December 11, 2013
The dates have been set for the first joint Vision 21 / Red Earth Community Foundation leadership training program in the South Burnett.
The four-day intensive training program will be held on February 16-18 and March 16-18, 2014, at the Bunya Mountains.
The course will cater for between 15 and 28 participants and applications are now open.
Applications are invited from individuals, employers who would like to send staff, or community organisations.
The $2090 fee includes tuition, accommodation and catering but there may be a limited number of subsidised positions available for people who cannot afford the full cost.
An information session about the program, which aims to strengthen community leadership in the South Burnett, was held this evening at the South Burnett Enterprise Centre in Kingaroy.
Vision 21 is made up of graduates of the State Government’s former Building Rural Leaders (BRL) program which ceased in 2008.
Vision 21 President Heather Ellis, a former Byee primary producer, spoke at the session as well as Vision 21 management committee member Pam McAllister who has helped to shape the South Burnett course.
Heather said she had left school at 15 and had dyslexia however with the encouragement and assistance of Graham House in Murgon she had attended the Building Rural Leaders program which had changed her life. She now has a university degree and three diplomas and had achieved real community change.
“”I learned a suite of skillsets in that program. I was like a sponge, I had a thirst for knowledge,” she said.
Pam, a former BRL program presenter who now runs her own training business McAllister Leadership, said the two modules of the course would be an “experiential” process with learning happening through activities.
Amongst other things it would cover managing change, understanding personality types, working with others and community development.
Guest speaker, Kingaroy businessman Ken Mills, spoke about the need for businesses and the community to recognise their greatest resource was “people” and that developing leadership was an investment in people.
“If we fail to train the people we have in our business it’s like sending a soldier into battle without training,” he said.
“Work-related stress is mainly caused from asking people to do a job that they are not trained to do.”
More information about the South Burnett Community Leadership Program and application forms are available to download from the Red Earth Community Foundation website
Applications must be submitted by January 15. A selection panel will then interview applicants.
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