Corporate Social Responsibility - or CSR
Given the time and the money there are many things we can do to support good causes as volunteers or through pro bono work. Apart from charity donations we concentrate our efforts on:
- Parent Teacher Association, as Treasurer. All PTAs need support to raise funds and increase engagement in the community.
- Young Enterprise: This is aimed at encouraging Year 12 (or Lower 6th) students to understand business. Run as a national competition, each group of school students has to organsie themsleves to start a company, design, create and sell prodcuts, and, at the end of the school year, close the company. Occasionally the products and the companies continue. I worked with YE for at least five years.
- School Industry Conferences: I chaired these for five years. Two local schools combined their Year 12 students - a total of 200 - for a two day industry conference based on a series of activities culminating in the competitive production and sale of jot pads. The students were mixed at tables of about 14, each table with its own facilitator drawn from industry or commerce. It was a rule that the work should be by the students, and that facilitators should not provide direction. Relatively quiet at the beginning of Day One, by the middle of the competitive production exercise activity and energy levels were extremly high with espionage, sabotage, and all other forms of normal industry in evidence.
- Mentoring and Coaching: this is mainly on career choices and education options at secondary school and beyond, including those facing redundancy.