CONTRIBUTING TO COMMUNITY

OCTEC has a long history of contributing to the many communities in which we work, including as a major sponsor of local community events and teams. We sponsor and/or provide other support for the Western NSW Training Awards, various local sporting teams, events held by local chambers of commerce, and local business awards in regional centres across NSW.

OCTEC actively supports other community service organisations with donations and in-kind support. In recent years, this has included:

• support of Cancer Council fundraising initiatives including the Biggest Morning Tea and Pink Ribbon Day;
• active involvement as an official supporter of the Australian Human Rights Commission’s Racism It Stops With Me campaign;
• support for various high schools through the involvement of OCTEC staff in practice job interviews with year 10 and year 12 students; and
• active participation in job expos, post school program expos, and community events such as NAIDOC Week and Youth Week activities.

Another significant area of community contribution is OCTEC’s maintenance of two heritage-listed buildings in Orange. Old Town Hall and Croagh Patrick College are both significant buildings in the history of Orange and the Central West more generally.

OCTEC has committed considerable resources to the renovation and maintenance of the buildings on behalf of the community, and provides in-kind support to various community organisations through complimentary use of these facilities for meetings, special events and photo sessions.

Where practicable, OCTEC adopts practices that reduce the generation of waste, lower energy consumption and encourage the use of recycled materials. These practices include the adaptive reuse of heritage buildings, reuse of office furniture and the purchase of smaller four cylinder cars.

OCTEC offsets the carbon emissions of our vehicle fleet through membership of Greenfleet and has made a major investment in sustainability through the installation of a 10kWp photovoltaic solar panel system on our Old Town Hall building in Orange.