Public Relations and Events Year end report 2023-2023 financial year

PUBLIC RELATIONS & EVENTS

Year end report

July 2022 - June 2023 Financial Year

The biggest campaign of the year 'Your Region Your Vision' included a brand identifier, printed collateral and merchandise, paid social media advertisements, radio, featured news interviews on radio and local newspaper, pop up activations and round table events across the region.

Poster for National Tree Day 2023 included original photos from the 2022 event. The campaign included posters, email signature, facebook events/ads and radio.

Introduction

Led by our principals, the Public Relations and Events (PRE) team had a productive year of delivering strategic direction for Central Highlands Regional Council's (council) communications.

The purpose of this document is to provide a record and a reflection on the financial year from 1 July 2022 to 30 June 2023 This document highlights topics such as recruitment and team operations; wins and obstacles; survey results; and suggestions for the year moving forward This document is not a complete list of all activities and functions undertaken by the PRE team, rather a broad overview of our year.

Our overarching goals for the PRE team are as follows:

Build council's brand and identity

Strengthen relationships with our community

Protect council's reputation by being proactive and accountable

Promote and contribute to a positive staff culture

Assist council in delivering priorities and achieving outcomes

Our values are as follows:

Growth Teamwork

Genuinity Leadership Balance

Honesty Principals

Transparency and accuracy

Timely

Planned and proactive

Clear

Concise and easily understood

Consistent

Uniform in tone, quality and meaning

Purposeful

Relevant and outcome-focused

Accessible

Delivered across multiple channnels

Creative

Compelling and engaging

The 2023/2024 budget collateral was launched in June 2023 with a fresh and more concise layout. The campaign included internal and external communications and received a neutral sentiment from the community.

Recruitment

It has been a busy and challenging year for recruitment in the Public Relations and Events (PRE) Team at council.

Staff changeover: Major changes were felt within the team this year Sasha Tomchuk was hired in June 2022 as the Public Relations Officer - Media, while Rachel Guy, Public Relations OfficerDigital, resigned In November 2022, Kara Donohoe, Coordinator Public Relations & Events, went on maternity leave and Nicole Rickards, Event Officer, resigned. Also in November 2022, Steven Chivers was hired internally from the Information Communications & Technology Team to fulfil the vacant Public Relations OfficerDigital role. Kayla Bonner, Senior Public Relations Officer, stepped into the temporary vacancy of Coordinator Public Relations & Events, and Sasha Tomchuk stepped into the temporary vacancy of Senior Public Relations Officer. In January, Nikki Atkinson was hired internally from the Connected Communities team to the vacant Events Officer role In February, Kloe Ledwy was hired as the first Public Relations Trainee In March, Tabatha (Tab) Kamerling was hired into the temporary vacancy of Public Relations Officer - Media

Vacancy: Over the financial year, the team was hiring for vacant positions for nine months. Over these nine months, the team went out to recruit for different vacancies ten times for five different roles.

Public Relations Officer (Media)

Public Relations Officer (Digital)

Coordinator Public Relations and Events

Senior Public Relations Officer

Officer

November

Devember

January

February

March

April

May

June

Major wins

To the PRE team, a win is more than an award. A win is a challenge we've overcome, the successful initiation and implementation of something new, and any achievement we are proud of.

Annual Report 2021-2022 award: Led by Kara Donohue, the annual report 2021-2022 received a gold standing from the Australasian Reporting Awards (ARA), when we have historically received silver

LGx 2022 conference award: Led by Kayla Bonner and Rachel Guy, the National Volunteer Week campaign from 2022 received an excellence award for best social media campaign

Launch of the printed newsletter: Led by Sasha Tomchuk, the printed newsletter was officially launched in September 2022 and has been distributed monthly to 25 locations across the region

Rural and state management challenge: Kayla Bonner participated with other council employees in the rural management challenge and won The team then participated in the state management challenge, which they also won! The team will compete in the international Australasian challenge in August 2023.

Internal PRE satisfaction survey: Initiated and developed by Sasha Tomchuk, an internal survey now provides the PRE team with evaluation data and clear directions towards improving our internal services.

All social channels on Meltwater: The PRE team now has quality control on all social media channels through our Meltwater software. The channels include all council-owned channels including galleries and libraries The Youth team's Facebook page is an ongoing project to update

Events overhaul: Following the resignation of Nicole Rickards, the Events Officer position description was updated to reflect a higher skill level moving forward The closet next to the council chambers and the large storage room in the parking lot was completely cleaned and organised This was a large team effort An events email was created for service desk requests, and a merchandise catalogue was developed

Our first trainee: Kloe Ledwy joined the team as the first PRE trainee Her traineeship will run for two years, while she completes her certificate four in marketing and communications

New website contractor: The preliminary stages of moving towards a new website have occurred with the engagement of a new website contractor Vandalist This decision was due to needing after hours support and frequent contact in the future Kayla Bonner and Steven Chivers led this project

PRE services packages catalogue launched: Led by Kayla Bonner, a catalogue outlining the teams internal service offerings was developed to streamline our service levels, establish professional boundaries and assist in prioritising workloads

LGx 2023 conference mention: Led by Kayla Bonner, the responsible animal management campaign titled 'RAMMY' received an honourable mention at the excellence awards.

Social media growth: Council's social media presence and sentiment has increased over the year. Council's Instagram and Twitter platforms were revived.

Overall sentiment: The PRE team presents itself as a strategic partner within council. We are respected for our approachability and willingness to provide expertise, solutionsbased advice and timely responses We believe that our increased workload is an effect of stronger communication and relationships built

Obstacles

Throughout the year we faced several unexpected events and approached them effectively without grave reputational damage.

Tragic accident of Richard Sheridan: The death of our colleague Richard Sheridan was a tragic incident that had a ripple effect across the organisation This accident required ongoing support from Kayla Bonner This meant the team was down a team member for business-as-usual operations for about a month. As a result of this incident, a crisis communications plan was drafted with all of our learnings to ensure the team is prepared for the future.

Resignation of Councillor Natalie Curtis: The resignation of Cr Curtis was predicted but still required careful communication to the public. The public assumed a by-election would take place for her replacement, which was untrue. Since Cr Curtis resigned within 12 months of her final tenure year, a new councillor would be selected based on a councillor vote As a result, the PRE team kicked off a 'councillor vacancy ' campaign that ensured transparency to the community

Closure of Emerald green waste facility: Emerald's Glasson Street green waste facility was unexpectedly closed in October of 2022 due to issues identified by the Department of Environment and Science The closure has been ongoing, with no re-opening date in sight On month three of the closure, the PRE and waste team collaborated to promote and host several ' green waste pop-up collection points' to mitigate negative feedback we were hearing from the public In addition, a video to promote recycling via the 'Trash to Treasure' facility was made as a 'feel good' Christmas asset

Wet weather events/road closures: The 20222023 year saw various wet weather events happen across the central highlands. From flash flooding to ongoing road closures and heavy rainfall, our team handled a variety of campaigns to ensure the community was well-informed. During this time, our main channel of communication was the Facebook page

Facebook followers increased after each wet weather event

Survey results indicate Facebook is the preferred method of communication for wet weather events

Further investigation will be made on SMS alerts alongside the disaster management team for future events

Vandalism: Vandalism was prevalent at the start of 2023 with multiple facilities and assets being destroyed Facebook and print/online media were used to inform about vandalism and direct the public to notify council and the police There was high community engagement on these posts, many of which were positive towards council

Staff vacancies: Ongoing movement from staff members in the PRE team led to several vacancies and gaps that caused efficiency issues and stunted the team's growth To ensure we were still delivering results for our internal stakeholders, we used help from external contractors These contractors helped us to deliver project and design work

'Light Up Central Highlands' received a brand refresh for 2022. As a result, we received 35 entries and almost 2000 votes for the People's Choice Awards (a 400% increase from the year before).

Service Desk

Tickets, tickets, tickets! A streamlined way of providing services to our various council departments.

Full transition: In July 2022 the PRE team fully transitioned to using the 'service desk' through Freshworks software to organize, distribute and analyse our workloads This software effectively replaced e-mail as our communication centre for completing tasks and providing internal public relations services.

In the 2022-2023 financial year, the team received 1406 tickets (a 31% increase from last year). Of those tickets, 94.7% were completed by the due date (a 40% increase from last year). The dispersion of requests were as follows:

Total number of tickets completed

1406

31%sincelastyear

The 'Work for Water' campaign is a recruitment campaign targetted for entry level positions through to senior and supervisory positions As part of the campaign a water recruitment video was made and distributed on all Seek ads.

Facebook Social media

Our Facebook following increased by 13.1% since July 2022.

Since June 2022, there has been more conversation and engagement on Facebook. Generally, sentiment is positive or neutral, with only 7% of total Facebook interactions being negative This is down by 1% since June 2022

We currently have 13,256 followers on the Central Highlands Regional Council Facebook page From July 1 2022 to June 2023, we received 1,115 new Facebook followers (a 13% increase from the previous year). Our Facebook page visits have increased 150% over the past year, and our reach has increased by 65%

Total sentiment has increased by 232% since the previous financial year. This means more people are engaging with our Facebook posts and providing positive, negative or neutral comments/reactions. Overall negative sentiment has decreased by 1% since the last financial year

Our highest achieving organic post was informing the public about a caretaker position for Bedford Weir This post was on a screen 20,775 times (impressions), reached approximately 19,488 people, and was engaged 659 times (likes, shares, comments).

A 'win' for the PRE team this year related to Facebook is the ability to now post as council in specific groups like the Emerald Community Awareness Board Previously, this was not something that was allowed by Facebook With this new ability, we can target specific audiences and allows the community more ability to interact with our content

Paid social media advertisements (ad) are another initiative the PRE implements and promote as a successful method for reaching audiences, informing the public and engaging with our community members In the past financial year, we ran 104 paid social media ad campaigns on Facebook Our highest-performing Facebook ad promoted Sam Thaiday for the Sport and Active Recreation Awards This ad received 612 link clicks which translated to about $0.33 a click. The ad reached over 31,244 people and made over 78,210 impressions Our total amount spent on this ad was $200

Subjectively, other high-performing post types include a personal element, photos accompanying a good news story, capital project updates, #flashbackfridays, and profiles on volunteers and Australia Day award winners. The PRE defines a successful post as one that generates positive conversation in the comments section and is shared by community members

Instagram

Instagram was relaunched this year after a long hiatus.

We currently have 569 followers on Instagram This is a 15% increase from the previous year, likely because we started posting regularly again

The strategic vision for Instagram is to use photos of people from events and council happenings. Text-heavy posts or graphics generated on Canva are not in line with the strategy of our page and the platform itself being intended for photography and video

The use of Instagram stories and reels is becoming increasingly popular Experimentation with stories at Queensland Day Park Run proved successful and should be something the PRE team continues to explore as a 'realtime' way of connecting with the public

LinkedIn

Our LinkedIn channel is dedicated to celebrating the achievements of staff.

During this financial year, the strategy for LinkedIn was to focus on the internal achievements of CHRC staff. The goal was to post at least once a week Previously, it was a rare occasion that anything was posted to LinkedIn

From July 1 2022 to June 2023, we received 3,289 page views and 1,459 unique visitors

In particular, we made it a point to post our weekly 'internal vacancies' post on LinkedIn as LinkedIn is a very specific audience of job seekers and professionals

Other popular posts included a video of the march against Domestic Violence, a promotion for an event geared to Business Leaders *Our Region, Our Vision', and the results of our activation at CQ University's Career Day

Our impressions hover consistently around the 500 mark. However, spikes occurred on 24 November 2022 (disaster management preparedness and CQ RMC Rural Management Challenge posts) It is noted that our regular current vacancies posts are well received and often reposted. Our ‘welcome new starter’ posts each month are also very popular, with many comments and reactions

Nogoa November and the tribute to the late Queen Elizabeth II were also popular posts with a significant uptake of click through and reposts/ reactions

As of June 2023, our LinkedIn page has 2,259 total followers, which has increased organically over the last year Compared to other local councils Gladstone Regional Council and Western Downs Regional Council, we are on par. Mackay Regional Council takes the lead with 8,869 followers They post much more frequently than we do, which is worth exploring if we want to grow our presence in this area.

New starter post

Disaster management post

Rural management trophy Vale Richard Sheridan

A poster created for the Youth survey campaign using our brand colours in a creative way.

Traditional media

The PRE distributed 117 public notices and 159 media releases over the last financial year.

CHRC in print had significant uptake from Jan 9th 2023, and has trended slightly upward since. From July

December 2022, mentions were low (between 1- 6 per week); however, since January 2023 –we have had regular double-digit mentions Notable spikes in mentions in the January

June 2023 period were about Natalie Curtis’ resignation, Land valuations, Sport and Recreation awards, Mowing issues and CHRC’s workplace incident.

CHRC on TV and radio proved quiet from July 2022 until a huge spike in mentions in late October 2022 This is due to the impacts of wet weather and flash flooding across the region. Our highest mention rate was 44 on October 20 2022 which can be attributed to severe weather and flash flooding updates Closely followed with 37 mentions the temporary closure of Lochlee’s landfill and the collapse of Glencore’s proposed thermal coal mine northwest of emerald

CHRC in the news online showed a spike in mentions, our highest being 22 mentions on March 10 2023 relating to Telstra’s plans to install 5G towers, 4 Paws fundraising walk, Kalari ammonium nitrate stockpile protests in Duaringa and a newly formed Ratepayers Association group gaining traction in the community

Combining all forms of traditional media, our mentioned rose this year by 59%. Sentiment was down by 14% and news reach was up by 53% All of these statistics can be attributed to the volume of media releases, quality of writing, topics and ability to keep out media contacts list relevant

By volume Publishers

Media satisfaction

In May 2023, a survey was distributed to 13 key media contacts.

Although we only received 7 responses, these are responses from reputable publishing companies that have continuously kept a mutually beneficial relationship with the PRE team

40% of the respondents answered ' yes mostly' when asked if PRE responded in a timely manner, while 60% responded ' yes always' All respondents knew of the correct channels to communicate with the PRE team. The average rating we received was 4.6 stars out of 5, and all respondents reported positive interactions with our team

Respondents

Di Stanley, Emerald Today

Peter Lynch, CQ Today

Shelby Gurney, CQ Today

Lachlan Itter, SCA (Hit FM)

Stephanie Scaglione, SCA (Hit FM)

Sally Gall, QLD Country Life

Shirley Way, Resonate Regional Radio

Internal survey feedback

In January 2023, we implemented the Internal PRE survey to gain feedback on our service performances for campaigns and activities.

Every week, the team discusses campaigns of tasks that have recently finished (whether they went smoothly or not) and seeks feedback from specific department coordinators to have a better understanding of how we can improve The survey asks respondents to rate the services on communication, organisation, review process, value for money and quality of services Since January, we have received 35 responewse with 87% rating the PRE team as 'strongly agree ' as a positive overall experience.

"Really appreciate the PRE team's work on this and your flexibility as the campaign adapted over time due to changes to the My Community Directory platform" –Georgia Esplin, My Community Directory

"The PR team are fantasticincredibly helpful and supportive. They have an excellent quality of work and always present council professionally – Tracey Jackson, Green Waste Pop-Up.

"Absolutely blown away by this team - on this campaign, particularly Kayla, especially having regard to all the other things going on. 5/5**** FULLY RECOMMEND - WOULD USE THESE SERVICES AGAIN AND AGAIN!!" -

Rhys Dennison, Councillor Vacancy

"The PRE team has done an excellent job remaining in communication with us throughout the campaign. Love all the suggestions and help that we were given. Thank you very much to a job well done." - Marcelle

Chapman, Botanics Day 2023

Selected 'strongly agree ' as overall positive experience

87%

External survey feedback

In April 2023, the Connected Communities team surveyed the community on council's engagement practices (156 respondents). At the same time, the Connected Communities team conducted another community survey on community satisfaction with council services (400 respondents).

As part of the Operational Plan 20222023, the PRE team were required to conduct a community survey on communication practices. Instead of initiating another survey simultaneously with the two surveys from Connected Communities, the PRE team decided to piggyback off Connected Communities surveys by adding questions directly related to communications

The questions asked were:

How do you prefer to receive information? (check all that apply to certain topics)

Channels

Social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram)

SMS

Council's online newsletter

Local newspaper online Newsletter in my mail box Broadcast (TV ads and radio)

Not at all

Topics

What's happening in my local area

Severe weather alerts

Road closures and public works alerts

Art Gallery exhibits, library information and events

Community events

Sports and recreation information

Changes to council business and reporting

Tourism news and projects

Youth events and projects

Environmental projects and events

Community engagement opportunities i e surveys, community consultations, community reference groups

Please rate the following about council's communication with you (poor, fair, average, good, excellent)

The quality of the communication I receive from council about community programs is

The quality of the communications I receive about council matters is...

The reporting of important local issues to residents by council is

The accuracy of information provided by council is...

The quality of the communications I receive about engagement opportunities is

How would you rate council's performance in sharing information, listening to feedback and responding to the community?

Being kept up to date with what is happening in the region

The relevance of the information and communication provided

The different methods used to provide information and communication to the community

The amount of information and communication provided

The range of topics residents have the opportunity have their say about

The responsiveness of council to community feedback

The transparency in what council shares with the community

In analysing the results from both surveys, the following was concluded:

The quality of communications that council provides to the community is rated fairly low, with minimal respondents rating communications as excellent

With the above being concluded, the PRE team are unsure what quantifies as 'quality information' Is it spelling and grammar, length, or frequency? This is something worth discussing further

There has been a slight decrease in the public's perception of the quality of council's communications in the following areas:

Community programs

Council matters

Reporting on important issues

Accuracy of information

Perception of council's performance of communication has declined in Blackwater

Social media (facebook, Twitter and Instagram) are the most popular methods for all public communication methods except for SMS regarding severe weather events

Currently, we don't use SMS to communicate with the public This is a topic worth discussing for the next financial year, especially regarding severe weather events, road closures, water main breaks etc.

Facebook is the most preferred communication channel Council's online e-newsletter was the second most popular method of receiving information

'I would like items in the online newsletter to be more "Facebook friendly" to make them more visible when shared on social media in local community groups. '

'Follow up and closing the loop is important.'

Remains the most popular method of communication

Facebook

Ready to launch for 2023 dog registrations is the 'Responsible Animal Management' or 'RAMMY' campaign which includes printed collateral, social media advertising, an animated video, school presentations with activity book and a custom mascot.

The team has worked hard this year to make the current public website more responsive and error-free.

Led by Steve Chivers and assisted by Kloe Ledwy, the project started with data and removing broken links. In one months time, the team removed over 800 broken links, 100 broken images and 400 potential misspellings Our quality assurance went from 81% and is now 100%

After unsatisfactory service from the web development agency 'Lamb', we hired a new agency 'Vandalist'

PROJECTS

Improve website user experience and accessibility

DETAILS

They advised changing the web server and backup host from AWS to Fastcomet. We now have 24/7 monitoring and support. We have saved $9,000 from our annual budget by making this change

In the future, the team will be working towards a total revamp of the website content and design for better useability and functionality for customers and staff

OUTCOME

Use of Monsido software for 40+ hours by two team members

Increased compliance to 100% by removing over 1000 broken links, images and spelling errors

Procurement of Vandalist website consultants

Firing of Lamb Agency as they were unreliable

Now have 24/7 support and remote monitoring, which means less down time and resolutions happening before we even realise there is an issue

Change from AWS to Fastcomet webshost

Advised by Vandalist to increase website speed

Increase in speed by over 300%. Going from 2000ms to under 600ms

Photo + Video

The team shot, edited and distributed 45 videos over the last financial year.

YouTube: Our Youtube following increased by 50% this year We now have 306 subscribers to our channel.

All of the videos we make are stored on the YouTube channel, whether public or unlisted (for internal use only)

Our most popular videos are short with a community element such as local people profiles, events, wild animals, or capital project results

Our least popular videos are long (over 2 minutes) with lots of dialogue This can be attributed to lack of visual appeal, poor audio, and public apathy about the topic

60,000 40,000 20,000 0

42.9%

Video retention and acceptance: This indicates how long people watch our videos for. It is no surprise that the shorter videos are much better received than the longer ones Also, videos with a 'community aspect', like an event recap are much more well received than informational videos or the Mayor speaking

42% of our audience only watches a video for the first 3 seconds This means, we really need to work on capturing our audience right from the start

Reels and stories: Facebook stories and Instagram reels are a quicker and more informal way or creating video content that is receiving much more uptake than a traditionally edited video This was tested successfully at Queensland Day Park Run

13.9%

3 second views 15 second views 1 minute views

Topperformingvideosbyorganicengagement

Water recruitment

March Against Domestic and Family Violence

Meet the Trainees series Sports and Recreation Awards

Events

The PRE team assisted in the promotion of 160+ public and internal events and activations. We were physically present to assist and capture photos and videos at 34 events.

Get Pet Active Expo July 2022: A first event to educate pet owners on registration, microchip and getting active with pets This event was well-received, with many participants enjoying the pet costume parade. Unfortunately, this event will not happen in 2023 due to a lack of resources from the Rangers team

Women's Health Night September 2022: Another first event, this event aimed to educate women on putting their mental and physical health first. Guest speakers, market stalls, and information booths were well received, and there was a large turnout (+100 women)

Nogoa November November 2022: Occurring almost immediately after the departure of our Events Officer, Nicole Rickards, putting this event together was a scramble until the finish line Luckily, it was pulled off successfully as a collaborative effort, with many participants saying it was one of the best events yet.

Australia Day 2023: Another large event planned without an Events Officer, the Emerald Australia Day and combined Citizenship ceremony required seamless logistics with little flexibility Although we experienced a few hiccups, councillors told us this was one of the best-organised Australia Day events they had attended. We learned how we would change the event for next year, and the councillors agreed Citizenship ceremonies: 4 Ceremonies with 101 new Citizens from Philippines, Brazil, Fiji, India, Kenya, New Zealand, South Africa, USA, Zimbabwe, Thailand, Tonga, UK, Mauritius, Bangladesh, Belgium, Channel Islands, Germany, Pakistan, Poland, Slovenia, China

Easter Sunflower Festival 2023: The Central Highlands Easter Sunflower Festival is an annual multi-event festival As part of the week-long festivities’ council's PRE team is responsible for hosting a dinner with the festival committee to welcome the Canadian visitors and their families and decorate a float for the parade Staff from different departments collaborated to decorate the float, including large decorated eggs completed by the SES Cadets. Councillors, staff and their families participated on the day, handing out lollies and waving to the crowd Best of all, our float won and our winnings were donated to the SES cadets who helped us.

Kids school excursions

Seniors Luncheon

NAIDOC Blackwater

National Tree Day

Green Waste Pop-Up

Botanic Gardens Day