Southbank Residents’ Association launches app

The app, which has been in development since 2023, aims to connect Southbank residents with exclusive offers from local businesses and increase visibility for community groups.

Southbank Residents’ Association (SRA) president Tony Penna announced the launch of the app at the committee’s AGM on September 1.

The app will feature a directory of local businesses who will be offering exclusive deals for SRA members.

“The deal with the businesses that want to be part of this app is they have to make us an offer that is exclusive to the residents of Southbank. They can’t give us an offer that’s available to anybody that walks in off the street,” Mr Penna said.

The app will officially launch and be available for download at the start of October, once businesses are signed up over the next month.

Users will be able to “like” their favourite businesses, which means they will be notified when that business creates a new offer.

The app will also include a section listing local community groups.

Mr Penna said the app would be a place for community groups to get the word out about what they did and expand their reach, calling it a “game-changer” for local groups that currently relied on word of mouth to connect with new members.

“What we’re trying to do with connecting our neighbourhood is to find those little micro groups,” Mr Penna said.

“You might have the crochet club or the bridge club which happens in your building. But it doesn’t need to be exclusive to your building. The problem is these little groups of five, 10, 15 people don’t have the ability, they don’t have the reach to tell the world that they exist.”

“[The app] will give them an opportunity to put themself in there and tell the world that ‘Hey, we’re here, if you want to connect with us, please come and find us’,” Mr Penna said.

“We’re trying to make it a one stop shop.”

Lord Mayor Nick Reece was also present for the app’s launch.

He congratulated SRA on the initiative, saying, “It takes real vision and hard work to deliver something like that.”

“I think it’s going to be a really innovative platform for connecting people and communities across Southbank,” Cr Reece said.

Access to the app and its exclusive offers will be available as part of an SRA membership, which costs $15 per year.

There is no cost to the businesses who elect to be part of the app.

The SRA is spending $55,000 on the app’s development, with the funding coming from membership funds, which are the SRA’s primary source of income.

“This [app] will give us an opportunity for people in the community to now support what we do and they’re getting something in return,” Mr Penna said.

“Before, membership of the SRA was just purely warm and fuzzy. You joined because you believe in what we do. You joined because you know that we’re trying to do things for the community.”

“It’s a significant investment by our committee, but all those funds come from our members,” he added. •

Mr Penna said he hoped the app would boost SRA memberships significantly and that the revenue generated through the app would allow SRA to expand its capacity for the local advocacy work which forms the committee’s primary activity.

He also hopes it could allow SRA to host more social events.

“The reason why I say this is a gamechanger for SRA is because this gives us longevity,” Mr Penna said.

According to Mr Penna, SRA’s biggest challenge has been finding volunteers who are willing and able to contribute their time to being on the committee.

“This gives us sustainability. We put in a lot of effort as a committee to do our submissions, we attend council. Everything we do takes time.”

“What we are hoping with this, now we [will have] money in the bank, we can pay people to do things for us. The committee will be decision makers for how we spend that money. We can find people who can write our submissions for us. We can possibly even find people to research our submissions. We might even be able to do social events.” •