THE Glenelg Shire Business and Tourism Awards Gala night is back.

Since being relaunched with a new format and great fanfare in 2016, the last awards night was scheduled for 2021 but was pushed out to 2022 because of the pandemic.

And so, finally, the event is to be held this Saturday, May 7 at the Portland Gold Course.

Local artist Brett Jarett and his partner Gerri Torpy, who took out the 2019 Business of the Year award, said winning the award gave them confidence to build their Bay of Whales Gallery and Coffee Shop business, and the sales of Mr Jarrett’s paintings have significantly increased in the three years since.

Speaking this week at the gallery, the internationally acclaimed Mr Jarett and Ms Torpy, with a background in sales and marketing, event management and tourism said the win came as a bit of a “shock and a surprise”.

“It was just so great to have confirmation that we on the right path,” Ms Torpy said.

“We knew from a business perspective we were doing well, but to have it benchmarked across the shire confirmed it.

“A lot of businesses entered that year…so it was such a confidence booster, especially for a young business.”

The gallery was just two years old and the coffee shop had been open for just one year when they won.

Set up 15 minutes out of town and then some distance off the main highway, they were unsure if they would be interesting enough for people to want to come out and spend time here, and do it on a regular basis, Mr Jarrett said. 

“But through the awards we’ve just become much better known, got a lot of publicity out of it, and over time gradually developed our brand.”

Customer service is high on their list, and they offer a unique experience.

“When people come here they’re not just walking into a gallery,” Ms Torpy said.

“From the moment customers arrive they’re looking at the views, they’re engaging with the animals – the chickens and the dogs – they come in and they’re just wowed by the quality of the product that we have – then there’s the art, there’s the hospitality that we offer; we do everything we can to engage customers when they come in.”

And part of that unique experience is to be able to watch an artist of Mr Jarrett’s calibre at work.

“It’s not often people can go to a gallery and see the artist painting and see how it all comes together,” Ms Torpy said.

“Customers can stand right behind Brett and watch exactly what he’s doing; he doesn’t mind, he doesn’t mind them asking questions – even if there are kids on site asking really basic questions, he’s got time for them.”

Being able to engage with clients who are looking at spending a few thousand dollars on a painting is also a huge bonus.

Mr Jarrett enjoys discussing with them how a painting was constructed, the story behind it, and it’s a very valuable experience for the person who’s buying the painting to have been able to engage with the artist.

He produces “somewhere between 30 and 45 paintings a year”, and is finding he can’t keep up with demand; a good problem to have, he laughed, but it means art goes “straight from the easel to the customer and not on the walls”.

 Having the gallery has been a “game changer”, Ms Torpy said.

They built the house in 2012 and always with the gallery in mind.

On one side of the Mt Gambier limestone building is their home and on the other, the gallery.

They knew what they wanted but had to be realistic and find something that had easy access from the highway.

As it turns out, the gallery is accessible from Port Fairy and Warrnambool, with Port Fairy only half an hour away and about a third of business coming from there every weekend.

Ms Torpy’s targeted advertising through social media also helps, with her engaging with it every weekend; “It’s been a big driver for us,” she said.

“We find we also get a lot of people from all over Australia who are just travelling through who see the sign, or find us via the info centre or in their Facebook feed.”

It certainly is an intriguing sign, with the story behind the name delivering everything it promises.

It comes from Mr Jarrett’s interest as a child in marine mammals, growing up in the area and seeing whales turning up here occasionally in the bay, “but there’s a place in Antarctica that I got to a few years back called the Bay of Whales and it filled my head with imagination,” he explained.

And clearly, it continues to inspire, drawing locals and tourists alike down the country lane to the Mt Clay gallery.

Mr Jarrett and Ms Torpy are also kept busy hosting about 35 different groups such as Probus, Lions, Rotary and a variety of clubs, with coaches of 30 or more people arriving to enjoy an afternoon or morning tea once or twice a month.

They estimate that they’ve averaged about 100 people per weekend, “so even conservatively over the past five years we’ve had something like 20,000 people though here, and that’s excluding groups,” Mr Jarrett said.

That’s a lot of coffee made, and a lot of Ms Torpy’s homemade vanilla slice eaten!

Mr Jarrett is now enjoying his 30th year of painting, and is the only artist to have won the Holmes Art Prize twice – in 2017 and in 2021.

“It’s the top bird art prize for realistic bird art,” he explained.

“Nice to have got it twice; it gives me a bit of credibility!” he laughed.

In awarding Business of the Year to the Bay of Whales Gallery and Coffee Shop in 2019, judge Clinton Bugg noted the gallery had excelled in all nine judging categories, highlighting its excellent strategic planning, marketing and promotion, access and inclusion and overall community benefit.

“This business has singlehandedly managed to revitalise a small community by offering a simplistic product of the highest quality. They are enticing visitors by not just offering a product, but an entire experience,” Mr Bugg said.

The Bay of Whales Gallery and Coffee Shop certainly set the bar high, and no doubt the winners of the 2022 awards will do it again for the businesses that follow.

There are 13 categories in the 2022 Business and Tourism Awards, with two finalists in each category, and the business community will be perched on the edges of their gala seats with anticipation as the winners are announced.

Former RocKwiz host Brian Nankervis as emcee will help to celebrate and showcase the awards, promising an evening of high theatre and entertainment.