Multicultural Week-Oceania Day

Multicultural Week is upon us at the Curtin Student Guild!

For the most part it is organised by the ISC (International Student Committee) one of the equity departments within the Guild. They are guided by the Member Benefits department upstairs which is made up of professional staff responsible for our membership, clubs, student assist officers and marketing/PR. However, the difficulty of working in a student union is that it can be hard to find balance between helping the student representatives and them feeling like you are taking over.

This is something the Guild often struggles with. This year that along with the recent resignation of the ISC convener (essentially their President) has resulted multicultural week and its closing event, Pasar Malam, being organised very last minute.

I was asked on Thursday to organise day one of Multicultural Week, Oceania Day. Despite the late notice and relatively small budget I was fortunate to have been tasked with one of the easier regions.

I immediately ordered a BBQ pack of the awesome Tavern staff and arranged to borrow some footballs from the stadium so people could have a kick around.

Ideally I wanted to get a group in to perform the haka because Oceania Day isn't just about Australia. Unfortunately most haka performances in Perth are done by cultural groups that are only contactable by email. I sent a tonne of emails out Thursday evening but come Sunday evening hadn't received a single response.

This left me scrambling on Monday morning to organise entertainment for that day. Luckily for me I was able to find a didgeridoo player through an indigenous talent agent!!!! Phew. Close call.

My next big challenge was coordinating the volunteers. We set up the BBQ and I wanted to leave them to get started on that while I popped down to the stadium to pick up the balls. However, I forgot one crucial point. Because this event is run by ISC all of the volunteers were international students who had never cooked a BBQ before. Some ultra-quick BBQ etiquette explaining and we were good to go.

All in all the day didn't exactly run smoothly but the feedback from students was good. That is the most important thing and also the hardest challenge the Guild has faced this year. Now that students are forced to pay SSAF and don't have the choice of paying money to the Guild they are very critical of how the Guild spends their money. Keeping our stakeholders happy has definitely been more difficult this year so it is always a relief when feedback on an event is good.

If you would like to check out any of the pictures from this event click here.