Aqua News Updating to the new world
Young Tasmanians lead by example
Roy Palmer, director, Aquaculture without Frontiers
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he evening of the 22 October will go down in Aquaculture without Frontier’s (AwF) history as the starting point of its Australian organisation thanks heavily to the students and staff at the Huon Valley Trade Training Centre (HVTTC), especially Steve Harrison. A full complement of fifty people attended the event were treated to a fabulous range of Tasmanian seafood and beverages all donated generously by an array of companies – the who’s who of Tasmanian food and drink. We thank them all most sincerely. From the outset this was going to be all about the students and they left no stone unturned in their efforts to ensure that the catering was top notch (under the watchful eye of first class local chefs) and that the main event of making people aware of AwF and its activities ran like clockwork. Shannon Phillips and Stacey Tomkinson (Cert 1 Aqua students) spoke about AwF, its mission, projects and the significance of the most important period in anyone’s life, the 1000 days from time of conception until the time of their 2nd year birthday. AwF Australia Director, DOS O’Sullivan, was representing the organisation at the event but he ensured that Jennifer Cobcroft (IMAS) did the majority of presenting on AwF as she had only just recently returned from working for AwF in Myanmar. Jennifer congratulated HVTTC Year 9 Cer t 1 girls on being able to use equipment like photometers to test water quality and highlighted that university students in Myanmar had very limited opportunity to do that due to lack of resources. AwF are close to finishing a much needed aquaculture library at the Myanmar Fisheries Federation in Yangon, Myanmar hopefully opening this early in the New Year. Steve, who had started plotting the event some months before, was excited to see that all the three major Salmon companies (Tassal, Huon and Petuna) not only contributed to the food but also united at the event to support the dinner, along with representatives of the feed company Skretting. He, like AwF, was grateful to other seafood sponsors Dover Bay Mussels, Van Dieman Oysters, and Abtas and organisations Willie Smith’s Cider, Frank’s Cider, Pagan Cider, St Imre Vineyard, Home Hill Winery, Kermandie Hotel who had supported the event with beverages. The attendees were an array of people from aquaculture and hospitality, educators and members of the community. The stars though were the students of the HVTTC who are enjoying the opportunity of starting off their careers in the aquaculture industry. Based on their efforts on behalf of AwF a bright future lies ahead of them and Tasmanian aquaculture. They proudly raised $2900 for the cause and feedback indicated that many people were interested in finding out more about AwF. More
information:
Roy D Palmer, Executive Director, Aquaculture without Frontiers Skype: seafoodhealth Tel: +61419528733 Email: palmerroyd@gmail.com www.aquaculturewithoutfrontiers.org
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i ke a ny o r g a n i s a t i o n g o i n g through what might be called ‘growing pains’ Aquaculture without Frontiers (AwF) knows that it has to change if it is to succeed in achieving its strategies and goals. Change is never easy and for organisations like AwF, which rely strongly on volunteers, it is very difficult. But change we must! As par t of the new broom we have revisited the website (www.aquaculturewithoutfrontier s.or g) and re-organised many of the headings and created new areas of activities and news. We have now posted our Strategic Plan 2014-17, added more volunteer information and completely revamped the ‘Giving & Funding’ area and created a new Education area. Please have a view of the website and give us your comments and importantly your ideas to value add to what we have done. An impor tant new development in the ‘Giving & Funding’ section is the involvement of Cor por ate Social Responsibility (CSR) into our program. A new element of leader ship is making a profound difference in gauging business performance: corporate social responsibility. In the past companies were judged on high performance by measuring against key business imperatives including competitive differentiation, sales, attracting and retaining talent, operational efficiency, return on investment and profitability. But today that is no longer enough. According to Edelman’s Good Purpose Study, 67 per cent of consumers say they are more likely to buy products and services from a company if they know it suppor ts good causes, up more than 11 per cent from the year before. This has seen CSR surge passed its tipping point. “A plethora of research points to a majority of stakeholders agreeing that CSR is a ‘must do’,” Kristian Darigan Merenda, Edelman’s senior vice president of brand and corporate citizenship was repor ted to say.
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AwF also learned about research conducted earlier this year by Impakt Corp. which revealed that corporations that are considered leader s in terms of business performance take a common approach to CSR. According to the research, there are five interrelated criteria which form a new blueprint for the way corporations can maximise their investments in CSR: business-based social pur pose; clear theor y of change; quality and depth of information; concentrated effor t; and par tnering with exper ts. As a result of being born from a world association of seafood exper ts and academics and engaged heavily in aquaculture AwF believes that its key corporate social leaders are within the very same industry. As a key ingredient in business strategy and execution, the AwF CSR program can play a central role in helping corporations to be seen as leaders. In the world of business astute corporations are allocating increasing internal resources to CSR investments that feature clear objectives and deliver measurable social outcomes. AwF is keen to par tner organisations offering the oppor tunity for companies to put back into developing countries through aquaculture (the world’s fastest growing primar y industr y producing a renewable sustainable highly nutritious protein/ food). By working together we can find ways where we can help develop capacity and build capability in aquaculture. Of course, any company can get involved. Many of the impor ters would likely be keen to do something but maybe have been lacking the experience that AwF can bring to the table. Hence a par tner ship collaboration could achieve so much for all. If you believe that involvement in AwF’s CSR program would be beneficial to your organisation, please complete the CSR Registration form (https://www.sur veymonkey.com/s/ CSRRegistration) and we will contact you to discuss possibilities.