The FICs Education
Our aim is to strengthen and support our local community of exercise professionals so we can help more of the people we work with to be healthy, fit and happy.
How
- Education: Providing yearly live, face-to-face conferences in Perth, Boorloo, overflowing with educational and work related opportunities
- Connection: Creating quality connections between the attendees, presenters and supporters.
And to achieve those ends
- We aim to ensure that everyone in W.A. who wants to attend is not prohibited by cost and to this end provide great deals, scholarships and free tickets in return for volunteering etc.
- We’re committed to providing environments free of discrimination and harassment, where all individuals are treated with respect and dignity, can contribute fully and have equal opportunities.
- FICs Education aims to be accessible to all activity providers whether they work as volunteers or paid professionals, and whether they are qualified or studying to become qualified.
- We use wheelchair accessible venues and encourage attendees to alert us to any requirements they may have on the day that will ensure a quality learning experience for them.
Our conferences take place on the lands of the Whadjuk Noongar people, who have been educating and strengthening their communities since time immemorial. We pay our respects to their elders, past and present.
The FICs Advisory Committee
At the start of 2023 I invited five others, who exuded enthusiasm and expertise, to join a FICs advisory committee and to help ensure we meet out aims via…
- Collaboration
- Making things happen
- Delivering positively WOW experiences to all those involved in our conference.
- Having fun along the way
- Being adventurous, creative, and open-minded
- Pursuing growth and learning
- Doing more with less
Broni McSweeney
Winner: Fitness NZ Lecturer of the Year and Fitness NZ Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Fitness Industry.
Born in Bridgetown, in the south-west, I went to school in Perth, Boorloo. When I was 17 I left W.A. and while I often came back here for holidays I didn’t move back until a few years ago.
I spent 20 + years in Aotearoa, New Zealand, working in the exercise industry as a gym instructor, personal trainer, group fitness instructor. A 20 week health and fitness challenge I created went national and was rolled out by more than 200 personal trainers for more than 10 years to thousands of people. I went on to deliver sessions at conferences, sitting on industry advisory committees and working with the Register of Exercise Professionals to approve fitness courses for registration. I took on lecturing roles at the Christchurch Polytechnic and the Auckland University of Technology, became one of the judges for the national awards, and most relevant here, established a space for what ended up being over 300 educational workshops incorporating some 200 presenters.
Most importantly the feedback from attendees of those workshops each year reaffirmed how useful those sessions were, not only via great feedback about the session themselves but the flow on benefits from them connecting with others, and for their self esteem, and businesses. 91.7% said that the workshops also helped keep them motivated.
I hope to meet you one day and invite you to contact me if you have any ideas about how to make the event better.
Broni
AWESOME!!!!, What a character! love to spend more time listening to Sean, session too short!!!( I mean that in a nice way!) SO interesting, so much to ask and LOVED the question/discussion time that he managed to squeeze in. BRILLIANT!
Susan has a PhD from the School of Physiotherapy, BSc (Hons), Precision Nutrition (plus if you name just about any fitness course, she’s done it. Susan was part of the official posing classes held by NABBA, and competed internationally at Worlds and Universes and has placed in all 20+ shows she has entered!
She’s been an International Optimum Nutrition athlete, studio owner in two countries, and featured in M2 Women, Iron Man Magazine, NZ Fitness, Fitness Life, Oxygen, Womens Health Magazine and REPs Magazine (Indonesia).
Regularly invited to present, most recently at the FitEx conference in New Zealand, she is also the author of books and scientific articles in peer-review journals.
In 2022 she presented at FICs and received RAVE reviews, inclusive of ‘My favourite session’ and ‘I could have done it all day’. Lucky for us, she’ll be presenting again in 2023.
Susan brings extensive knowledge to the conference, able to contribute on all levels from content delivery, to marketing. Keen to see all exercise professionals succeed, she is enthusiastic about FICs and has dived in to help put together some fabulous resources for our attendees.
Website: Sweat Equity
The 2022 AusActive Educator of the Year Award. Professionally an international health and fitness educator, speaker and writer specialising in exercise and nutrition for pregnancy and motherhood and helping women find a balanced approach to healthy, active living for long term mental and physical wellbeing.
With over 13 years experience in the health and fitness industry, Brooke is a tertiary qualified nutritionist and exercise scientist, and trainer.
Brooke is an expert in her field, highly professional, strongly committed to supporting exercise professionals, going above and beyond to share her knowledge and ideas. Based in Karratha, Brooke also brings a rural perspective to the FICs conference.
Brooke presented for us in 2022 to fabulous reviews and will be presenting for us again in 2023.
Brooke’s website: Balance Fitness and Nutrition
Daniel is a personal trainer and group fitness instructor and while there’s more information from him to come, I can vouch for him for being super smart and full of great ideas that benefited last year’s conference and will no doubt benefit all our future ones. His business is DTM Health and Fitness.
Winner of the AUSactive award for National Group Exercise Leader of the Year 2022. Currently studying her Masters of Medical and Health Science by Research at Edith Cowan University, with a strong interest in group exercise and mental health. Sarah completed her BSc in Exercise and Sports Science at Edith Cowan University and is now studying for her Diploma in Counselling. She has also been a Les Mills Group Fitness Instructor teaching Body Combat, Body Pump and RPM, for 15 years, in gyms across Perth.
As someone who suffers from Generalised Anxiety Disorder, Depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), she has had first hand account of how powerful exercise is in helping mental well-being and will be presenting in this area at FICs 2023.
Sarah currently runs Sarah Ford Fitness, a boot camp style business for ladies only and started a not-for-profit, which is the Sarah Ford Foundation. The Foundation aims to help financially disadvantaged women to access fitness services for their mental health.
You can find Sarah at: Sarah Ford Fitness
History
FICs Education was set up in February 2022 to facilitate conferences for people working in the fitness industry in Perth, W.A.
When I moved back to Perth I immediately went to book into the local fitness conference, but there wasn’t one and there hadn’t been one since 2016!
With COVID, the W.A. borders still closed and our industry professionals having been hit so hard, it seemed like an important time to for there to be get togethers happening on the local scene, showcasing local experts, helping us to upskill and connect, so here we are – having run one the first one in August 2022 and planning the 2023 and 2024 ones!
At the moment myself and the committee members are doing this for the love of it, all in an effort to help keep costs down for attendees and help grow it. The generosity of both the Cockburn ARC recreation facility, the presenters and volunteers have also played a huge role in allowing ticket prices to remain so cheap.
The dream is that we are soon big enough to attract funding from sponsors allowing ticket prices to remain low, and for all those involved to be reimbursed for their time and effort.
I’ve met new grads in Perth that have never attended any live conferences and it’s challenging for them to understand of all they are missing out on from these types of live events. Ensuring there are minimal financial barriers to attending ours is a piece in the jigsaw to enticing them to pop along and experience those benefits. I think this will be especially important for those who are 3 or 6 months newly graduated and find themselves overwhelmed and struggling to survive.
But it’s also as important for long-term successful pros whose businesses have been hit by Covid or who simply want to stay motivated, up-to-date and meet local experts in their industry without necessarily having to head interstate or overseas, although at the price we’ve pitched it, they may end up doing both!
Broni McSweeney -FICs Coordinator
Special thanks
Huge thanks to the staff and management at Cockburn ARC have been an outstanding support as have so many of the presenters and many of the attendees, who went above and beyond to help share FICs with others.