Wine tourism and cellar door visitation, Ride High Country, Cultural Tourism Segmentation and Agri Tourism Visitor Research.

Full reports will be made available to attendees after the session when you can also book a one on one mentoring session TNE’s Industry Development managers.

Tourism North East Digi Skills Survey

A new program is being rolled out by Tourism North East aimed at helping High Country tourism businesses improve their digital skills and as a result, their competitive advantage.

The digital upskilling program is kicking off with a survey open to all regional tourism businesses to enable TNE to assess current skill levels and develop programs based on the survey results.

Hotham Herald during summer

Did you know that we continue to produce Hotham Herald during summer? 

It goes out monthly (not weekly, like we do in winter) but the aim is the same - to remind people that there are things to do at Hotham, and get them thinking about visiting.

Sign up now and enjoy our great stories! And encourage your guests and members to sign up too.

Facebook reviews

Just a quick reminder - if you have guests who have a great experience at Hotham, please ask them to leave us a positive review on our Facebook page. 

This helps drive up the number of people liking the page, which in turn increases the impact of our page for your advertising.