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Staff Conference 2019

The 2019 Staff Conference was held over a two-day period at the Hotel Grand Chancellor in Hobart in November and focussed on the theme: ‘Happiness: How it Happens’.

We saw several quality speakers over the two days. These were some of the highlights:

  • One of Australia’s most loved, award-winning actors – Shane Jacobson – who was highly entertaining and engaging, had us in fits of laughter.
  • Dr. Tim Sharp (aka Dr. Happy), founder of the Happiness Institute and highly regarded academic, clinician and coach at the forefront of positive psychology in Australia.
  • Craig Gillies, a senior consulting Psychologist from the Revelian Psychology team joined us to talk about happiness in the workplace.

Ever popular, the staff TED talks continued to impress us all. 2019 hosted six of our own TED Talkers who shared with us their own personal experiences of happiness. We heard about connection and resilience, finding happiness in simple yet significant moments, promoting a narrative focussed on happiness, cooperation and a shared humanity, happiness in the context of social media use, allowing happiness to come to you, and expressing gratitude. All TED talkers were very well received.

We utilised the Conference Dinner as an opportunity to come together and celebrate RA Tas’ 70th birthday in style and we’re now looking forward to the next 70 years!

This conference also saw us exploring new ground in the form of a series of short ‘guest workshops’, which included several themes all related to happiness: Mindfulness, Bodywork, Nutrition and Rest and Renewal.

We utilised the Conference Dinner as an opportunity to come together and celebrate RA Tas’ 70th birthday in style and we’re now looking forward to the next 70 years!

At the end of the 2019 Conference we asked staff three questions:

What were the three best things about this conference?

What did you learn?

What would you like to happen as a result of that learning?

Most agreed that it was positive, inspiring and uplifting. It served to remind us that our lives are rich with experience and through these moments we can create our own happiness. It was no surprise to find that the things we learned about ourselves could be adapted and taught to others.