Roll Form WA wins ECU South West Business of the Year at Bunbury Geographe Business Excellence Awards

It was a day of mixed emotions for a South West couple after they won the main honour at the inaugural Bunbury Geographe Business Excellence Awards. Roll Form WA in Davenport claimed the ECU South West Business of the Year title at the awards night held at Mantra Bunbury Lighthouse on Saturday. Business co-owner Jodie Hoskins accepted the award alone after her husband Glenn had a been in a motorcycle accident earlier in the day. She thanked the Bunbury Geographe Chamber of Commerce and Industry, sponsors and other finalists for the awards. “My husband said to do the application and see how we go. I never dreamt it would come to this — it’s unbelievable,” she said. “We’ve only been here in Bunbury for two years with this business, and the support from Bunbury and surrounds is amazing. “Without everyone helping us and encouraging us, we certainly wouldn’t be here.” Mrs Hoskins said the team would be taken out for “a very nice dinner” to celebrate the achievement and recognise the hard work of employees. Roll Form WA is a manufacturing business which specialises in steel fabrication, welding, rolling and pressing. Winning the top gong came after the enterprise took out the best business with 1-5 employees category earlier in the night. Collie-based CLP Advertising & Photography Services won the owner-operator category, with AutoTech Bunbury being recognised as the best business with 6-10 employees after a decade of operations. South Bunbury’s Rhys Veen won the start-up business section with his physiotherapy practice and Harvey’s Boola Bidi Dreaming won the Aboriginal business category. Outdoor World Bunbury was honoured with the best business with 11-20 employees, while Picton’s LGM Industries won the business with 21 or more employees category. Bunbury Geographe Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Julie Broad said 152 nominations were received across the seven categories for the awards’ first year. She said judges did not know the names of the businesses they were evaluating and took on the huge task of rating the 152 award hopefuls. “We wanted our judges to judge on merit, and all the categories (had a) metric and they scored on that metric,” Ms Broad said. “We wanted to be really transparent and we wanted to make sure in our first awards that this was upheld to a standard.” The winners will be eligible to enter the Statewide Regional Business Excellence Awards.