The Walk to End Poverty

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In June 2015 four courageous women including Pickwick’s own Monique Jackson decided to take part in ‘The Walk to End Poverty’ hiking 55km across De’Aguilar National Park from Lake Manchester through to Mt Coot-tha in Brisbane.

Generve Vever, Kim Spain, Nicola Matthews and Monique decided they wanted their next health and fitness journey to be BIG and also wanted to raise awareness and money for a worthy charity. Together they came across the Oxfam Trailwalker. This event began in 1981 as a training exercise for the elite Queen’s Gurkha Signals Regiment in Hong Kong. It is billed as both a life-changing experience and one of the most inspiring team challenges in the world. The event is now run in many countries to support Oxfam’s work with local communities. This helps them create their own sustainable solutions to poverty.

Monique spoke to Pickwick Group CEO Ken Holder who welcomed the opportunity to come on board and support the team. Unfortunately Nicola had to pull-out and was replaced by Heidi Jackson. Team ENLIGHTENED LADIES representing Pickwick Group raised an amazing $3,200 to this most worthwhile cause in the most gruelling of conditions. Whilst the team was unable to complete the challenge through injury we are most proud of their efforts and the fact that they did achieve what they set out to do in raising a huge amount for Oxfam.

National Jobactive Forum

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Pickwick was recently invited to present at the National Jobactive Forum held in Melbourne. The event brought together leaders of organisations that seek to help those out of work find meaningful employment. The Forum was organised by the Australian Government’s Department of Employment which is responsible for national policies and programmes that help Australians find and keep employment and work in safe, fair and productive workplaces. The Department is implementing a new business model which will be officially launched on 1st July.

Having been invited to present at the event by business partner Direct Recruitment, Pickwick Victorian State Manager Tim Broatch gave a presentation on their long and successful relationship in recruiting staff, many of whom are long-term unemployed, parents returning to work and mature aged workers. Tim commented “The most pleasing thing for me is seeing people going on to have long careers at Pickwick with some reaching supervisory positions.” He added “We have placed a lot of good people who have been out of employment for a variety of reasons at high profile client sites such as Cary Grammar and more recently Deakin University. Having them gain confidence and prosper with our company culture is most rewarding.”

As part of the Forum Tim participated in a panel discussion to answer questions from those present. “Hearing from other employers such as McDonalds and gaining insights from leaders of training organisations too was invaluable” he says.