Workshops

Understanding Your Numbers

It is imperative that you understand your organisation’s financial position without solely relying on your Treasurer or other finance professionals. 

This workshop will help you grasp different financial terminologies and demystify what the numbers in your financial reports mean.

With this financial statement training, you'll quickly master the fundamentals and develop an understanding of how they work, as well as how to use their information to make more effective, decisions that have a positive impact on your organisation.

This session will cover:

• Income Statements
• Statement of Financial Positions
• Cashflow Forecasting
• Questions to ask when reviewing these reports

Following the session, you will:

• gain an understanding of basic accounting terminologies
• learn the difference between the 3 key financial reports
• be taught how to interpret the data in those reports
• learn the type of questions to pose when reviewing the financial reports helping you to communicate with other users of the financial statement like their Accountant

Presenter:  Grace Mugabe - Financially Empowered 

Grace Mugabe CPA, GAICD is an award-winning Money Coach, Workshop Facilitator and an Accountant with personality and sass.

Her organisation, Financially Empowered, specialises in narrowing the financial information divide that acutely impacts minorities, through financial literacy workshops, her bespoke program Migrant Money Matters and Management Accounting Services.

She has courted governments, schools, community organisations and the private sector as some of her most ardent supporters and clients.

An avid champion for giving back to the community, Grace has sat on the board of the philanthropic fund 100 Women, Business Station and Ishar Multicultural Women's Centre, where she created and chaired the Audit and Finance committee.

The work Grace does including the Migrant Money Matter’s program has been recognised by organisations such a the AMP Foundation, United Nations Association of Australia, the Layne Beachley Foundation and Women in Finance.

Grace has previously been cited on media outlets such as Channel 7, Channel 9, 6PR Radio and the West Australian as a financial literacy and budgeting expert.

She is known for her ability to connect, engage and contribute greatly to her clients

WA’s New Work Health and Safety (WHS) Laws & Resources Available to Support Compliance

In March 2022, the new WHS Laws commenced in Western Australia. This session will provide an introduction to WA’s new WHS Laws, key changes, and their implications for Centres. It will also provide an overview of the new WHS documents that have been developed for Linkwest members (now available for members to download from the Linkwest Resource Library).

The session will be delivered by Michael Leeks of the WHS Foundation.

Presenter: Michael Leeks - WHS Foundation

Michael joined the WHS Foundation in 2020 as a WHS Consultant. With tertiary qualifications in psychology and health and safety, Michael has a focus on the human involvement in work and work arrangements.

Michael has over 15 years’ experience in work health and safety management, and workers’ compensation and injury management. His work experience includes roles with the WA government department Main Roads WA, with a safety and risk consulting practice servicing a broad range of industries, and with a global insurance broker servicing insurance clients.

In August 2021, Michael was appointed as the leader of the WHS Foundation’s consulting and advisory business overseeing and delivering services, products and advice to members and clients.

Re-imagining your Management Committee

Do you want to spark-up your management committee so that it is effective AND engaging?  Do you want to hold ‘community voice’ at the heart of decision making?

This session is about bringing ‘community and neighbourhood’ into who makes decisions, how decisions are made, and how you change and grow together.

We will explore the key ingredients of governance structures, processes, mindsets and practices that are deeply connected to your ‘place, people and purpose’.

You will gain a new way of looking at governance, as well as tips and tricks that will help you meet your current needs while building a strong foundation for the future.

Presenter: Jennifer Chaplyn - Clarion Call

Jennifer works with diverse groups of people who are wanting to strengthen how they work together to achieve change for a social purpose.

As a consultant and facilitator, Jennifer specialises in creating clarity from confusion, or ‘magic from mess’. Her engaging and hands-on approach helps people to break through barriers in thinking and practice, embrace diversity and engage others in creating change. Her unique skill of breaking down concepts into practical tools, resources and processes supports people to do their work in the real world.

Clarion Call supports people to work together across community, system and cultural boundaries, through facilitation, mediation and learning by doing.  We do this by brokering conversations and facilitating processes that galvanise collective efforts and amplify your community’s clarion call.

View From The Other Side

Last year, Linkwest provided insights from its members to a local government audience, with a focus on partnering. This session will take the same focus and provide a local government viewpoint. Will the two perspectives be on the same page? Or will interesting differences emerge?

Presenter: Alison Dalziel - Localise

Alison is an economist and recovering public servant. She has a passion for local government and communities, and what they can achieve together with an inspiring vision, real plans, and a drive to collaborate and deliver at the local level. 

Alison began her working life as a community arts worker, then moved into art and culture policy in local government before becoming more broadly involved in strategic planning and economic development. She has a strong background in sustainability, having been instrumental in forming New Zealand’s first eco-City.

From there she moved into government, working predominantly in regional and sustainable development, including a period as Advisor to the Prime Minister in these portfolio areas. She was also a founding member of Inspiring Communities, New Zealand’s peak body for community-led development.

Alison’s company, Localise, provides community engagement, strategic planning and advisory services in local government, state government and the not for profit sector.

Placemaking: How to Celebrate your Neighbourhood

Enhance your local places and celebrate your special spaces!

Participants at this interactive workshop will leave with ideas and skills to transform and enjoy your local places with your community, learning all the tips and tricks on community placemaking.

Through fun and practical activities, learn about placemaking and how you can use it to transform your places and communities. We'll explore simple and cost-effective ways to create comfort, beauty and experiences. We'll look at some local places and what is working, and not working, and how you can apply this learning to your own suburb or town.

Feel inspired with some quick placemaking wins for your local place, easy to implement ideas and actions, and how to turn blank places into great spaces!

Presenter: Emma Snow - Town Team Movement

Emma is Placemaker and Executive Director at non-profit social enterprise Town Team Movement. Town Team Movement is an award-winning 'underarching' organisation that supports communities - typically as town teams - to lead improvements in their local places.

Emma’s relationship with place projects started with her involvement in establishing an early town team in her neighbourhood – Creative Maylands.

She has over 15 years’ experience working in local government, first in strategic urban planning and then in placemaking and place management. She has collaborated to bring many successful and enduring groups and projects to life.

Emma leads Town Team Movement's consultancy service, where she works locally, regionally and nationally on people-first, community led place projects to empower people to create the right places for themselves.

Her personal interests include a passion for Danish design, travel, and enjoying teas of all kinds.

5 Tips to Make Managing Staff a Breeze

In this session Joe will discuss 5 key HR issues as identified by members. 

They will include:

1. Boundaries between governance and management.
2. Managing poor behaviour.
3. Importance of restructuring.
4. Compliance, concerns with legislation/FairWork requirements (how to make these more manageable).  
5. Relationship development and management.

Presenter: Joe Radici - Dillinger Group

Joe is the Managing Director of a Human Resource Management Consultancy organisation that has been contracted to provide a range of human resource management services to the state government since 1996. In addition, Joe has had an active role with Linkwest since 2012 in the provision of human resource consultancy services to Community Resource and Family and Neighbourhood Centres since 2012. This has included restructuring, industrial issues such as dismissals, attendance at Fair Work Commission hearings, recruitment, preparing job description forms, grievances, investigations, salary review and other human resource management issues.

From 2019 until February 2023, Joe was the Chairperson of Sudbury Community House Inc, an organisation located in Mirrabooka that provides community and early childhood learning services.  

Joe possesses a wealth of knowledge in the human resource management field and is pleased to share this experience/knowledge with participants.

Cybersecurity: How do I keep my Centre safe?

In the last decade, rapid technological advancements have transformed our professional and personal lives, but these advancements have brought new risks of cybercrime. 2022 saw some of the largest cybercrimes impacting Australian organisations and individuals, and experts predict that this risk will continue to rise in the coming years. Therefore, it is essential that we all learn how to protect ourselves, our organisations, and the communities we serve. 

This workshop aims to teach you the clever tricks and tactics the hackers are using and learn practical tips that can be implemented immediately.

The workshop will include:

• Current threats targeting Australia
• How to spot a phishing email
• Social engineering – how the hackers are hacking people instead of technology
• The top three measures that could prevent you from being the next victim
• The actions to take if you have fallen victim 
• Real-life case studies from our local communities

Presenter: Caitriona Forde - caIT

Caitriona is a seasoned IT professional with over 20 years of experience in the information technology sector and recent years, in Cyber Security. She has extensive experience working within many organisations across different industries, giving her a strong understanding of operations and the culture it takes to build a highly effective business. Through this knowledge, she is well positioned to support, collaborate and work effectively with executive leadership teams to deliver successful client outcomes. 
 
As well as being a natural problem solver, Caitriona is renowned for building long-lasting relationships with her clients. As a result of her innate ability to connect with people, she has found herself in many leadership roles throughout her career. 

Caitriona has developed a strong passion for cyber awareness training and education and can be found leading cyber awareness programs for large enterprises with a proven track record of getting results that change behaviours.

She holds a BSc Hons degree in Computing and Information Systems and a Master in Cyber Security at Edith Cowan University. She was also awarded a Women in Technology WA award in 2020 and was a finalist for Australian Women in Cyber Security in 2021.

Playgroups: Matching Community Needs with Centre Capacity

This session will assist decision making around playgroup service models and provide guidance around issues to consider such as existing playgroups, resourcing, community need, sustainability and capacity building.

Participants will be given an understanding of the key features of different playgroup models to assist in playgroup planning whilst considering the skills, resources and aspirations of Centres and communities.

The presentation will also include an outline of the support that Playgroup WA can provide to Centres in relation to playgroup planning and delivery in relation to existing and potential playgroups. 

Presenter: David Zarb - Playgroup WA

David Zarb has been the CEO of Playgroup WA since 2008. Initially qualified as a social worker, he has worked with children, families and communities for over 30 years.

This work has informed a passion for supporting and acknowledging the role of families and communities in the nurturing of healthy and happy children. Over the 17 years, he has worked exclusively in the early years, including managing two WA Communities for Children sites. David has served on many Boards and advisory groups at local, state and national levels.