Agenda Communication

Geoff Pearson

Director

From 1996...

Geoff Pearson established Agenda Communication in August 1996 with a view to providing flexible workplace communication skills training programs in Western Australia.

A year later, Agenda became an RTO, and has since delivered communication skills training to many workplaces across a diverse range of industries.

Since 1998, the company has successfully completed more than a dozen large-scale research and resource development projects and has developed a range of highly successful workshops focussing on various aspects of writing, communication and planning skills.

In 2003, Geoff co-wrote with Rebecca Saunders, Doing WELL in the West, a practical guide to newcomers to the field of workplace communication skills training. This has become a standard text for many operators in the field.

In 2005, Geoff was invited to deliver reading and writing skills training to the Deaf administrative staff at the WA Deaf Society. As a result of his experiences in teaching this group throughout 2006, Agenda secured funding to develop a unique interactive training resource which includes Auslan instruction. This resource, The Grammar Disc - Pah!, will be released on 10 May 2009.

Also from 2006-2009, Geoff worked with a metropolitan council in Perth to improve the formal writing skills of managers and technical officers, and has also facilitated the development and documenting of one section of the council's operational processes.

In 2008, again working with Rebecca Saunders, Geoff developed A Question of Literacy, a professional development resource to help trainers and RTOs in the Security Industry better understand and deal with the literacy issues of their trainees. This has since been used to accompany a full-day workshop for non-literacy speciliast VET trainers in this crucial aspect of VET learners' skills.

In 2010-2011, Geoff turned his hand to developing a set of training materials for WA Department of Corrective Services. The materials related to the delivery of the Re-Entry Link LifeSkills Program, a voluntary program of training for prison inmates during their last 6 months of detention. These customisable materials are now in use throughout WA's prison system.

The year 2011 saw Geoff lead a pilot action learning research project for the Department of Training and Workforce Development. This 6-month Professional Development project, dubbed "Teach Me Grammar", involved working with 12 VET sector language and literacy teachers who, through ten 4-hour PD Sessions led by Geoff, developed their own grammar learning and teaching skills, trialed these with their own stduents and then reflected on the experience in an project blog. The success of the project has led to 14 further programs being run, 11 in Perth, one in Albany and one in Geraldton, and one web-based program linking groups in Perth and Broome. The last program under the current contract is due to end in March 2019. It is (as of February 2019) still uncertain whether any further program s will be offered by the Department.

30 June 2014 saw Agenda Communication deregister as an RTO, due to soaring registration costs and very limited opportunities for LL&N funding. However, as always, Agenda continues to work in partnership with other RTOs to provide LL&N support to their programs.

Throughout 2016, Geoff partnered with Dr Rebecca Saunders in an evaluation of three dual-sector health degrees for the Strategic Projects Group at the University of New England, Armadale, NSW.