Archive for April 30th, 2008

More than 80 student residents of Earle Page College at the University of New England are about to become fashion models for an evening for the benefit of children’s medical research.

This year’s Fashion Extravaganza, one of the main events in Earle Page College’s annual “Coast Run” fund-raising program, will be at Armidale Ex-Services Memorial Club on Saturday 3 May, beginning at 7.30 pm.

The students will be joined on the catwalk by the Master of Earle Page College, David Ward, Mr Ward’s wife Brigitte and their son Fletcher, and Armidale Dumaresq Mayor Peter Ducat and his wife Colleen.

The “Coast Run” fund-raising program, now in its 29^th year, raises money for the Children’s Medical Research Institute. Last year’s Fashion Extravaganza contributed $8,000 to the $30,000 raised throughout the year. The program culminates in the annual Armidale to Coffs Harbour Coast Run in September.

Local fashion outlets lend the clothes modelled in the Extravaganza, and the students choreograph their own routines. The “bridal routine” is the traditional highlight of the show, which draws its audience from both the University and the wider Armidale community.

Some of the students will be participating in the show for the first time, and others will be repeating the experience. Myee Gregory, now a student resident of Earle Page and a member of the organising committee, began modelling in the Extravaganza at the age of four under the guidance of her college-affiliated parents.

Tickets for the Extravaganza cost $20 for students, $25 for adults, and $10 for children under 15. They are available from the Earle Page College office on 6773 5300.

“It’s one of the biggest events in the College calendar,” said Cassie Banks, the coordinator of this year’s event. Cassie has been organising the Extravaganza – the clothing, the models and the venue – since November last year and, with the goal now in sight, she added confidently: “It’ll work. It’ll be an excellent night.”

An innovative project being launched this week aims at helping to avoid, mitigate or resolve environmental disputes.

“SpeakSoftly” – a joint venture between the University of New England’s Centre for Environmental Dispute Resolution (CEDR) and the Border Rivers-Gwydir Catchment Management Authority (BRGCMA) – is one of the first conflict-resolution projects undertaken by any Catchment Management Authority.

Initially, “SpeakSoftly” is offering free online training in environmental negotiation – using slides, video, simulations and short quizzes – for anyone around the world. This training, available now, is at www.speaksoftly.info. The next stage – in late May or early June – will be face-to-face training during a two-day workshop in Moree for about 15 people who have completed the online training. The workshop will focus on developing consensus-building skills among those with an interest in the management of the Gwydir Wetlands.

UNE Senior Lecturer Julian Prior (pictured here), the Director of CEDR, has conducted research with 11 Regional Vegetation Management and Water Management Committees (eight of them in the BRGCMA area) that, he said, “clearly demonstrated that training in negotiation, conflict resolution and consensus building would have greatly benefited the reaching of agreement within these committees”.

“Since 1999, stakeholders in regional NSW, including those in the Gwydir Wetlands, have been involved in a series of negotiations on water allocation and native vegetation,” Mr Prior said. “Some of those negotiations continued for up to five years, and a few ended up in court. In many cases, in the absence of skills in negotiation and consensus building, such disputes can be highly adversarial and confrontational – each party taking up an inflexible position rather than negotiating on the basis of their best interests. And court decisions tend to be based on points of law and legal precedent, not necessarily the best environmental outcomes.”

“In the current climate we can expect such disputes to continue,” he said. “This project aims at preparing stakeholders – including farmers, members of community groups, and employees of natural resource management agencies – to enter a negotiation with the understanding that a successful outcome need not be in the interests of just one of the parties, and the skills to work towards an outcome that incorporates all parties’ interests. At the moment, 80 per cent of people assume that environmental negotiations are a ‘win-lose’ process. If we can raise the capacity of the community to understand that this need not be so, we can reduce conflict.”

Mr Prior said that UNE’s involvement in the “SpeakSoftly” project reflected the University’s commitment to community engagement and regional development, and that the BRGCMA was undertaking the project in accordance with its roles in both community capacity building and providing support for sustainable wetland management.

Monitoring and assessment of this initial online and face-to-face “SpeakSoftly” training will be used in the development of further training.

THE PHOTOGRAPH of Julian Prior expands to show a computer screen displaying the “SpeakSoftly” Web site.