Community engagement and Member Services - A Report
In 2020 CAVAL hosted 16 professional development events which attracted a total of 2,686 attendees. Of those attendees, 70% came from CAVAL member institutions and 30% were from outside the membership. Due to COVID-19 all events were hosted virtually. This enabled us to offer more events to a larger audience, in Australia and overseas, resulting in a 128% increase in the number of events and a 347% increase in attendee numbers. The events had 42 speakers from Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US. The opportunity to host international speakers was greatly aided by the online format.
The CAVAL Cross-Institutional mentoring program ran in Victoria and NSW, hosting 5 networking events in total for our 47 mentor/mentee pairs. This year we heard from 19 speakers from Australia and the UK. As we were unable to meet our speakers, facilitators, scribes and panelists in person this year due to travel and social distancing restrictions, we decided to plant trees on their behalf as a way to say Thank You through 15Trees.
Landcare groups planted 105 trees on behalf of CAVAL and its speakers, panelists, facilitators and scribes. A blog post about the tree plantings can be found here. The trees were a positive and impactful way to say Thank You in a year that has been challenging for many and they have been greatly appreciated by the recipients. If you are looking for some relevant professional development during the year end break, feel free to check out our youtube channel for event recordings.
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