The theme of this year’s Conference was Care for self, Care for 0thers. In 2020 Centacare was warmly welcomed into the Mulwala community so we thought this was the perfect location to follow up with our 2022 conference.

Day one

EVI Consulting kicked off the conference working with us to focus on our business improvement strategies, and develop strategies to connect with each other, our community and our diocese as a valued Catholic social service serving the vulnerable in our community.

Kylie Flynn, a connection and workplace wellbeing expert from Happi Matters followed delivering a fun and interactive workshop called “Get Connected.” speaking about what it means to be human and to work through team connection and wellbeing strategies.
With connection  more vital than ever to our wellbeing, health and happiness Kylie says “a great place to start is to create more meaningful connections with one another, connect with ourselves better and have some fun in the process.”

Day two

Team members entered the conference room to be greeting by carebears sitting on the desks. Each care bear was accompanied with 6 x 1 hour self-care vouchers where team members could redeem for 1 hour away from work to indulge in self care activities.

It was a great initiative from our Managers to say thank you for all the amazing hard wrk undertaken by their staff. They were warmly recieved and was a great start to day two.

Bishop Mark Edwards followed speaking to the group about Centacare’s Catholic Mission and working with him as his social service agency for the Diocese of Wagga Wagga.

Dr Andrew Watson, Director of Catholic Education Diocese of Wagga Wagga then explored how we can work together in delivery of Catholic Social Services for the diocese.

All aboard

After working hard across the two days, everyone was excited to board the  ‘Paradise Queen‘ for our Sunset Dinner Cruise  which was an 80’s theme dress up theme.  It was a fun and entertaining way of catching up and connecting face to face with each other uniting staff across all four office locations. Everybody went to so much effort to recreate those 80’s outfits we were disappointed when the evening ended and we couldn’t stay dressed like that for the next day. It was a highlight of the conference and one we’ll all remember.

At the end of a long couple of days we all headed home feeling weary and tired but very grateful that we were able to spend some time together reconnecting and all feeling enthusiastic and excited to see what the future of Centacare holds.

Thanks to the venues, consultant’s and organisers that helped make this the best conference so far.

Heres what some of our team members had to say about it…

“The conference was a lot of fun and I look forward to the next one”

“It was absolutely fabulous, very enjoyable and engaging”

“It was so good getting to know the other teams in different locations and what everyone does”

“My colleagues, the vibe was really good, the venue was excellent, the conference was relevant and engaging. And fun!”

“The care bears were a great touch. The TIL vouchers for self care time were a GREAT touch. Such a nice way to show your staff you care and that their own MH is important to the organization….”