VolunteerVoice A newsletter for Cancer Council NSW volunteers
Autumn Edition March 2012
Cancer Council’s cuppas tea best
L-R: Luke Alexander, Media Manager, Andrew Penman, Cancer Council NSW CEO, and Sally-Anne Prado, Cultural Diversity Manager.
Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea has won the top prize at 2011’s National Multicultural Marketing Awards for its success in engaging ethnic communities. Cancer Council NSW commissioned marketing company LOUD Multicultural to develop a communications plan to engage Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) communities in NSW. The aim was to invite CALD communities to participate in Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea, and thus expand the audience. The Cancer Council NSW fundraising event was commended for being more accessible to ethnic communities by broadening the definition of the ‘Morning Tea’ from English breakfast to include chai, lassi, Turkish coffee and green tea. Minister for Citizenship and Communities, Victor Dominello MP
said, “This strategy helped our ethnic communities find a way to make the Morning Tea their own, and promote these vital cancer awareness messages to sometimes hard to reach members of the community”.
The Chair of the Community Relations Commission, Stepan Kerkyasharian, observed the simple message of the winning project was that all communities are in the fight against cancer together. “This is a great exercise in inclusion because people of all backgrounds are victims of cancer,” Mr Kerkyasharian said. As a result of this campaign, Cancer Council NSW exceeded its fundraising target of $4.2 million for 2011. The central mission of Cancer Council NSW, and the ‘army’ of volunteers who help put the organisation’s plans into operation, is to defeat cancer. Reaching out, and being reached back to, from a much broader range of communities across New South Wales, ensures that Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea contributes more significantly every year to achieving that mission’s aim.
www.cancercouncil.com.au | Volunteer Hotline: (02) 9334 1773
You have to be there! Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea (ABMT) is one of the great success stories of charitable fundraising in this country. Started in 1994, the annual event – actually, cascade of events, as each morning tea is a unique event in itself (you have to be there!) – has raised millions of dollars, contributing to Cancer Council NSW work in research, education, prevention and support for cancer sufferers. The enthusiasm and dedication of volunteers, who organise and run individual morning teas, sees the event grow bigger, year in, year out. And more personal, which might seem a contradiction, but as with so much else that is true about volunteering, it’s all in the people. It’s an art to make a great cup of tea. It’s the spirit of volunteers that makes a great ABMT. In 2012 Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea is officially May 24, but you can host one right throughout May.
Editorial Team: Michael McGennan and Lucy Mowat. Feedback and contributions to volunteervoice@nswcc.org.au