Sarah Shaw, our Community Resilience Officer, shares some updates on what’s been happening in her busy part of the world, as she continues to deliver workshops under the ‘Building Resilience in the Agricultural North Burnett’ program that BCCA is currently running. This program is proudly funded by the Commonwealth and Queensland Governments through the 2017-18 Natural Disaster Resilience Program.
In late 2019, Heather Ellis (BlueWren Connections) and Pam McAllister (McAllister Leadership) ran a two day ‘Building Communication Skills’ workshop in Monto on the 29 & 30 of October at the Colonial Motor Inn organised by team member Naomi Purcell.
The workshop was funded under the Natural Disaster Resilience Program which aims to upskill farmers so they are better able to withstand and respond to natural disasters in the North Burnett.
One of the areas that was identified in the needs analysis as requiring attention, was further education and training in communication skills and personal development courses.
A group of 12 participants arrived bright and early on day 1, to learn among other things, about communication skills, self-analysing and understanding their personality traits.
Pam and Heather took the group through various sessions ranging from ‘understanding what personality type you were’ and how each personality type interacts, learning the art of having a difficult conversation, what skills are needed as a leader and how to lead in the community.
It was a great two days of internal reflection as well as understanding the importance of effective communication for our participants.
In late 2019, we organised a Nutrition, Supplements and Drought Feeding Workshop which was presented by Roger Sneath from the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries. After a bit of a hiccup with location, 34 producers made their way to the RSL in Monto where valuable and necessary information was provided to the group. Roger facilitated a great workshop in discussing and understanding what nutritional value would be provided from different types of supplements, how much energy is required for different classes of cattle and some useful advice on how to safely feed supplements. The level of attendance and the questions that were fielded throughout the day highlighted just how relevant this session was for our region during this period.
During March 2020, we trialled a night-time workshop delivery method for rural producers in Mt Perry and Eidsvold on the topic of finance. BMO Business Centre delivered short, sharp and snappy finance segments on a range of topics including cashflow, farm diversification, financial structuring, business versatility, bookkeeping programs and swot analysis. Although attendance was low, this didn’t detract from the value of the workshop as it allowed our presenters to tailor their presentation to suit what attendees particularly wanted to hear about. We felt there was great atmosphere for both sessions and lots of questions were asked with participants staying on to have further discussions with the BMO Partners.