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ONGOING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Classroom Timetable Course Information Student Policy Enrolment Form Purchase Online

Welcome to the commencement of the 2010 OPD year.

We honour all advertised courses.  No course will be cancelled.

It is with pleasure that we now commence the Ongoing Professional Development (OPD) training for the year.  We would like to thank all our colleagues for their patience whilst we waited for the Marriage Celebrants’ Section team to implement the new procedures for OPD and move to the new model of OPD.  We look forward to meeting up with colleagues from the many years of OPD training, and also look forward to meeting our new colleagues.

OPD Registration Year

The registration year previously has been from August through to September annually.  It was changed at the beginning of 2010 to now be 1 January to 31 December annually.

Your OPD obligation for the year

Each registration year you are required to complete as a minimum 5 hours ongoing professional development.  The OPD format this year is 1 hour for the compulsory topic and 4 hours for the elective topics.  You have until December 2010 to complete this year’s requirement.

Fees

Our fees range for a 5 hour selection from $110 to $160.  You can easily enroll and pay online, or pay via credit card, cheque or money order.

Our fees have been held steady now for the last 3 years and we believe are very fair in terms of the quality of trainers and material, and also taking into consideration the incomes of our colleagues who may not be in full time employment or in a Ministry position of a small congregation.

Enrolment Procedure

Enrolments must be made prior to attendance, due to catering and venue organisation enrolments close 5 working days before the class date, paying on the day will not be accepted as our trainers have no receipting facilities.

Enrolments can be made through our online payment system or by downloading the enrolment form and sending it into our office with your payment.

Faxing or posting your enrolment does not guarantee your place in a class. Confirmation of your enrolment will be sent via email or post once your enrolment form is processed.

Refunds and Class Transfers

Classroom Courses
No refund will be given for non-attendance, transfer to another class date will be accepted if new class is notified within 10 working days from original class date.

Exceptional circumstances will be considered and this will be at the discretion of the Director of Australian Celebrations Training.

Distance Education and Email Courses
No refund will be given once material has been dispatched.

Professional Associations

If you are a Professional Association, Celebrant Network or Network of Ministers, you may wish to organise your own special day.

If you take care of the event management of the OPD Day, eg: provide venue, catering, handle enrolments and fee collection, our price is as follows:

Up to 100 in attendance                      $99 per person
Over 100 in attendance                       $77 per person

Minimum attendance is 40 people, the above prices are for a one day group session only.

If you would like to discuss this as an option please email Beth O’Brien at director@australiancelebrations.com.au  or phone our office on (07) 3207-9515

Our Training Team

The training team of Australian Celebrations Training boasts extremely well qualified trainers and marriage celebrants.  You are encouraged to visit the “Our Team” page of our webpage to read over their extensive backgrounds in celebrancy, training and assessing, business, community service and to read their personal stories of their enjoyment of the profession.

Our team consists of the Company Director, Beth O’Brien who covers many states and then the following colleagues in state based offerings:

Pastor Chris O’Dempsey, QLD
Judy Aulich, NSW and ACT
John Scanlon, NSW and ACT
Ann Dally, NSW
Keith Lammond, NSW and ACT
Lisa Greenfield, VIC
Tony Gelme, VIC
Spencer Flint, VIC, TAS and SA
Kate Thomas, WA
Dr Irena Yashin-Shaw (national) Guest lecturer QLD

Professionalism in the classroom

The ethos of our training company is that all colleagues either new or experienced are treated with respect.  We honour the diversity of the civil and religious celebrants, the diversity of their backgrounds, religions and values.  Our staff are experienced at facilitating the needs of a very diverse classroom to make the environment one of professional conduct, learning knowledge, and information sharing with colleagues.  We have 7 years’ worth of wonderful testimonials to our training and approach, for which we are proud and grateful.

Whilst preparing to attend OPD training for the year, please let us know if you need special access to the venue, or if perhaps you need to sit in a certain location for hearing and vision difficulties.

We understand that for many of our colleagues English is a second language and we ensure to the best of our abilities that we incorporate that knowledge into our training style.

Catering at classroom courses

Our workshops offer catering for morning tea and for lunch.  On our enrolment form there is a section for dietary needs.  In the past we have been able to cater for diabetics, celiacs, dairy intolerance, vegetarian, vegan, and those with religious needs. 

Changes to OPD

Our courses

We have a wide variety of topics.  These courses have been designed over 7 years of continuous OPD training and on the requests of colleagues.  The new Marketing and E-Commerce topics bringing Celebrants skills to work in electronic environments have been very well received.

The compulsory topic

The compulsory activity for this year is one hour long and the content has been designed by the Marriage Celebrants’ Section team.

The topics covered will be:

* The role of the Marriage Celebrants’ Section in providing guidance to marriage celebrants on their legal responsibilities in conducting marriages
* Completing Statutory Declarations
* Documents to be completed by interpreters
* Record Keeping
* New Certificate of Divorce

In previous years the training of the compulsory topic happened in the classroom by providers.  The distance education mode was provided by the Marriage Celebrants’ Section free of charge.

From this OPD year the compulsory topic is handled exclusively by OPD providers and the Marriage Celebrants’ Section of the Attorney-General’s Department no longer offer the distance education option.

You can either complete the compulsory with us in the classroom or as a distance education booklet.

Elective Topics

Currently we have 20 elective topics to choose from, ten further topics in the wings, and will be evolving some new ones over the next six months with the help of feedback from colleagues where further topics of interest may exist.

We have a variety of courses on offer to assist you to fulfill your ongoing professional development requirements. Currently the Department is in the final process of reviewing and approving the topics, but we have provisional approval to launch the topics. 

We have been training aspiring celebrants and continuing celebrants as a niche celebrant training company now for 7 years.  We have surveyed OPD attendees each year,  and we collectively have a very sound understanding of what colleagues wish to have as OPD sessions. 
This year we have some new topics and some more challenging topics and we look forward to training both the basic and the challenging topics this year.  From the OPD feedback we now proudly have a non-aligned religious Minister, Pastor Chris O’Dempsey on staff who has developed some topics tailored to religious colleagues.  

Courses are offered in a face-to-face environment, by distance education booklet or for a more modest pricing the distance education booklets can be emailed.  

Our elective topics are as follows their abstracts can be read on our course descriptions  document.  You can also read on that document how the OPD topics can build on your knowledge of the Certificate IV in Celebrancy units of study.