Committees are the backbone of every club or association. Not only are they responsible for decision-making but, they are responsible for administrative tasks and organising planned activities.

A problem that too often arises is the 80/20 rule: 20 per cent of the people do 80 per cent of the work.

Daintree Marketing Cooperative (DMC) has come up with a system to combat this and to encourage all of its 34 members contribute to the Cooperative’s marketing of the region.

Membership Secretary of DMC, Gaye Scott, said that when people apply for membership, we ask then, “do you want to contribute 15 hours of time over the next twelve months, or pay an additional $300 in membership?”  
 
Ms Scott said most opt to contribute time and it has been a huge success.

“Last year, a massive 60% of members each contributed 15 or more hours towards DMC’s planned marketing activities. This equates to $6,000 worth of services,” she said.

Ms Scott explained that members record and submit time spent working on projects throughout the year, whether it is staffing the Daintree stand at the Cairns Show, helping to research and provide copy for the Destination Daintree website, helping with a media familiarisation, or researching facts for the industry reference book Daintreepaedia.
 
“Our target for 2011/12 is to double this to $12,000 worth of services and we have plenty of marketing projects in the pipeline for this to happen,” she said.

The Daintree Marketing Co-operative has over 30 members who work collaboratively to identify and create marketing opportunities for tourism businesses operating in the Greater Daintree region.