Dec
2011
Creating jobs and linking with community – a long term plan
On Thursday 1 December, the The Hon Peter Hall MLC, Minister for Higher Education and Skills, Minister responsible for the Teaching Profession handed the keys to a new sustainable house at Selandra Rise in Clyde North to a third year apprentice and cut the ribbon launching MEGT’s Greenhouse project.
The house is one of six affordable homes built under a year-long partnership between MEGT, a not-for-profit organisation and one of Australia’s largest employers of apprentices, Stockland and Porter Davis Homes.
“What could be more fitting to mark the completion of this fantastic affordable housing project
than to be handing the keys to one of the people involved in its construction,” Mr Hall said.
Mr Hall praised the involvement of MEGT, Stockland and Porter Davis Homes, saying the project had resulted in employment for 15 trainees and apprentices in roles as varied as finance, real estate, building and construction.
The project also sets a benchmark for affordable environmental advances in housing construction for the future.
“The Victorian Coalition Government through Skills Victoria provided $100,000 in innovation funding to MEGT to build sustainable and affordable housing and to stimulate ongoing employment within the building and construction industry,” Mr Hall said.
“Each of the houses has been built according to environmental best practice through the use of solar hot water, recycled water for gardens, and the fit-out of smart wiring.
In 2010, MEGT partnered with Stocklands and Porter Davis Homes to pilot a model that would generate employment opportunities for apprentices and trainees. This model needed to be able to be scaled up or down to suit different geographic regions.
Six houses were purchased in Clyde North, Victoria on the Selandra Rise Estate. Learning from the problems of infrastructure and services disconnection faced by some other satellite estates, Stocklands planned the Selandra Rise project with community needs in mind. This was exactly the mindset that was synergistic with MEGT’s plans to create sustainable job opportunities for young people in regions right around Australia.
Fifteen apprentices and trainees have been employed by MEGT and placed with KPMG, Middendorp Electrics, Stocklands and Porter Davis Homes; with more trainees still to be employed for the real estate and financial services businesses connected to the Estate. It is the wide range of skills that makes this project scalable.
Estate building projects cycle tradespeople from house to house. That means only a handful of tradespeople are needed in building a large number of houses. It is when you combine all the industries involved in an estate, that employment for locals becomes sustainable after the houses have been built. While initial apprenticeships and traineeships come from the architects through to analysts, finance organisations and real estate agents, landscapers and the traditional building and construction companies; there are even more opportunities when the Estate is populated by retailers, libraries, sports facilities and schools. The sale of the houses in December 2011 will not therefore be the end of the employment opportunities for the community.
MEGT also assisted one of its apprentices, Michael Belli, in purchasing his first home from the estate.
In December, the project partners will sit down together and talk about the way forward. What were the learnings? What could we do better? Where should we take the model next? It’s important to Australian communities and to the Building and Construction industry that these types of schemes don’t stop with one estate and one region. It’s partnerships that will make them happen.
MEGT would like to acknowledge funding assistance from SkillsVic towards the success of this project.
No commentsOct
2011
EMILY HODGE WINS THE BAW BAW SHIRE BUSINESS AWARDS – YOUNG ACHIEVER AWARD
Emily Hodge, a school-based trainee from Warragul Regional College, is employed by MEGT Group Training and works on location at Sally J Real Estate in Warragul.
MEGT Group Training is proud to have supported Emily throughout her school-based traineeship. Emily will commence a full time traineeship completing Certificate IV in
Real Estate at the end of the year.
As a Group Training Organisation, MEGT is proud to work with Gippsland businesses in developing their workforce by placing and supporting local people through the traineeship program, whether it be school-based, full-time or part-time.
MEGT Group Training would also like to acknowledge the support of Mike Jungwirth – Workplace Learning Co-ordinator with the Baw Baw LLEN in coordinating the Young Achiever’s Award.
Oct
2011
Mission Australia Trainee Awards
Inaugural Mission Australia Trainee Awards night at Melbourne Aquarium on Monday 3rd of October.
The awards to to acknowledge the efforts over more than 100 trainees that Mission has over the last couple of years across 3 different projects.
MEGT GT provided 22 trainees to Build the Vic Urban “POP UP PARK” at Dandenong. These trainees all have a level of disadvantage in the labour market and were unable to gain work, 2 of our trainees were lucky enough to receive awards.
10 of our original 22 were taken by bus to the event by Mission Australia and had a fantastic time.
Sep
2011
Melbourne Graduation 2011
Celebrate your achievements at the Graduation night
Celebrate this momentous achievement with your family,
employer and/or host employer on
Date: Tuesday, 15 November 2011
Time: 7pm – 9:30pm
Venue: Malvern Town Hall
Address: Cnr Glenferrie Road & High Street
Malvern
(Keep this date free. Please note the change of venue)
Note: Your formal invitation will be sent out in September 2011
Bring: Family, friends and work colleagues
Sep
2011
Jobs created by MEGT
The MEGT Group Training Greenhouse project was started over a year ago as an initiative to create employment for apprentices and trainees.
MEGT Group Training has purchased 6 blocks of land at the Selandra Rise Estate in City of Casey, Victoria, through Stockland and has partnered with Stocklands and Porter Davis homes to create those employment opportunities.
The houses are being built in line with best practice environmentally appropriate initiatives.
The houses are already under construction and 15 apprentices and trainees have been placed with a wide variety of organisations involved in building a new community.
May
2011
Award winning company now ‘breeding’ award winning staff
It seems award winning creative services agency The Creative Collective is now breeding award winning staff.
The Creative Collective has been advised that not only had they become a finalist in the Queensland Training Awards in the Small Employer of the Year category, but that their 18 year old trainee, Jag Quimby, who is currently completing a Cert IV in IT (Multimedia) through the Sunshine Coast TAFE has also been named a finalist in the Bob Marshmann Trainee of the Year category of the same awards.
MEGT Australian Apprenticeships Centre Consultant Charmian Burow has been facilitating the Collective’s traineeships, in particular, that of Jag Quimby, who commenced traineeship back in March 2010.
The Queensland Training Awards recognise and reward the outstanding achievements of individuals and organisations within the vocational education and training sector who strive for excellence, best practice and innovation. Celebrating their 50th Anniversary in 2011, the awards continue to showcase and highlight the significant contribution made by Queensland’s vocational education and training sector to the wider Queensland community and economy. There are 11 award categories, with two new award categories open in 2011.
The director of the Creative Collective Yvette Adams says that the company is naturally ecstatic about the potential more awards accolades, and are particularly excited about this news given they have only been offering training for around 18 months.
“Whilst we started off life as a service based organisation we quickly discovered that if we could combine the service with education and training we could take our clients so much further. Education and training is now very much a part of our business and we are extremely excited to have been recognised in this awards program.”
The Creative Collective currently offer education in the form of monthly professional development and networking events called Web Wednesdays out of the Sunshine Coast Institute of TAFE; have developed and deliver a range of training programs for Government departments such as AusIndustry and the Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation and have recently moved into a commercial premises and begun offering intimate hands on laptop training out of their dedicated training room which sits up to 10 people in addition to their own comprehensive in-house training programs.
The Creative Collective and Jag Quimby will be judged within the North Coast region’s awards on 30 July in Maryborough, and if successful will go on to the state final presentation dinner due to be held at the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre on 2 September 2011.
May
2011
Indigenous Australian Apprentices benefit from new MEGT project
Luke Austin, Mitchell English, Sarah Harrange (MEGT), Adrian Hill (MEGT), Michael Wenham, Martin Latham with trainees hosted by Thiess.
Thiess, a major construction, mining and services contractor, is also a major employer of apprentices and trainees. And they have a strong commitment to sustainable employment of Indigenous Australians.
An alliance with RTA, Thiess, Parsons Brinkerhoff (PB) and Hyder Consulting, has been formed to construct the eastern section of the $1.7 billion Hunter Expressway Project in NSW. The Alliance section is 13.3km long and the project involves building a four-lane divided highway from the end of the F3 Freeway at Newcastle to Kurri Kurri in the Hunter Valley.
Partnering with MEGT Group Training Thiess is hosting seventeen Australian Apprentices for the project. Determined to meet their commitment to the employment and training of Indigenous Australians, six of the Australian Apprentices come from local indigenous communities.
MEGT is providing the essential pastoral care, mentoring and procedural support to help Thiess concentrate on what it does best:
• building the expressway
• $60 million of mine subsidence foundation treatment
• two million cubic metres of earthworks
• three viaduct bridges (840m long, 40m high and 20,000m2 bridge deck), and
• 16 other bridges (overpasses etc 14,000m2 bridge deck).
To date, five apprentices (of which two are Indigenous Australians) are completing the Certificate III Formwork/Falsework in a block release program at the Hunter Institute Tighes Hill campus. The apprentices will be working on constructing the bridges and viaducts.
Twelve trainees (of which four are Indigenous Australians) are completing Certificate II Civil Construction with on-the-job training through the Hunter Institute. Some of the trainee’s tasks include surveying, laying pipes for drainage, building silt fences and operating small plant and equipment.
Adrian Hill, Area Manager for MEGT Group Training and Sarah Harrang MEGT Newcastle Industry Employment consultant are working closely with Deb Nooyen and Sam Gillett from MEGT’s specialist Indigenous Apprenticeship and Traineeship Network to help source and provide pastoral care and mentoring for the team.
Apr
2011
HE’S A RICH MAN
If you are a parent, an employer or even a young person; you quickly become accustomed to the challenges presented by the professional world. Most young people these days find it difficult to stay and grow within the one company.
Most employers find it hard to get the right talent. And most parents find it difficult to mentor their kids. John Hopkins has done it all. Rolled into one, as an employer, an employee and a mentor – his leadership, commitment to community and passion for his profession stand as a testament to others.
John’s charisma has charmed many employers over the years to giving MEGT’s apprentices and trainees a go in life. His success has seen what he calls a ‘recycling process’; where apprentices or trainees whom were once employed by MEGT, have themselves become business owners, and now are utilising MEGT for their own employment of apprentices and trainees.
‘You need to make an effort to really know your host employers’, John emphasises. ‘If the employer is meticulous, then the candidate should be a “nerdier” kid who pays attention to detail, this way we create the right match from the start’.
John says it is more than just the ‘special people that make up [the team at] MEGT’, that has fuelled his love for the job over the years. It is that moment ‘when you ring the young person to offer them that job, and you hear the sound of joy in their voice as they accept.’ Further than that, he says ‘because it brings joy to the whole family in the knowledge that their child has been given an opportunity in life.’
His career has never been about money, John says. He would have gone back to the tools if that had been the case. However, there is no doubt that John is a rich man.
From the MEGT family, clients, apprentices and trainees:
“Thank you John for the support, life lessons, attention to detail, and for simply caring for the future generation of Australia’s workforce. We wish you well.”
Interview with John Hopkins
Interview – Maria Jardon 8 April 2011
Apr
2011
Mullangari Mura – new diabetes clinic in Yass
- Robin Vote – Indigenous Health Project Officer, Federal Member Alby Shulz and Eric Bell, Chairman of the Buranya Aboriginal Corporation
MEGT has had a close relationship with the Buranya Aboriginal Corporation for the past few years and admires and respects the work they have been doing through Ngunnawal Community Care to help approximately 100 elderly Aboriginal Australians stay at home rather than go into care.
We are pleased to have contributed in a small way to the refurbishment of the Ngunnawal Community Care offices in Yass in time for the launch of their new health service to the region. The refurbished premises now are a bit more cosy with the new carpet and heating.
From Goulburn to Canberra, Ngunnawal Community Care offices will pick up elderly customers and take them into Yass for a free health check including a full diabetes assessment.
The Southern General Practice Network has partnered with Ngunnawal Community Care to deliver this service through the Federally funded Closing the Gap program which is part of the Indigenous Chronic Disease Package.
Called ‘Mullangari Mura’, the monthly diabetes clinic will be held on the third Wednesday of every month at Ngunnawal Community Care (next door to the hospital) in Yass. The first clinic will take place on Wednesday 20 April from 9am to 5pm. GPs can encourage their patients to attend – no referral is required. The emphasis will be on self management and preventive strategies in a supportive and relaxed environment.
A diabetes educator, Aboriginal health workers, nurses and a podiatrist will be available at the free clinic. This multi-disciplinary approach has been tried and tested at our Healthy for Life diabetes clinics on the coast, where we are seeing Aboriginal people getting their diabetes under control and enjoying better health and wellbeing as a result.
The launch was held on a sparkling sunny day on Saturday 2nd April 2010 at the Yass Memorial Hall. Guests were entertained with music, jumping castle and a barbecue.
Attending the launch were Robin Vote, the Indigenous Health Project Officer for Closing the Gap program, local Federal Member Alby Shulz and Eric Bell, Chairman of the Buranya Aboriginal Corporation and an elder of the Ngunnawal people.
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- Robin Vote – Indigenous Health Project Officer, Federal Member Alby Shulz and Eric Bell, Chairman of the Buranya Aboriginal Corporation
Feb
2011
Occupational Trainee VISA Presentation
MEGT would like to invite all students to attend to the OTV presentation:
Occupational Trainee VISA Presentation
2nd March 2011 at 12pm, room 4.
(Sydney Campus)
Presented by Melanie Macfarlane, registered Migration Agent from MMMigration.
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