A new generation of rural leaders are emerging and having a big impact on agriculture.
This new cohort of leaders are getting involved in community and industry organisations and providing leadership on family and corporate businesses.
As they take up these roles there is need for them to develop new skills and knowledge to do the job effectively.
These new skill are in the areas of communication, negotiation, and complying with a wide range of legislation.
Tocal College has been responding to the growing demand for organisational and people management skills through the development and delivery of a number of new training courses.
Much of this training has been subsidised by the NSW government and is fee-free to participants, which has been a great help to many drought stricken communities and industries.
GROW (Growing Regionally Outstanding Women) is a unique program developed and delivered by Tocal in partnership with Rebecca Fing of House Paddock Training and Consulting.
This course is aimed at rural women leaders and provides the opportunity to develop skills and knowledge a range of areas including time management, planning and organisation, communication and networking, management of teams and staff and meeting, industrial relations requirements and managing work health and safety in your business.
THRIVE is a course for all leaders and managers in the rural sector - both male and female.
The focus of this course is developing personal effectiveness skills in areas including goal setting, time management, networking and communication and conflict management and negotiation.
The course includes some online learning and a two day face-to-face workshop
Board Ready - governance training. This course is a great opportunity for people who are new to board membership to understand their role and responsibilities, and develop the skills to be effective leaders in an organisation.
The course has been developed and presented in partnership with Julia Telford of Engage and Create Consulting and is presented through a mixture of online modules and two days of face-to-face training.
In the two-day face-to-face workshop, activities focus around board member responsibilities and how to undertake those roles, working within organisational structures, and what requirements need to be considered when entering into contracts for funding or employing staff.
Tocal College has been responding to the growing demand for organisational and people management skills.
- Charlie Bell
It's also worthwhile for people who may have been on boards before, but have never had any formal training in the field.
Tocal College is currently delivering the Board Ready course across the state for the grain and cotton industries and also for the beekeeping industry.
Work Health and Safety is a major challenge for the rural industries to continue the safety improvement which have been achieved in recent years.
Farms can be dangerous workplaces.
WHS for Managers is a course developed to help rural business supervisors and managers develop and implement effective Work Health and Safety systems for their enterprise.
The focus of this course in on building the skills and knowledge required to assess risks and develop systems of work which will minimise these risks.
This includes making sure all staff are inducted and appropriately trained in all operations.
All of these courses have been developed and delivered initially for the grain and cotton industries under the NSW Government AgSkilled funding program which has been a great benefit to many regional communities and businesses.
Uptake of governance training by the beekeeping industry is also encouraging.
Strong uptake of these courses demonstrates that rural leaders and business managers are very keen to build skills in a wide range of areas.
This is apart from continued interest in programs offer by a range of training providers in production technology and business management.
