National Lifestyle Villages - eco warriors

In 2009, I was approached by WA business, National Lifestyle Villages (NLV) to manage its public relations activity in a consultancy capacity. The contract lasted well over over six years before the company was restructured.

With up to nine villages in WA at the time, one in South Australia and diversified interests in the North West, the expectation was to secure editorial in local and interstate news on a regular basis.

This required innovative content which usually centered around unique stories from village residents and curating news that was both engaging and activating.

Adopting cutting-edge eco principles across each of their homes and developments provided further fuel to engage the press and readers about a high-agenda topic.

Appreciating the immense power of human stories and experiences, the NLV marketing team developed a seasonal 40-page newspaper called The Journey.

Aimed at its 4,000+ residents, data-base stakeholders and event attendees, the newspaper was a much anticipated publication, which inspired comment, discussion and requests for stories from its readers. As editor, it was a hugely rewarding job to curate, write and research all the content before collaborating with design to get it over the print line!

Among other general PR tasks, I was responsible for preparing content for regular e-news templates, speech writing and event/video coordination, a major contributor to the bi-annual information seminar series, along with a broad spectrum of internal communications activity.

This included input into the company’s annual employee events calendar, developing fund-raising activities and ensuring staff communication was prepared and distributed concisely and effectively.

To this day, National Lifestyle Villages is still considered a trail-blazer in the development of sustainable and cost-effective communities for the over-45s demographic in Western Australia.