BBS

A former Courier-Mail journalist, Amanda is also a weekly panellist on ABC Queensland Radio’s Hidden Persuaders program and an Australasian committee member for IAP2.

Amanda’s comprehensive public relations background further heightens the impact of her community engagement strategies. Her experience in high profile and contentious projects, as well as developing engagement frameworks, enables her to create campaigns that are inclusive, transparent and successful.

Key achievements include:

• IAP2 Award-winning Urban Land Development Authority’s Northshore Hamilton
• Seqwater’s engagement framework
• $550m South Bank Institute of TAFE redevelopment – Queensland’s first Public Private Partnership
• $1b Maroochydore golf course redevelopment
• Department of Infrastructure and Planning’s Ebenezer Precinct
• Developed South Australian Government engagement framework and planner for ICAN program for all schools
• Brisbane City Council’s CityShape Conference – an Asia Pacific Award winning event
• $1b St Mary’s master-planned community – a highly controversial Delfin Lend Lease Sydney project

Matthew Hart
Director

A former Courier-Mail journalist, Matthew is a Director of one of Australia’s leading communications firms. His experience lies in strategic communications, public relations and community engagement, particularly for controversial projects.

He has provided community engagement services to a range of private and public sector organisations, including the Redland Shire Council, City North Infrastructure delivering Brisbane’s AirportLink project, and Australia’s largest developer of masterplanned communities Delfin Lend Lease.

As a trainer licensed to IAP2 to deliver the Emotion, Outrage and Public Participation course, Matthew draws on his experience working in both the media and communications consultancy. He also tutors on a casual basis at the Queensland University of Technology.

Key achievements include:
• Creation of Delfin Lend Lease’s National Stakeholder Engagement Framework
• Facilitating community and stakeholder workshops, particularly for local government planning schemes and large-scale infrastructure projects
• Developing and implementing community engagement strategies for new residential communities in South Australia, New South Wales and the ACT.
• Assisting controversial projects navigate their way through the approvals process while addressing community concerns
• Training community engagement practitioners in IAP’s Emotion, Outrage and Public Participation course.

Engagement Plus

• Local Government Association of Queensland- community engagement training and community planning workshops
• Commonwealth Carelink- National Respite for Carers Capacity Building Project
• Department of Tourism, Regional Industry and Development- Australia’s first Deliberative Forums on Nanotechnology
• Mackay Regional Council- design and assistance with the community engagement strategy and development of a Disability Action Plan
• Redlands City Council- Festival and Events Strategy
• Brisbane City Council and Logan City Council- provision of in-house Certificate Program training to over 230 participants

Pattillo

Taking Action

John Ross
Senior Learning and Development Consultant

John is a highly experienced communications practitioner, with specialist expertise in community consultation and community relations gained from over 25 years in the profession. John is also
a highly sought-after trainer across a range of communication related fields. He holds a management degree majoring in marketing, a certificate in public participation along with a number of associated qualifications including the certificate IV in Workplace Training and Assessment.

Prior to joining Taking Action he held the roles of

- Communications and Community Relations Manager Alinta
- Community Relations Manager Sydney Water

He has extensive knowledge of how to landscape the public and private environments. In addition he is providing strategic communications and community engagement support to a number of project alliances.

Key achievements includes:

- Capacity building with Australia Post
- $60M Western Sydney Recycled Water project (Consortium)
- $35M Wet Weather Overflow reduction Program
- $200M Sewerfix Alliance
- $75M Sydney Primary Loop

John has a detailed understanding of the strategic significance of ensuring effective relationships with the community and how and when to engage them. He is passionate about wanting to leave positive project legacies. He is affiliated with University of New England partnerships and TAFE NSW, and is a lecturer with Charles Sturt University.

PlanCom Consulting Pty Ltd

Margaret Harvie

Margaret has led public participation projects for major infrastructure projects throughout Australia and in particular in NSW and Queensland over the past 12 years. She has worked in most areas including mining, transport, roads, water resources, waste water, power and waste. In addition to her skills in community engagement for infrastructure she has been involved with social impact assessment and consultations with Queensland and NSW Indigenous communities.

She has always been committed to the development of the profession and its practitioners. She was a member of the IAP2 International Board for 4 years and the former Deputy Chair of IAP2 Australasia for 5 years.

She currently works nationally as a trainer and public participation consultant. In the past twelve months she has conducted training including for Zinifex Mine (Tasmania), CP Mining (Western Australia), Stanwell Corporation, Tarong Energy, Zero Gen, SEITA, Victorian Department of Infrastructure, Queensland Department of Transport, NSW Transport Infrastructure Development Corporation, NSW Roads and Traffic Authority, SANTOS, Sydney Airports Corporation, Leightons, Baulderstone Hornibrook, Abigroup and Sydney Water.

The strength of what she brings to IAP2 training is her ability to draw from her extensive experience as a practitioner on literally hundreds of consultations. In addition to her current practice as a trainer she actively continues to lead teams involved with major projects that plan for the involvement of the public in construction, impact assessment and submission processes. Significantly recently she has been working on the Port Botany Expansion and in planning for the submission processes for a number of major existing or proposed infrastructure developments.

Click here for PlanCom Consulting training brochures and course descriptions.

Aha! Consulting

Joel Levin

Joel Levin is the principal consultant at Aha! Consulting and has 18 years experience working with or in a range of sectors (Indigenous, Human Services, Planning, State Government, CALD, Environment, Commerce, Sports and Recreation, Education, Local Government, Arts, Aged Care, Health, Community, Child Protection, Disabilities and Justice).

His organisational, engagement and facilitation skills stem from a background in counselling, training, community work and senior management. Joel was the Senior Training Consultant for the Department of Community Development and he established and managed the Not-For-Profit Development Unit for the WA Council of Social Services, which was awarded a Community Services Industry award in 2002 and a Prime Minister’s Community Business Partnership award in 2004. He has been part of establishing the WA Committee of the International Association of Public Participation and currently serves as its state coordinator. His education and training background include a Certificate in Public Participation, postgraduate studies in Counselling and Coaching and both the Cert IV Workplace Training and Assessment and the Diploma Training and Assessment Systems. He is a member of the Psychotherapist and Counsellors Association of WA, the Australasian Facilitators Network and the International Association of Public Participation WA. In 2004, Joel became a Fellow of Leadership WA, a program for emerging leader, and has served both on Australasian IAP2 committee and as the state coordinator for the WA committee.

Click here for Aha! Consulting training brochures and course descriptions.

Simply Speaking Seanachai

Barbara Chappell

Barbara Chappell is an experienced community engagement practitioner living and working in South Australia with an IAP2 license to train participants in public participation and emotion and outrage management. She holds a Masters of Conflict Management and a background in the development and implementation of community engagement framework models in local government. In 2008 she worked with the SA Local Government Association to research and develop a community engagement model framework for use throughout Councils in South Australia (available on www.lga.sa.gov.au/goto/engage). Barbara is the recipient of two awards for her contributions to community engagement in SA.

Her mediation skills were developed through pro-bono court work involving small claims and resolving resident disputes in local government.
A background in hospital services management, qualifications in Human Resource Management, extensive study and a commitment to community volunteering add to Barbara’s diverse knowledge base and enable her to bring value and integrity to working with people.

Barbara recently completed Certificate IV in Workplace Training and Assessment to upgrade her training qualifications and post graduate studies in Dialogue, Deliberation and Public Engagement through the Fielding Graduate University to increase her knowledge and her abilities to contribute to the improvement of public participation across South Australia. She is now studying “Communities of Practice” to learn how to more effectively bring people together to share knowledge and learn from one another.

Twyfords

Stuart Waters

Stuart is a Senior Consultant and Director of Twyfords. He has a Bachelor of Science degree majoring in Ecology, and a Master of Arts degree in Journalism. Stuart is a co-author of Twyfords’s book Beyond Public Meetings: Connecting Community Engagement with Decision-Making

Since joining Twyfords in 2004 Stuart has worked on a varied range of community engagement projects, including: tourism and educational infrastructure development; LEP and DCP reviews; sustainability in local government, and a regional responses to climate change. Stuart has significant expertise in running community advisory groups and is currently chairing a number of long-term groups for corporate clients. Stuart has trained a diverse range of material to organisations, individuals and groups including public sector employees, community engagement practitioners, engineers and others.

Phoenix Facilitation Pty Ltd

Nyaarla Projects

Alan Beattie
Number of years licensed as an IAP2 trainer: 6 years

Accreditations:
Diploma in Public Administration (Western Australia Department of Training), 1994
Graduate Diploma in Information Studies (University of South Australia), 2001
Certificate IV in Business Facilitation (Victoria University of Technology), 2001
Certificate in Public Participation, IAP2 (2003)
IAP2 Certified Trainer, IAP2 (2005)

Experience as a public participation practitioner (including area/industries of expertise):
Public participation consultant working in: Indigenous organizations/issues Infrastructure inc. power, water, roads, sewage Social planning Reviews and planning across all areas (inc. indigenous issues, sport & recreation, the arts, health plus others) Additional information: Alan provides services to clients in a number of areas including: public participation/community consultation, training & employment, youth & education, community development/capacity building, cross cultural liaison/consultation, business facilitation and planning.

Alan has a background in the public sector (Commonwealth and State), the private and not-for-profit sectors. Alan has been selected to be on a number of public participation panels such as the Commissioner for Children & Youth panel to maximize the participation of children and young people and the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Facilitation Panel.

Alan helped to establish the Western Australian IAP2 sub-committee (established in 2008).

Kellogg, Brown & Root

Tanya Burdett
Number of years licensed as an IAP2 trainer: 1.5 years

Accreditations:
Masters in Environmental Studies (First Class Honours), University of Melbourne, Australia
Bachelor of Applied Science (Planning) (Distinctions), Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia
Certified Practising Planner, Planning Institute of Australia

Various continuing professional development courses including Edward De Bono Six Thinking Hats Course; Managing Across Cultures, Gender Development Throughout the Project Cycle, and Impact Assessment (IDSS)

Tanya has over 16 years experience in stakeholder engagement and consultation. Her engagement work ranges from consultation on master plans setting out future visions for small communities of a few thousand people, to engagement across country-wide programs and on major new policy initiatives.

She has worked on over 70 projects in various sectors, each one requiring differing levels of stakeholder engagement, and has directly managed consultation programmes for three major upgrades to industrial plants, five area-based planning strategies, several Planning Scheme reviews, and three Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) for proposed major works.

Tanya’s experience covers a range of sectors including: planning strategy and policy development, urban development, energy planning and development, transport, water supply and sanitation, mining, coastal development, marinas and leisure facilities and industrial development

Tanya joined KBR in July 2011 following over 8 years experience in the UK working for various central government departments on implementation of European legislation and UNECE conventions on environmental impact assessment, strategic environmental assessment, engagement and public participation within this and the spatial planning sector. She was also responsible for management of the sustainability appraisal, habitats assessment and equalities impact assessment undertaken for the first phase of High Speed Two Ltd proposals for a new high speed railway line from London to Scotland, consulted on in early 2011.

Tanya helped to establish the Victorian division of the Australasian Chapter of IAP2, and the IAP2 UK&Ireland Affiliate. She has delivered IAP2 training and other capacity building activities in the UK, Hungary, Portugal, Belgium, Ghana, Yemen, Mongolia, China and Australia, and has also worked in the Philippines, Malaysia, and Western Samoa.