COMPANY’S AID HELPS CHIPMUNKS OPEN
Centre’s up and running but NBN woes not over
JEDDY and Josh Kirstenfeldt weren’t the only happy faces at the newly-opened Chipmunks Playland and Café yesterday.
Owners Ian and Lisa Bethune said they were both excited and relieved to finally begin trading, three and a half months after they first wanted to open.
The start of trade was made possible by Newlands Group which provided Wi-Fi to the new centre while its owners wait for Telstra to connect their nbn, six months on from when they first contacted the company.
THREE and a half months after they wanted to start trading, Chipmunks Playland and Cafe was finally able to throw open their doors to the public yesterday, thanks to the help of Toowoomba’s Newlands Group.
Still without an nbn connection more than six months after first contacting Telstra, Newlands Group, after building the centre, offered to help out by installing a Wi-Fi antenna on the premises and giving owners Lisa and Ian Bethune access to the internet.
“All of this is possible thanks to Newlands,” Mrs Bethune said, adding that it was a relief to finally be able to open.
The couple had put everything on the line, selling off their hobby farm, shares, and cars to build and open Chipmunks Playland and Cafe at the Bernoth Centre on Ruthven St.
After serving their first customers yesterday, Mrs Bethune said it wasn’t until an hour before they opened their doors that reality set in.
“We both kind of went wow. And I got really emotional, happy tears. It was so exciting,” she said.
“This morning someone rang me five minutes before we opened and asked when do you think you’ll get to open? And I said, how about five minutes time? She was so excited. It was crazy.”
It has been a long road for the Bethunes to get to this point. After contacting Telstra in August last year to connect their internet, Mrs Bethune said she was told their new business’ address was not listed and needed to be added to the system.
Mrs Bethune said she had now been told their nbn would be connected by March 1.
“We want to thank all of Toowoomba and the surrounding areas for their amazing support,” she said.
“I don’t know how much longer we could have gone on and their support helped us to go on, to continue to push forward.”
Telstra Regional Area Manager May Boisen earlier this month said Telstra “had been working closely with nbn to help resolve the customer’s issues” and that it was “not the type of experience that we want our customers to go through”.