Mavis has a primary sector background in sheep, beef, dairy and apiary commercial activities for both private enterprise and large corporates. She is a wool classer by trade and has a deep passion for wool, a sensuous natural fibre. With Chinese, Irish and Máori whakapapa Mavis easily straddles boundaries of gender, culture and belief systems. She is a founding member of The Super Diversity Council. Mavis is an experienced and sought after director and currently holds positions as Chairman of Taratahi, Atihau Whanganui Incorporation, Poutama Trust, and PSGE Rangitane Tu Mai Ra. She is Patron of AWDT and a board member of Nga Whenua Rahui and Accelerate 25. Past board positions include Landcorp Farming, Massey University, Hautaki and 2 degrees mobile. Her deepest concern is how we face the future in a dynamically changing world, how we make technological shifts our norm and how we encourage our people to stay engaged and relevant. Mavis is married to Koro and they have four adult children and 14 precious mokopuna.
Distinguished Professor Paul Spoonley is the Pro Vice-Chancellor of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Massey University. He is the author or editor of 27 books, the most recent being “Rebooting the Regions” (2016). He is Programme Leader of a research programme on the impacts of immigration and diversity (MBIE, 2014–2020, $5.5 million). He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 2011 and was granted the title of Distinguished Professor by Massey University in 2013. He was awarded the Science and Technology Medal by the Royal Society in 2009, he was a Fulbright Senior Scholar at the University of California Berkeley in 2010, and since 2013, he has been a Visiting Researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Gottingen. The Auckland War Memorial Museum made him a Fellow in 2015.
Rachel Hill from Buller REAP will then share a practical example of how she delivers the Sorted seminars in a range of contexts in her West Coast community.
Rachel is well known to the ACE Sector. She is Adult and Community Education (ACE) Coordinator with Buller REAP and has been active in her region across a range of networks, events and projects including Adult Learners’ Week/He Tangata Mātauranga.
Maureen Mallon has been one of Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Education in Scotland for over ten years. She is an Assistant Director in Education Scotland with leadership responsibility for Community Learning and Development, developing a National Improvement Hub for Scottish education practitioners, parental engagement, family learning, and transformational change. She has inspected and worked to improve practice across the country and spent a number of years working as a district inspector undertaking challenge and support across education in local authorities. Maureen has a background in community learning and development and has worked in various roles in adult learning, social enterprise and youth work. Her main thematic interests are around strategic planning, partnerships and making best use of resources and undertook an MBA at Edinburgh University with a focus on decision making in the public sector.
Lesley and Tracey will explore how successful learning is defined by learners in the ACE sector and how this can inform the programme interventions and activities offered in this learning context. They will also examine a learner-centric mechanism for ongoing evaluation and review of the interventions and activities ACE providers offer.
Lesley has an extensive background working in the higher education, corporate and Government sectors. She is involved in a broad range of research projects covering topics such as mentoring programme evaluation, supporting dyslexic learners, literacy & numeracy, enhancing professional practice, and leadership capability development.
Tracey is Education Manager at Wairarapa REAP and has been project lead on the Ako Aotearoa, Central Hub project in which feedback was collected from 43 learners enrolled in adult and community education (ACE) programmes in three New Zealand REAPs to discover what they perceive is successful learning and how their learning experience and outcomes are supported by the REAP.