In attendance: Jane Turner, Katie Munkres, Lisa Yorkston, Kathy Cogo, Anthony Hill, Rosemary Lancaster, Katie Ferguson (for the last five minutes) and Samantha Morris.
Host: Queensland Regional NRM Groups Collective
1. Regional updates (5 minutes per region).
Mackay / Reef Catchments – nothing new to update people on. Already starting to work on annual report.
QMDC – end of year reporting, work towards six monthly reporting and annual reporting. Trying to give annual report a revamp – so look at capabilities as well as achievements – dual purpose document. Audience – usual suspects plus new people. Put it in front of new audiences.
NQ – Katie: updating website – big project – focus is task-based, finding out what we need stakeholders to be able to do on the website (ie. What tasks they want to do). Also user group portals (graziers, growers, schools, communities) can access portal for their stakeholder groups and filter out any other interesting information. Kathy: Reef Rescue breakfast for pollies – held one last year – introducing to some of the things they’re doing locally. Raise profile, talk about env issues. Taking place end of July. Also sea turtle TO DVD, has been launched and good run in school, education activities with Reef education – and healthy habitat (periurban engagement) is progressing at the moment – working with residents to get some signage up.
SEQ – continuing to push with media the research around cost of environment. What matters. Costs to tourism industry right through primary industry, that is if we don’t look after the environment, what the costs will be. Also started on annual report – much like others, in process of finishing off end of year projects and reporting. Re: annual report – doing a mini report – with financials etc on a disk in the back. Fairly innovative in design – should look good. Other thing that Anthony is doing is fact sheets on SEQ – 17 fact sheets. About SEQ Region, each catchment of the region with a different fact sheet and then on top of that other topics, like biodiversity, oil spill, NRM plan. Anthony says it is frustrating. Due to be completed in December. Huge gaps between requirements and what has been provided by an external consultant. Will be put on website, DVD, and on internal drive so CPMs can download – also available to schools, etc. up-to-date, informative fact sheets. One other thing – 23 July, up on Sunshine Coast, having a huge event, inviting all community groups involved in environmental work following oil spill – as a thank you – Mayor, Garrett.
CA – rebranded, website up but content limited. Collateral has been updated and produced. Happy to receive feedback on new logo. Also working on annual report (enter in the Australasian reporting awards).
2. RGC updates | Samantha Morris
Reef Showcase – good media following a 10 day blitz that saw daily releases with media kits and invitations distributed regularly. Terrain provided their media list which helped significantly. Peter Garrett attended which also helped get good media attendance. Had journalists from TV – nine and seven, radio, including ABC and local stations and print. Also had some left of field coverage through Gardening Australia magazine and National Indigenous Radio Service, 2UE, Fairfax Digital, amongst others.
RGC has reduced its communication consultant contract by 10%. This will only have a minor impact on current services, however printing and design budget has been reduced so it’s possible some publications may go to digital production rather than print. Still analysing.
Next face-to-face comms get-together: on a whim, Sam submitted a proposal to Australian Government asking for support to grow the next state get-together into a national one. Have early indications of support and they have asked for additional information re: programming and role of Queensland Government staff. Still negotiating with Canberra – should have an outcome to report on soon.
3. DERM updates | Carl Glen and Ruthie Adams
Unfortunately Ruthie and Carl were unable to join us. Their update will be provided next meeting.
4. Queensland Wetland Programme update | Rosemary Lancaster
World Wetlands Day 2011 marks the 40th anniversary of the event (2 February). Rosemary would like to consult with regional communication staff about: what we might want to do in a coordinated manner for the day; what QWP can contribute to any activity; the usefulness of a proposed wetlands community management guide; and what collateral or services the QWP could provide to support regional NRM groups working on wetland programs.
February 2, 2011 = world wetlands day. Annual theme next year is wetlands and forests (ie. Mangroves are considered forests). Also, 40th anniversary of signing of RAMSAR convention. For regional groups for whom this is relevant, QWP wants to do something to coordinate.
NRM Rumble – February edition to focus on wetland work.
NQ – Katie Munkres – might be cool to get people out to the Ramsar site – field day / community day – don’t know how easy it is to access that site – Could organise regional wetland discover days. Kayaks / canoes / bird watching / hands-on, water bug sampling – reminds people how they’re accessible from all sorts of angles.
Re: community management guide – there’s probably not alot of people working in wetland management – there are a few NGOs, regional body technical staff, local government and state government – need to maybe collate resources locally.
5. RGC website
(please be online for the teleconference so we can run through some of the features of the communication officers’ portal)
Some training provided after website to a small group. New user groups have been set up for education and for wetland management. Katie Munkres has agreed to be admin for the education group and Rosemary Lancaster for the wetlands group. A promo blurb will go in Bugle and be emailed directly to regions for consideration and forwarding to appropriate staff.
6. Follow-up on actions from the Cairns meeting
EDUCATION WORKING GROUP – Jody, Jane, Katie met to discuss education concepts – in the first instance, good for regional bodies who are doing things around education to load resources, share ideas, etc. Best way of doing that – through RGC portal / website or whether through a person who coordinates / keeps the knowledge, through online file sharing system – lots of ideas. Then a few other longer-term ideas thought might have been jumping the gun – ie. How we can collectively approach education and the benefits of doing that, in short, if interested as a group – doing education things, collectively branded and promoted or possibly at other scale, running an education program that has its own branding and similar to concepts of Reef Guardians, but run by NRM groups and having a coordinator at state level.
7. Next teleconference
As Carl and Ruthie were unable to join us, however they have indicated interested in hosting next teleconference, we will defer to them to suggest the next meeting date around the end of July.
Notes taken by Samantha Morris, sam@wombatcreative.com.au
