The (Top 100) Sydney’s most influential award

Just prior to Christmas John Wardle and myself were honoured to be included in the Sydney magazine’s (Top 100) most influential people in Sydney. The award was in recognition of our work on the Raise The Bar campaign in 2007/2008, so i would argue its not so much an award for two influential men but an influential campaign.

I’d like to recognise the core team who were behind the campaign as they played important roles in making it so wildly successful. They are Adele Winteridge, Jonathon Larkin, Mimi Daraphe, Andrew Cox and Damian Cerini.

As I’ve said before many, many more people (including thousands of RTB members) made this happen so once again cheers to you all.

Read the full article overleaf

The Article …
Traditionally, Sydneysiders have been quick to provide evidence of their city’s superiority over the southern pretender. The theory came unstuck, however, whenever anyone mentioned Melbourne’s vibrant, quirky, small bar scene. While we were all lamenting our bad luck over copious beers in vast, characterless pubs, John Wardle, 38, a musician and lobbyist who had toiled behind the scenes on cultural planning policy for years, and Dave Gravina, 38, founder and creative director of web design firm Digital Eskimo, were building a grassroots campaign, appropriately called Raise The Bar.

The idea was to rid Sydney of prohibitively expensive licensing laws that meant that the right to serve alcohol while providing any form of entertainment cost $60,000. Thanks to Wardle and Gravina, that same license now costs 500 bucks.

The pair met weekly to develop a strategy that included a chardonnay-sipping sit-in outside Parliament House and culminated in Wardle lobbying key players inside Parliament House just moments before the new bill was passed on July 1. Although the ink on those reforms is barely dry, Gravina says he knows of a number of players preparing to open – including a few experienced operators south of the border. “Conversations will be easier in venues without pokies, plasma screens and happy hours,” he says.

Related Links

• Raise the Bar wins SMAC Award!
• DE’s founder amongst Sydney’s most influential
• Raise the Bar wins SMAC Award!
• The (sydney) magazine 100 Most Influential List 2008
• SMAC In Your Face Award – Raise The Bar Campaign 2008