This year’s National Malleefowl & WA Threatened Species Forum was held in September. One of the many magnificent minds behind this event was Emma McNerney of Euphorium! Read all about Emma in this month’s #PeopleOfNRM!
Who are you?
I am Emma McNerney hailing from the Howell family, three generation Geraldton locals. I am married with a young son who is involved in all parts of my life!
I wear a few hats around the community, one being the General Manager and co-founder of Euphorium, following a merger with my own original events services company “It’s All Sorted”. My main role at Euphorium is managing the general chaos that is our team and activities all over the state though I still play a large part in the events team and within our “TNT” – Try New Things – program.
I have a unique background in community development and events, am highly experienced in facilitating programs, governance, and leadership coaching. They call me an expert in pragmatism (which in a team of creatives, at Euphorium, is very useful)! I am known for getting things done, and bringing people together.
My other hats include Community Development Office and Coordinator of LEAD at Ngala, Director on the board of Geraldton Community Bank amongst other things.
Talk to us about Euphorium. What does Euphorium do?
We exist to develop creative ways to enable meaningful impact; so that in the future communities are empowered to independently invest creative potential. Our mission is to become the community innovators that inspire entire communities through living our values!
Euphorium are social entrepreneurs – Creative Producers with an Arts Sector heart and a Community Development brain. We design, develop and deliver creative programs, training, services, systems, resources, festivals and events that empower Regional WA’s creative ecosystems. We do anything and everything that will bring us closer to achieving our mission and communities of the future. Though we try and stick within these four areas:
- Pathways and platforms for exploring creativity.
With a strong focus on creative pathways, Euphorium empowers professional artists and the creative at heart through creative engagements and professional skills building. - Taking the admin out of arts administration.
Arts systems is Euphorium’s evolving collection of real world developed tools, training and systems solutions giving you more time to focus on delivering impact in your community. - Empowerment by doing things together.
Our community activities and interactive performances empower participants and build confidence through shared experiences (they also provide work for artists)! - We are experts at getting things done.
Our team of qualified event coordinators and creative arts producers create memorable community events, weddings, festivals and conferences.
In your opinion, what is the best part of working/living/playing in the Northern Agricultural Region?
Geraldton and the Midwest. We are (still) just the right size. Big enough to have a dynamic, interesting, vibrant community – but small enough that the people still matter and the lifestyle is still laid back. For me it’s about the people and the variety. I am one to get bored quite easily so being central to multiple playgrounds from the beach to the bush and everything in between is really important to me. Being able to contribute to and impact people in different ways, fulfils me and my own mission.
What has been a career highlight for you?
My original company “It’s All Sorted” was created for the sole purpose of providing community fundraisers to Geraldton. Over 10 years working as a sole trader, I created 25 unique events for the community through over 1500 of my own voluntary hours, provided as platforms for others to launch their microbusinesses and build a profile, with proceeds reinvested into local community causes. Over $80,000 was donated back to 12 different local causes/charities, through showcasing 978 local makers/creators/businesses to 17,000+ potential customers. Pretty proud of that. We continue this work with Euphorium on a different level, though some of it still remains (watch out for Christmas Bonanza coming up in November!)
Tell us about your involvement in the National Malleefowl & WA Threatened Species Forum! What did you love about it?
Firstly, what an honour to be invited to impact such a long standing and important combination of events. To be able to take it and partially recreate it, was a privilege.
Without being physically involved in the industry, or the environmental “scene”, it is something I am passionate about personally so to be able to blend my work into making a positive impact into something that I don’t usually get to affect was really fulfilling for me. For Euphorium, to be able to cross into the environmental sector/industry, and bring our creative community / arts hat, was a well received offer. One of our values is “do good” – so we ensure that our work is doing good, but also that WHO we are doing the work for, is doing good too. So this really ticked that box for us!
I just loved the variety this Forum had on offer. It retained the high level content offerings, but mixed it with physical experiences, community inclusion, adventures and options. I love empowering people to step outside of their comfort zones (for a purpose) and think we definitely achieved that. Hopefully a positive, memorable experience for them!
What’s on the horizon for you and Euphorium? What should our readers be looking out for?
There are always a multitude of things on our horizon! In the near future, recovering from the inaugural Shore Leave Festival, we are heading off to Cockburn for our annual Side Splitter comedy Festival, to the southwest for our Fitz of Laughter roadshow, bringing extra community engagement, creativity and fun to the 2021 Big Sky Festival with a Woodstock Time Travel party, our annual community fundraiser “pop up department store” Christmas Bonanza, followed by a twilight market in Mingenew… and that’s just the next two months! Then we will roll into Christmas parties and windups, New Years events, summer beach parties and hopefully a little down time before 2022 kicks into gear properly.
There is always so much going on, our TNT program, our Youth Academy, other projects we are working on that are coming to fruition… Keep an eye on our socials so you can see for yourself!
If you’d like to keep up to date with Euphorium on socials, click below!