On behalf of the Board of Directors and the MEA National Council I would like to sincerely thank each of our conference sponsors and supporters in whichever category you offered. Your support of our annual national conference does much to ensure the high level of education and social program delivered, and therefore overall member satisfaction.

The annual national conference 2010 held in Melbourne heralded many firsts including the graduation of the MEA/MCVB Mentoring Program. Mentoring is so very important to our industry that is bordering on a chronic skills shortage, and we were pleased to be able to showcase our Victorian successes in our opening plenary.

The announcement of the MEA Meetings Manager Benchmarking Project was also well received with the focus of the project to collect evidence supporting the professional value and contribution of the sector in the services provided. MEA will continue to update members on project milestones as they are reached.

The feedback from the AMM/AIMM/AFMEA cocktail reception was outstanding, with Board Chair Rhona Walker AFMEA undertaking an amazing nine member pinnings. A recent first was also the accreditation workshop facilitated by Jill Mason AMM and Paul Lyons.

The opening at the convention centre brought some delegates to tears. The catering at Crown was just the start of a great culinary journey and the entertainment was perfectly suited creating lots of interest but not interrupting the large amount of networking that was happening throughout the room.

The casual evening was a stand-out with sensational food plentiful in both quality and quantity, not an empty glass in sight, and excellent service thanks to Peter Rowland Catering. Solution RED did a great job of the technical and creative brought to life by Team Wacky, and how was Old School!! Rocking the delegates to the very end with Nic & AJ the perfect duet.

The gala awards dinner was the perfect finale. Staging Connections did a great job of the room and Meri Took from Staging Rentals needs to be commended as the revolving stage was an absolute hit. The opening act, thanks to Peter Jones, was an excellent energising starter and the convention centre finished showing how they can transition from a conference to a gala dinner and cater perfectly for both.

In the words of our Conference Chair Joanne Camilleri AFMEA: “What I loved most about this conference was the excellent teamwork by everyone, be it colleagues, competitors and the whole industry working together to deliver a sensational end result that we can all be very proud of. I would like to thank each and every one of you for your hard work, dedication, commitment and support”.

Once again thank you to each of our sponsors and supporters, too many to name individually and for those of you unable to attend, 2011 is in April in Brisbane, and they are promising a fabulous event.
If you would like to see some pictures of this year visit www.eventpix.com.au/mea.

Linda P Gaunt
Chief Executive Officer


 

There is a growing global movement toward greater sustainability in the meeting and event industry.
While it started in Europe and the US it has now well and truly reached Australian shores. But when GreenFusion conducted a survey in 2009 with 60 professionals associated with the events industry, nearly 40 per cent said they were “unsure of where and how to start the process of becoming more sustainable”.
The good news is that when it comes to venues a number of Australian organisations are making solid headway on their journey toward greater sustainability.

Adelaide Showground
Adelaide Showground is South Australia’s largest multi-purpose venue receiving well over half a million visitors per year. Their sustainability journey started out in 2007 when the introduction of mandatory water restrictions meant a new way of managing water became an imperative. As a result a three-and-a-half million litre underground water tank was installed to capture stormwater run-off and supply over half of the venue’s annual water requirements.

This event catalysed their interest in sustainability issues, leading to among other initiatives the largest solar panel installation in Australia in 2008 with the support of the South Australian Government. The venue’s 10,000 square metres of solar power energy production has seen them become a registered power generator and save approximately 1450 tonnes per annum of greenhouse gas emissions.

Chief executive John Rothwell said, “we have made a commitment to environmental sustainability. Our staff and Board are motivated and the public are excited by our initiatives. We are seeing great benefits already.”
Adelaide Convention Centre (ACC)

The multi award-winning ACC enjoys a global reputation for excellence and is consistently ranked among the world’s top convention centres. In 2006, the ACC Board set down a direction for a focus on sustainability. For 22 years they had been known for gold service, but the time had come to add green attitude and set the industry benchmark.

They started with audits on water, waste and energy and then turned their attention to tangible initiatives to achieve real change. And change they did! The ACC has since recycled 330 tonnes of organic waste, changed their plumbing systems and saved 720 litres of water per hour (over six million litres per year), and cut their electricity consumption by one quarter.

Market developer manager Lisa Davies said, “Our journey in becoming more sustainable has changed the culture of the organisation. We have had to work harder and smarter and are seeing great rewards nationally and internationally.”

Canberra Stadium
Playing host to national and internal sporting fixtures, Canberra Stadium has a 25,500 person seating capacity and hosts a number of events as well as providing first-class function and conference facilities.
General manager Neale Guthrie recognised the need to further improve management of the stadium’s environmental impact and was motivated by a personal interest in sustainability as well as the Australian Capital Territory Government’s Carbon Neutral by 2060 and NOWaste by 2010 objectives. In 2009, Canberra Stadium installed 72 solar photovoltaic panels at the venue, enough to power all the lights for 16 night matches and save 25 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions each year.

In 2009, Canberra Stadium developed an Environmental Action Plan using an environmental management tool called EcoMapping™ and EMAS Easy™ to further streamline these initiatives and processes.

“This process brought our team together and highlighted the importance of changing the way we do business. It was engaging and motivated staff to be involved with our environmental journey,” Mr Guthrie said.

Changing behaviour
While the drivers varied between venues – from the basic need for water, to setting an industry benchmark and meeting the demands of government policy – the consistent theme between all sites is that movement toward greater sustainability requires not just a technical understanding but a change in behaviour and culture in an organisation.

The case studies show that this cultural change can benefit from top down management or Board driven direction combined with bottom up, personal and genuine motivation of staff.




Top