Five members of SIFE UNE – Sam Harris (president), Tara Stokes (treasurer), Miriam White, Dan Beransconi, and Joanne Grogan – travelled to Brisbane for the SIFE National Conference and Championships.

There they competed with representatives of SIFE teams from 23 other universities around Australia by presenting the outcomes of this year’s projects to an audience including the chief executive officers of major companies.

Robyn Marshall, the UNE lecturer who is the team’s faculty mentor, accompanied the students to Brisbane, along with UNE’s Dr Peter McClenaghan, the national program consultant for SIFE Australia.

SIFE is a global organisation supported by some of the world’s leading corporations.

It encourages students from all areas of study to engage in community-oriented projects in order to share the knowledge they have gained at university and learn more about ‘real-life’ free enterprise.

For their award-winning project, the SIFE UNE team is helping members of the Parents’ and Citizens’ Association at Minimbah Primary School in Armidale to develop skills in fund raising, budgeting, and the conduct of meetings.

‘Changing the world one step at a time’ was the motto attached to the project.

“The ‘Minimbah project’ has been a great success,” Joanne Grogan said, “with a series of barbecues at the Markets in the Mall to raise much-needed funds for the purchase of a large message sign for the school.

“We are continuing with this project by creating an ‘agenda folder’, which contains many valuable worksheets and processes for the school – including meeting agendas, minutes, financial statement worksheets, fund-raising ideas, and many other valuable resources.

“This has been further extended by the State Government’s agreeing to produce and distribute the folders to not-for-profit schools and organisations across the State.”