2 Day Skills Development Workshop with Jill Gael

Saturday 25th and Sunday 26th September 2004
ADASS Room, Orbost Regional Health Centre

Nineteen participants arrived to participate in Jill Gael's 2 Day Skills Workshop. Six of those had been involved in the "Uniting Our Rural Communities" Project where the Mosaic Path in Forest Park was a result.

As a result of that project The Women of the Snowy River group was formed and worked on the Friendship Bowl and the Flood Marker and other projects around the town.

Four of the participants were just there for the Saturday as they had attended the Sunday session at Buchan the previous week.

There were apologies f0rom six others who could not make it at the last moment and four others who would like to be involved when the project gets up and running.

There was a great deal of discussion about what Project to do and where to locate the project. Marlo, Newmerella and Orbost were all discussed

They firstly decided on the Project Criteria. This included the following Mission Statement:

The Women Who Mean Business group manage the Project

• The have fun
• They value our different contributions
• We reach decisions by consensus
• We work with the community

The project they eventually decided on was:

Magical Garden Community Walkway, incorporating nature garden, our creative
sculptures and rest spots (complimentary to its setting).

The spot in the town for this they felt was an area between the Rainforest Centre and the Slab Hut/Orbost Exhibition Centre. It would hopefully be a tourist attraction and link between other tourist attractions in the town and postcards of the area could be sold and possibly gift cards. The group need to research its viability and who actually owns the land before the Business Planning Workshop which will take place on Sunday 17th October at
the ADASS Room at Orbost Regional Health Centre from 10 am to 3 pm facilitated by Belinda Brennan.

The weekend was very successful and many participants learned new skills.

Feedback from the day included:

• Inspiring, warm, wise, wonderful networking workshop for women.
• Excellent way to attend to personal skills and a stepping stone to achieve goals.
• General information and ideas excellent and self knowledge awareness.
• The communities in the area will benefit for years to come.
• Importance of recognising and acknowledging diversity in personal abilities, skills, interest etc.
• Information and processes for communication and understanding of formation
  of ideas and committee processes very worthwhile.
• Stimulating and enriching.
• Opportunity to work together.
• Some great ideas discussed for the next exciting project.
• How to work with different people and how to be successful plan
• Excellent facilitator.

Our thanks go to the Orbost Regional Health Board for kindly donating the
venue for these workshops.

Media Workshop with Deb Bye

Saturday 28th August 2004

There were eleven participants in Deb Bye's Media Workshop with apologies from four others.

There was a great air of excitement and anticipation and they were not disappointed. Deb was an entertaining and informative presenter who engaged her audience throughout her presentation. A highlight of the presentation was the mock interview of two participants to demonstrate interview technique.

Much to the amusement of the participants one of the media releases to be used as a sample was written and submitted by one of the participants. She was happy for it to remain included in the sample and very much appreciated the feedback.

Beth Harris, who has expertise in Web Page Design, also gave participants the benefit of her knowledge.

Nine participants heard about the workshop through word of mouth, one read it on a noticeboard and one was bombarded with word of mouth, noticeboard, flyer and school newsletter!

Ten participants were very satisfied with Deb Bye's facilitation of the workshop, one even commenting that it was excellent, another that it was amazing, great rapore with 'audience' and great interaction and another that it was fantastic, experienced, pithy, funny and useful. The eleventh was fairly satisfied.

Eight felt the workshop was long enough, however, one felt that the quality was such that she could have quite happily gone on for a lot longer! Another felt Deb covered many areas and gave time afterwards for extra questions and discussion and she was very pleased. One felt she would have liked more 'hands-on' work. Two participants were well satisfied and one was only just satisfied with the length of the workshop.

Nine participants felt it met with their expectations, one saying it was better and more useful than anticipated, another was pleased that Beth was there giving great information about Web pages and Web sites. Two participants were fairly satisfied.
All participants were satisfied with what was covered in the workshop although one would have liked TV interviews to be covered. The comment from one participant was I think the workshop covered many areas and was very extensive and another I'm sure there is lots more could be covered but I was very happy with the information on the day.

Seven participants were very happy with the venue, three were fairly satisfied and one felt it was a bit crowded.

Ten participants were very happy with the morning tea, comments included fantastic morning tea, Yummy, home made tasty treats - fantastic. One was fairly satisfied.

Nine participants felt they would participate in other activities connected to the project while one said she would be involved in some and one said she did not know it would depend on time permitting.

When it came to key information or skills obtained from the session the following were comments:

• I honed my media skills.
• Will completely redo approach to media - format suited to media.
• How to prepare for media releases.
• Planning.
• Key hints on various approaches to media releases.
• Points on dealing with the media.
• Presentation of media release.
• Working knowledge of how media works.
• Writing media releases. Information was fantastic.
• General basic idea of how and what to do and etiquette in dealing with the media. Very enjoyable and informative. Thank You.

A very successful workshop. Many thanks to Deb Bye and Beth Harris for their time and effort