Following on from my last column the Transport Women Australia Limited board and their conference attendees are still recovering from the Driving the Difference conference held on the first weekend of June.
This was such an amazing event which you can imagine has an enormous amount of work in preparation and in the aftermath, so we still have still have a lot of follow up to do.
This includes all the formalities of closing off the conference which involves writing thank you cards to everyone and getting them; sending off the cheque to the Garvan Institute, which is donated in lieu of speaker gifts.
TWAL selects a charity every conference and donates, and ensuring acknowledgement of all our sponsors, speakers, and volunteers because nothing would happen in the organisation without the amazing team we have built among our members and friends.
We have also begun working on the TWAL plan that came from our interactive session between the board and the attendees at the conference; meetings to find potential funds; brainstorming to work out how to roll out programmes and what we will need to do to bring them to the next level.
All of this takes time and energy, and TWAL must make changes to the way it has operated for the last five years to bring these dreams and plans to fruition.
We are hopeful to be able to do this, with those of you who have supported us for so long and who we would never take for granted; without the support of our Foundation Business Partners, Volvo Group Australia and NTI plus all of our other sponsors who support us throughout the year, we would not be where we are, and we could not get where we are going.
Our next events will be our Learning Initiatives Breakfasts and regional breakfasts in combination with the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator.
We have already started our end of year event planning and are planning for the 2023 Brisbane Truck Show Breakfast.
Our next conference will be held in 2024 with a date and venue to be announced shortly; in 2024 we will all also be celebrating the 25th anniversary of Transport Women Australia Limited. We are excited to be planning this especially after a phenomenally successful 20th anniversary event.
We are expanding out representation at schools especially throughout NSW and if any members or potential members would like to be involved in this project, if they contact us that would be fantastic. Our new website has had a slight setback but hopefully will still be rolled out by the end of July and will be bigger and brighter than ever; thank you for your patience on this long-awaited project.
If any conference attendees looking for photographs or speaker presentations from the conference or any other information regarding Transport Women Australia Limited, please contact me on chair@transportwomen.com.au or 0417 422319.
- Jacquelene Brotherton is chair of Transport Women Australia