Recently members of the Newcastle CLM committee along with Newcastle General Manager Helen Link and President Stephen Palmer visited Port Macquarie to meet with local members and attend a presentation hosted by the CLM.  

The presentation covered resourcing and other risks in implementation of regionally based projects. Four panellists, Shannon Dawson – Essential Energy, Martyn Jones – Bale Defence, Meg Teasdell – Birdon and Hamish Bell – Paynters, gave their expertise on encouraging the maintenance of resources in regional areas. 

Regional projects present unique opportunities and challenges. Meeting regionally enables members to discuss the complexity of local projects and provides time for problem solving and sharing related learnings. 

Visiting Newcastle members learned from the panellists about the tactics they had deployed and the solutions they came up with to assist with resourcing of large projects. Some of these ideas included renting houses to sublet to employees and efforts to sell the benefits of living in a beautiful coastal town. Helen Link said it was great to get out and visit the Mid North Coast Committee and local members.

“Meeting our members regionally enables us to maintain strong relationships and gives us the opportunity to chat face to face about any concerns or ideas they might have.”

“It’s a great opportunity to update regional members on Engineers Australia’s latest work in Newcastle and nationally. Having a good idea of what is going on in our local region is crucial for our advocacy work.” 

Engineers Australia Newcastle aims to engage closely with our regional members by continuing with our regional visits. There are a number of interesting events coming up in the Newcastle region so keep an eye out for more information about Newcastle events in Engineering News each week.