The new year has been and gone and here we are back again!

The first thing we wanted to was to lift the lid on our Perth Christmas party, where we decided to do something positive, as well as let our (metaphorical, at least for some) hair down.

Our day started with a quick jaunt (via public transport) to the Grant Marine Park in Cottesloe, where we met up with the Cottesloe Coastcare Association to help them to do some maintenance on the Park area. So we spent the first two and a bit hours of our Christmas party watering, weeding and cleaning up the rubbish in this little pocket of bush right on the coast. It was a great way to give back to the groups that have been supporting us; we support their use of GRID through the Perth Region NRM team, and we’ve trained these groups in GRID, QGIS and other technologies. If you’re looking for something different, contact your local group, via the Perth NRM group at this link – https://www.perthnrm.com/support/corporatevolunteering – and keep an eye out for some photos of our day next week when we’re all back on deck.

Our Perth team, along with a few Coastcare volunteers, made a significant difference in a couple of hours

After that, we had a good hour break where the team either went to straight to the Ocean Beach Hotel or down to the beach for a quick cool off and swim before we all sat down to lunch at the cBlu restaurant. Our Brisbane team – currently a little smaller than the Perth team – hit up the Newstead Brewing Company for a lunch for their part as well (and Steph in Hobart wasn’t left out, with a Christmas hamper). This multi-office approach we have now is really starting to get us to think about the nationwide Gaia team, and how we can really support and look after each other.

Part of that is about getting the right people on board, and this blog comes with a few announcements – the first is that we now have former GeoImage founder, Sylvia Michael, on board to head up our Brisbane team as the new Manager. Syl sums up our long collaboration pretty well in her “starting” quote:

“I am very much looking forward to working with Gaia Resources and contributing to their future growth and success. Over many years, I have enjoyed a respectful and professional association with their management and staff, and I fully support Gaia’s commitment and responsibility to deliver sustainable technology solutions.”

Our Brisbane team has been working well with a lot of remote support from the Perth team, but now that we’ve got a growing team there, we all figured it was time for some more support and hence Syl has come on board.  It also means that Andrew and I will be flying back and forth across the country less frequently now!

Along with Syl, Megan Edward joined the Brisbane team late in 2018, and has been getting up to speed with some very large projects in the Brisbane office, with some experience in the project management.  Megan has been on board for around a month now, and with her background in the environmental space, she really fits into our team well – although right at the moment the focus for the Brisbane office is on our Collections projects, we hope to shortly bring in a few more core environmental projects for Megan to manage.

Sylvia and Megan joining our first team meeting for the year (bonus Andrew)

Speaking of new team members, we also have additional team announcement for Perth – we have now got two additional software engineers on board – Arjun Kannan and Drew Robinson. Arjun and Drew join us for a large new project working with Drupal, and have started in the last few weeks in the hectic lead up to Christmas. Arjun has a wealth of PHP experience, while Drew is a Drupal “gun”, and both join us for a large project we are working on in the Drupal tech stack – an area we have experience in already. Both of the lads have settled in very quickly (Arjun has been with us for around 2 months now, Drew about two weeks!).  We’ve also got a few short term contract staff on board for that same project, who are performing various different roles – our Perth space is heaving now (thank goodness we moved into a larger dedicated area!)

Arjun and Drew in our new larger office space in Perth

And while we’re announcing changes, Chris is also off on a new adventure – he’s off to a new adventure in Darwin, although he’s not leaving our team. Chris’ family is moving up there for a new opportunity for his family – and so we’ve now officially got another state covered, meaning we’re now present in WA, QLD, TAS and now the NT. Chris will continue to manage a range of projects that he has been managing across the country, just from a different location and timezone.

So there’s a bunch of changes for our team, which is all setting up 2019 to be a great year with a great start… and a lot to get on and do!  We’re looking forward to all the new projects, partnerships and opportunities to make the world a better place that the new year offers.  So don’t hesitate to drop us a line, or call us, at either of our main offices;

perthoffice@archive.gaiaresources.com.au

(08) 92277309

brisbaneoffice@archive.gaiaresources.com.au

(07) 3063 0418

So, with all those changes and announcements it’s time to get stuck in!  From all our team we hope you had a great break and we look forward to catching up with you all again in 2019.  Of course, you can always start a conversation with us via social media (Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn) or you can call us on the numbers, or emails, above.

Happy new year!

Piers