Introduction
The
idea of operating the National Young BPW
program through a Young BPW Board was originally
developed by immediate past National Young
BPW Lisa Pititto. Lisa put it forward and
it was unanimously supported at the Australian
National Conference held in Alice Springs
in October 2004. In July 2005 the Australian
National Young BPW Nicoletta Fawcett successfully
applied for a capacity building grant from
the Federal Government Department of Family
and Community Services (Office for Women)
- Women’s Development and Leadership
Program, to develop Board establishment
resource kit and support the initiation
of a board.
Young
BPW Board
The
Young BPW Board is technically not a board
in its own right. It operates under the
BPW Australia Constitution and ultimately
is supervised by BPW Australia. The board
consists of nine portfolios and a permanent
mentor. The Young BPW Board Mentor will
be a BPW Australia member whose extensive
experience and knowledge will help guide
and assist our board. The Inaugural Young
BPW Board Mentor is BPW International Past
President Dr Pat Harrison. The portfolios
represented on the board are reflective
of the skills and knowledge required to
effectively develop and administer the national
Young BPW program. The board works closely
with the BPW Australia Executive and aims
to provide support to the Young BPW program
at a club, state and national level and
ensures that it meets and exceeds the needs
of our younger members.
Some
of the main reasons to support the concept
of a Young BPW Board running the National
Young BPW program include:
- The development
of directorship skills – the board allows
Young BPWs the opportunity to learn
and develop their directorship skills
in a mentored and nurturing environment.
The fully functional board would provide
hands on experience and would serve
as a great introduction to future directorship
positions within BPW and community/organisational
boards. This learning environment may
also help build the confidence of Young
BPWs to take on more leadership roles
and help empower them to improve the
status of women not only in Australia
but worldwide.
- To facilitate
real input and involvement of Young
BPWs in the development and administration
of the National Young BPW program. The
board would allow all Young BPWs the
opportunity to be actively involved
at this level and would allow for the
responsibility and workload to be shared
amongst a larger number of Young BPWs.
This would also increase the amount
and variety of skills and experience
the program could draw on and reduce,
if not eliminate the chance of burn-out
of our active Young BPWs.
- This increase
in ‘resources’ would also effectively
boost our efforts in unveiling Australia’s
best kept secret – BPW. More focused
and a national approach to promoting
BPW and building its profile in the
broader community is only example of
how we can make more effective use of
our scarce and precious resources.
- The Young
BPW Board both facilitates and promotes
Young BPWs from all around Australia
to work together. The Inaugural Young
BPW Board and Project Team has Young
BPWs from every state in Australia and
representatives from regional and city
clubs. It is hoped that in the near
future the board will allow the Young
BPWs in the Asia Pacific and even worldwide
to work more closely together.
The
Inaugural Young BPW Board has identified
four strategic goals:
- Promote BPW as
the premier business network for young
women
- Increase membership
of Young BPW members
- Develop innovative
personal and professional development
opportunities for young women
- Represent young
member’s issues within BPW through
policy development.
Beneficiaries
of the Project
BPW
– this is a unique opportunity offered
to its younger members that will help to
attract new members. It pumps energy and
enthusiasm throughout BPW including those
clubs that currently do not have any Young
BPWs. The board will work closely with these
clubs and assist them in finding ways to
attract younger members. The board also
provides BPW with an effective tool to facilitate
succession planning within the organisation.
Young BPWs that are interested in taking
on directorship position on BPW boards at
all levels will be provided in with a learning
environment hopefully making the transition
to BPW boards less daunting and their experience
allowing them to bring new ideas, energy
and commitment to existing boards.
Young
BPW programs (club, state and national)
– the board will provide tangible
support to Young BPW programs through the
provision of resources, programs and facilitating
more interaction between clubs and states.
The board will reduce the duplication of
work done at club and state levels and will
allow better use of scarce resources.
The
Young BPW Program will also benefit from
the increased ideas, skill base and sustained
energy and enthusiasm. The sharing of the
work load and all of us working together
and helping each other out will make the
job less of a burden and far more enjoyable.
This should result in increased involvement
of existing Young BPWs and entice and encourage
new/potential members to get involved in
this amazing organisation.
National
Young BPW – the board will
work with the national Young BPW representative
on the National Executive. Having more people
involved and sharing the work means that
it will free up the national presentative
to better fulfil her role as the representative
of all Young BPWs by working closely with
them and finding out their needs and hopes
for the future direction of the program.
Young
BPW members – provides them
with an opportunity to not only learn and
develop their directorship skills in a mentored
and safe environment but it will also give
them hands on experience in operating a
fully functional board. Young BPWs now also
have the opportunity to be actively involved
in developing and administering the National
Young BPW Program which was previously limited
to national and state representatives. Young
BPWs are also provided to get involved on
a national level with ladies from all around
Australia. The board itself will open and
encourage more communication and involvement
between clubs and states. This promotes
the sharing of ideas and skills which will
help build the Young BPW program and BPW
as a whole. The board will also ensure that
program truly provides its members with
a national network and promotes e-Networking.
External
organisations benefit from the
Young BPW Board by providing an opportunity
for their staff to become involved in a
national program and learn directorship
in a mentored and nurturing environment.
Many of the skills learnt while operating
the fully functional board are transferable
to their work place which will benefit the
employer by providing extra skills, new
perspectives and ideas that can help them
better serve their customers and grow their
business/organisation.
Board
Experience for Young BPWs
The
board experience builds the confidence of
young women to take on leadership and decision-making
roles, empower them and ultimately help
to optimise the status of Australian women
in all walks of life.
During
its experience in the pilot program, the
Young BPW Board has undertaken various training
and development. Relationships have been
developed with many large corporations/organisations
in Australia. Young BPW and BPW as a whole
will have benefited from these relationships
including sourcing potential sponsors, setting
up strategic alliances, and of course building
the public awareness and profile of BPW.
We are developing some of these relationships
further, for example, Deloitte is one of
the major “Big Four” Chartered Accounting
Firm located in every major city in Australia
and Young BPW was asked to present at their
Growth Solutions Summit in Melbourne. Also
we have commenced discussions with Women
on Boards on potential joint projects to
encourage and support young women to take
on directorship roles. This of course would
benefit BPW with potential new members and
increased profile.
We
are very proud of the work we have done
and what we have been able to achieve so
far. There is still much work to be done
but it has been a very rewarding experience
and has provided great learning and development
opportunities for all involved. It has been
challenging but in working together we have
been able to tackle and grow from these
challenges. We are very fortunate to have
and value the support we have from BPW Australia
and while working with them side-by-side
we not only achieve our goals but we are
also able to learn from each other.
The
Young BPW Board is hoping to present our
experience at the BPW International Congress
in Mexico in 2008 and share our story. Perhaps,
it is a concept that could be of benefit
to other Young BPW programs and we would
be more than happy to work with anyone that
would like to try this concept and program
in their respective country.
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