This week the Dominican Family have celebrated St Dominic’s Day in Auckland and Queenstown.  Please continue reading to hear about the gatherings….

Queenstown

We celebrated in Queenstown with a Celebratory Mass with the pupils of St Joseph’s Queenstown led by our Priest Father Jamie.  Both Mary Anna and Noreen from Cromwell were present.  As you may know St Joseph’s school motto is “Walk in Truth”.  The offertory gifts were symbols indicative of St Dominic’s way of life.

We had a shared morning tea at the school before enjoying lunch for the Sisters and about twenty ex-pupils and friends at “Hamills” Frankton.

 

Auckland

On Sunday 3 August, over 50 of us gathered to celebrate St Dominic’s day. These celebrations have become a tradition in Auckland through the initiative and hard work of Sr Leonie.

This year our presenter was Linda Butler one of the administration team leaders in the Auckland Council Resource Consents Department. Linda talked from her perspective about the vision and work of the Auckland Council, which was created in November 2010 when eight councils in the Auckland region were amalgamated. In particular, she spoke about her experience of how the council has moved towards putting the customer at the heart of their business.

Linda is an enthusiastic and clear speaker and her talk generated plenty of response and questions, some quite challenging. Linda responded ably and honestly to the questions that were put.

The afternoon concluded with a prayer and hymn in honour of St Dominic, followed by afternoon tea. All very enjoyable!

For more information about Linda’s presentation please see below:

The Auckland Council was created in November 2010 when eight councils in the Auckland region were amalgamated. Linda Butler, one of the  administration team leaders in the Auckland Council Resource Consents Department spoke about her experience of how the council has moved towards putting the customer at the heart of their business.

The Council worked with the Public Service Association (PSA)  to establish The Way We Work, an interest-based approach to creating business processes from the customer perspective and with customer involvement so that customers will have a better experience of working with the council.  This has been successfully used when the new processes involve the realignment of staff reporting lines and, in some cases, relocations.

The council is constantly scrutinising business processes and eliminating the duplication that is a legacy of merging eight organisations into one. Eventually, the council’s new technology will complete the major consolidation and standardisation and enable the online access to services that customers expect – and need – to do their business efficiently.

Leadership is the key to transformation and the council is making significant investment in its people leaders.  Characteristics quoted included having a bias for action, being constructively confrontational by challenging people to do things better, making bold decisions, having high expectations of others and behaving  as if every customer interaction counts.   People leaders are expected to develop high performing teams of people who believe in what they are doing so have high energy, commitment and enthusiasm and are focussed on customer service.