Chief executive of the Exhibition and Event Association of Australia (EEAA), Claudia Sagripanti, has reported that the association’s first Young Stars Virtual Meetup drew 160 young event professionals from across the country.
EEAA Young Stars Committee co-chairs, Kay Badakhsh and Roslyn du Plooy, set the scene via the Aventri platform, for an informative and interactive discussion on mental health in the workplace. Attendees participated in live polling, live Q&A and live participant-to-participant chat sessions. The interactive features were delivered by a complementary App, downloaded prior to the session.
“When Covid-19 first hit, one of the first things that we thought about was the effect of the pandemic on the younger members of our industry and what we could do to help them retain their jobs and their careers," said Sagripanti, announcing the launch of the EEAA Young Stars Pathways Programme initiative. She said the programme would provide a range of tools to assist young talent to develop skills to facilitate career progression and mental and emotional well-being.
Topics covered in the programme include communications and networking, goal setting and resilience and event planning.
Jo-Anne Kelleway from InfoSalons and Rodney Cox from Delaro have both volunteered to share their learned experience and personal journeys to career success and the EEAA says it will use learnings from the trial to further refine a mentoring programme expected to launch in 2021.
Sagripanti said the association was continuing its advocacy push across all levels of government to get in-person events back up and running in 2020, under COVIDSafe operating protocols.
“I'm delighted with the take-up of our #ExpoReady social campaign that many of our members are continuing to share on their channels. Congratulations to Bob Carroll and his team from Australian Events for the success of the first expo to run in the country since the onset of Covid-19," she said. "Encouraging news from government sees the National Covid-19 Commission Advisory Board (NCC) shifting its focus to concentrate on creating jobs and stimulating our economy as we learn to live with this pandemic. Read more about this shift in focus here.”
