Thank you for inviting me to address your conference this morning. I want to speak to you this morning on how a large business organisation and volunteering can come together. This is the second year that Challenge Bank has had the honour of speaking at the Western Australian conference. Last year I spoke of Challenge Bank volunteering initiative Community 2000, our plans and what we hoped to achieve. At that time, our program, which is designed to encourage our staff to contribute to their local communities through volunteering, was still relatively new.
Good intentions are admirable, but they are no substitute for real outcomes or runs on the board.
So today, I will speak about what we have achieved in the last 12 months through Community 2000 and the contribution our staff have made through their volunteering efforts. I will also describe some of our other community involvement programs and activities to give you an idea of the broad range of things we do in the community and why we believe that the corporate sector has a responsibility to be involved in the community as active and equal partners with community organisations. Since launching Community 2000 to our staff in may 1997 we have been actively promoting volunteering and volunteer opportunities to staff. We have also developed various incentives, encouragement programs and rewards to demonstrate to our staff that we are committed to supporting their voluntary community service. 450 staff and their families involved in Clean Up Australian Day in March this year.