Awards For Excellence in   Community Business Partnerships 2007 

QLD Small Business Award – Joint Winners

Surfers Paradise Management Ltd with Volunteering Gold Coast

Surfers Paradise Management (SPM) was the official event coordinator for Gold Coast Schoolies Week in 2005 and 2006. It formed a partnership with Volunteering Gold Coast, assuming responsibility for helping the 50,000 young people visiting the Gold Coast to celebrate responsibly and safely while ensuring the safety of local residents and their property.

This partnership provides a local community volunteer service on the Gold Coast to recruit the 200-300 community volunteers needed to care for the Schoolies day and night. The Schoolies Support Team was subsequently formed.

Volunteering Gold Coast and Surfers Paradise Management worked together to conduct regular training and development sessions for Support Service Team volunteers, coordinated social ‘team building’ functions and ensured that communication channels were open to all Support Service Team volunteers during Gold Coast Schoolies Week.

Each partner brings particular elements to the exercise and benefits in ways which enhance the future performance of their respective roles.

Surfers Paradise Management with Volunteering Gold Coast are 2007 national finalists. A more extended description of the partnership is available in the national finalists section of this publication.

MAIN Cooperative Limited with Mackay High Schools Network

The partnership involves four major engineering companies based in Mackay, and four high schools within the region. The companies, P and H MinePro, All Metal Solutions, Anderson Industries and G and S Engineering are all members of an engineering cluster in Mackay.

Each company has its own project and is engaged with one school for a term, during which time the students have the opportunity to learn the skills in their school environment to enable them to work on the project. Industry supplied plans, drawings and materials for the students to complete the project at school and at the same time completing their competencies of Certificate 1 in Engineering.

QLD Medium Business Encouragement Award

Delfin GC Pty Ltd and partners with Varsity Lakes Community

Varsity Lakes is a new community being developed in Southern Queensland to ensure the viability of the local community after the developer completes its tasks and leaves the area.

Delfin GC has provided the seed funding, has raised initial leadership of the community group, increased public profile (including a web portal) management, and intellectual property rights. They have also provided subject matter governance expertise, physical facilities, marketing and networking opportunities.

The partnership generates positive long-term outcomes for the community by creating an actual sense of "community" within the development. Their local ownership of the neighbourhood will enhance and maintain the environment. The Community relationships with the business network will encourage commercial interest in the area, create job opportunities and provide long-term opportunities for the residents.

QLD Large Business Award

Suncorp with the Queensland Institute of Medical Research

Suncorp and the Queensland Institute of Medical Research are dedicated to developing relevant and meaningful “grass roots” activities and related partnerships to support the fight against skin cancer.

The skin cancer campaign is featured on all Suncorp advertising material and an informative website exists. Public education forums are held and mobile skin cancer checks take place around the state.

Running parallel to the awareness campaign is high level, ground breaking research into immunotherapy and other potential forms of melanoma treatment being performed at the QIMR.

The QIMR contributes its world-standard technical expertise and advice, its medical equipment within the world’s largest skin cancer unit, staff time and involvement, and its connections within the global scientific community.

QLD Large Business Award

Rio Tinto Aluminium Weipa with Western Cape College

The partnership between Rio Tinto Aluminium Weipa (RTAW) and Western Cape College (WCC) aims to build the local community in this remote region of Queensland through employment, education, career advice and training.

Established in 2006, the partnership has provided a significant number of employment and training benefits to the region. Students now have a wide range of work-based opportunities including work experience, school-based traineeships and apprenticeships.

This relatively new partnership aims to provide effective school-to-work pathways and address the skills shortage in the area created by the mining boom, which has an increasing demand for skilled workers and more competition for labour. It is a synergistic relationship for both parties. The partnership enables Rio Tinto Aluminum to develop the skills it requires locally – encouraging local students to begin a career with the Company through a school-based traineeship, apprenticeship, Indigenous traineeship or entry level jobs.

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