CONGRATULATIONS ON A JOB WELL DONE!
The CIII Group in the Library with some of our Raffle Winners
Here is a copy of the final report:
This semester, the CIII group in Employment, Education and Training students from the Humanities Section of Campbelltown TAFE held a fund raising event for the Cancer Council. It was called “Team Colours for Cancer” and the students raised a total of $969.15 while providing evidence of their competency in Customer Service and Negotiation Skills. This is how it happened:
At the beginning of the semester, students were given Student Assessment Guides and during the course of reading through them, were given a choice of how they would like to do their practical assessment for the two units. It was unanimously agreed that a real event would be much more beneficial (and fun) than a hypothetical one. While learning how to communicate to deliver quality customer service and negotiation skills, the group set aside some time during each class to brainstorm and after three weeks, came up with the idea of a fund-raiser for cancer research to coincide with ‘Movember’ activities. Once we got the ‘all clear’ from our coordinator, the planning process began.
The next step was to set up a blog so that we could all communicate effectively and then we set out to recruit help. Starting with the Cancer Council and then on to the ever-helpful Student Association who was there every step of the way. The students organised games, a BBQ, media coverage, a raffle and even a hip-hop group to come and give a live performance. After classes and on the weekends, students went to local businesses and used their new negotiation skills to ask for help and support with the event. The result was astonishing! During the weeks to follow, students presented items such as; perfumes, gift vouchers, cosmetics, stationary supplies, clothing items and much more. Contributing businesses were rewarded by having their names displayed on a sponsorship banner on the day of the event as well as receiving letters of thanks and certificates of appreciation from the grateful students.
On the day of the event, nervous students came in early to make the final preparations. We set up our banners and games on the North side of the canteen. Murray from the Student Association set up the BBQ and sausages that were donated by Woolworths were served while raffle tickets were sold at the Library for the many brightly wrapped hampers. Street University came and set up their van amongst the activities and treated us all to some original live music. And before long, the C91.3 van came along bringing free drinks and a live broadcast. Students were caught on camera in the act of performing quality customer service, but that was not the only success of the day. By the time we added up all the money we had raised, between the BBQ, Raffle, Games, and online contributions, we were amazed to learn that we had surpassed our $500.00 goal and had banked an astonishing $969.15.
After the event was over and students were put to the task of reflecting on what had happened during the semester, we found even more positive outcomes. One student wrote, and gave me permission to publish this reflection piece:
“This was probably the busiest day I have had in a long time. Luckily it all went better than expected and there was no conflict or problems, we were all proud of what we achieved. I think we all worked very hard securing donations, using good decorum and negotiation skills to be very persuasive in our requests. Whilst selling tickets for the raffle we learnt a lot as we went and due to our well rehearsed customer service skills we made a lot more money than our original target. It was fun event to host and it was great to see how much easier it can be with great teamwork to keep everyone motivated.” *Renai De Le Garde
Thank you so much Janis Robinson, Dennis McHugh and Tanya Curran for allowing our students to discover their hidden potential in creative ways. I can’t wait to see what they come up with next year! And thank you from the bottom or our hearts, Murray Norgate from the Student Association, Colette Rixon from Floristry, Mark Motley and Andrew Murphy from the Carpentry and Joinery Section, and a huge thanks to Kim Heldorn and all the helpful staff of our Campbelltown TAFE Library. It is your enthusiasm, helpfulness and excellence, that make Campbelltown TAFE such an extraordinary place to work and study!
Elizabeth Johnson
