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Particularly Michael and Zac (wREGA)
Find attached my version of minutes>response to the skype conference – a picture if you like as I understand it. Looking to precipitate (my own)action I want to confirm a couple of points re the Swinburne role that impinge and propose a couple of things that wREGA may see as having short and long term good consequences for the premier design organisation in Malaysia.
1.The Lecture Theatre and available space at Swinburne. On my count seats 384 – allowing for bad mathematics it is apparently sufficient to the task of seating 300 estimated delegates. I will put together a more detailed folio on the spaces available for meetings , panels and workshops. There is also exhibition space available within the same precinct of the campus. There may be existing fact sheets but if I can get help from the Facilities group in the University will make new ones as useful as those I’m sure are provided by the commercial venues.
2.There is no certainty yet to the dates of our mid semester break which is the window of availability for the resource but despite not coinciding in 2011 with Unimas it logically will be the week between two 6 week halves of SUTS 2nd semester. The dates for 2011 will be 17 October till 21 October. For 2012 …? I have asked for a definite date and have not yet received it.
3.Whilst possible to imagine the conference component happening in one venue – several venues (3) would provide a spread through the destination. As someone who sees that dynamic of moving through Kuching part of the Rediscovery motif, the location of content in different venues is very desirable. A selling point – if the logistics are seen as part of the ticket price. And the conference component is not on sequential days.
4.The target is three fold with distinctly different but overlapping agendas . As I see it – The international/regional delegate is specifically targeted by the conference component but motivated by the destination. The local design industry and suppliers have a major interest in the significance of the event with overlapping interest in the theme. The student group will be targeted by the local design themes but motivated by the destination and the experience.
5.Students/young professionals seem to be the highest expected volume of interest. I would like to suggest that we build on Swinburne’s offer of student helpers to initiate quickly a wREGA chartered Student Committee. Swinburne offers the hub but to establish the group and build it from the larger local and peninsula design student population. They will contribute greatly to the shaping of the conference and also the event. AGIDEAS in Melbourne and AGDA Australia have ongoing student committees at the centre of their planning of events. And they facilitate a number of major events in their own right. If wREGA hasn’t got one – it should have one.
6.The parallel push for UNESCO ‘creative city’ status starts here and now too with a separate interest group committee of local parties (Edric Ong Chair?) once again under a wREGA charter and agenda I would suggest and the Design Week as the deadline. Swinburne would be happy I’m sure to host the group for regular strategy meetings – at least offering the meeting room and secured parking space (after business hours).
7.The initiation of the student committee is the beginning of the marketing for the 2012 event .The cat will be out of the bag – so to speak. Some communication design strategy should be proposed by wREGA that overlays the whole branding of the event for the next 18 months. Including a web site and the identity for the group. Initiallly I will recommend we open a wordpress blog and despite the student appeal stay away from FB. The possibility of this offering our(and other) senior students an extracurricular unit in event management has me thinking this is where I can best serve the whole – but I need an agreed script- with scheduled updates to keep a student group going over the next year.
8. Networking the event also starts now as the details of the conference are being filled out , invitations to speak and sent around the world – this may not be clearly marketing but the one page/paragraph describing it needs to available and consistent across all the contacts from now on.
I’m still not sure what my role in this is now other than to consolidate and enhance the committment Swinburne has made thus far – but building a ‘Design Youth Brigade’ for Kuching is something I want to get onto in the next two weeks – after semester end.
Regards
AFW
A PLACE TO CELEBRATE 
May 15, 2011 at 10.05 |
design-youth-brigade….?
May 20, 2011 at 10.05 |
Irony?
Iron Fist?
Steam Iron?
May 15, 2011 at 10.05 |
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