2011 has been jam-packed with incident, ever since New Year’s Day.
As you might have read in my last post, Queensland has been devastated by the floods and was hit again by a cyclone a few weeks back. Even though Cyclone Yasi saw minimal loss of life, it did cause widespread damage to homes, roads, bridges and crops. Hopefully Mother Nature will leave us alone for the moment.
Australia was also hit by another cyclone in the form of the English cricket team.
I must first say, with immense pride, how fantastic the English cricket team were in retaining The Ashes and essentially giving the Aussies a lesson in how to play test cricket.
Let’s hope we can continue that success in the Cricket World Cup, and then let’s see England doing well in the Rugby World Cup later this year.
The business side of things has also been busy. BEST CDG has just won its first contract to deliver services to jobless families in Bundaberg, Queensland.
Called the PATHS Programme, this contract will be delivered in partnership with a very successful Australian organisation called Sarina Russo. I will update you again in the next week with a more detailed blog report on the PATHS programme.
It is a busy time in Australia at the moment as star ratings for providers have been released that may see some providers losing parts of their business to more successful organisations.
The time is approaching when details of the next round of tenders will be released; BEST CDG has already started work on these tenders, specifically in Melbourne with its partner, Wesley Mission Victoria.
I will be in the UK for a week from 19 March with members of the BEST Community Development and Wesley Mission Victoria senior management teams. We will be discussing and mapping out a way forward for all the organisations to be successful.
Chris Dale, general manager, BEST CDG
