Our Mission at TDC is to develop all commercial opportunities on behalf of the clan members throughout the Region to advance our key aims of providing local jobs for local people and, in the long term, ensuring every child has a chance of a full life.

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Over the past two weeks, all of our team and the community have been impacted by COVID related activities or incidents in some way.

While some sections of TDC have been completely shut down due the COVID out-break, others have continued on, relatively undisrupted.

COVID has been all consuming in some areas and there will be pockets of our business that will continue to be impacted in the coming weeks, particularly when employees become sick or are caring for someone who is sick.

With COVID being so widespread, separation of staff to de-risk business continuity is no longer an effective strategy as exposure to the virus is inevitable.

In the coming week (s) people who have been sick will be well again, and able to return to work and activities. Those that have not been sick may be-come sick, and there will be challenges as we navigate through sporadic staffing levels.

Fortunately, the severity of the symptoms is mild for most, and the period of sickness appears to be not more than 7 days, so we would expect absenteeism to be manageable, albeit inconvenient.

As we learn to live with COVID, it is important that we start to focus on settling in to our ‘new normal’ and bringing our business of community and economic development back to life.

It will be some time before we are fully back to ‘business as usual’ but it is important that we start to look at how we get there.

Tobias has expressed his relief that the community are all getting on board with vaccinations and wearing masks and keeping distance from each other.

There is a lower sense of anxiety across the community now, as people become more familiar with what Omicron looks and feels like. We just need to make sure our people have things they need to help them while they are sick. Thank you to Lea who has organized cleaning packs for people who are at home sick.

A big shout out to Angus and all the NT Health Team who have been testing and vaccinating our community over the past week and to our team who have been supporting them.

The heat has been grueling for the clinic staff who have been weathering the heat outside in full PPE as locals lined up to get tested and vaccinated.

Notwithstanding the heat and short staffing, the health team were in good spirits and giving positive encouragement to nervous participants lining up to get their test and/or vaccinations.

A huge well done to Florine from Aged Care who very quickly learnt how to use the Orange Sky laundry van and spent the day doing laundry for community clients.

Abbey and the Village Team are continuing to run a section of the 100-man camp as an isolation facility, to support vulnerable people who are required to isolate.

The Delaware hygiene team have been busy COVID cleaning exposure sites, including the Women’s Centre and the CDP offices.

Other facilities including the Men’s shed will be cleaned next week.

The Directors of TDC have signed off on a five-year contract with NIAA to continue to run the Rangers program and caring for country.

A big thanks to Mahala Balmer and Peter Sheldon for getting the reporting in and securing the new five-year contract and getting the contract in place.

The ranger’s employee up to 40 people in range of activities including sea, land and fire management.

Congratulations to all involved, it is great to see this important work being recognized with continued investment.

Congratulations to Mark, Kate, Brad, Sarah and all the housing and construction team for winning multiple contracts for works to be undertaken in 2022.

Kate worked tirelessly in the lead up to Christmas to pull together all the tenders and was looking visibly exhausted as she grappled to pull together all the documents required in time.

This is a fantastic achievement and such a great reward for all the hard work.

The H&C team have been working continuously throughout the chaos of COVID, with two houses on Airport Drive starting to take shape.

The boys were hard at it early on Friday morning, leveling posts and keeping construction going as COVID was playing out in the background.

Tracey Leo, GM for Corporate Services has moved to Wadeye, to gain a better understanding at the cold face, of what is required to get momentum in the employment and training space.

Passionate about regional industries and communities, she is keen to work with community to help identify ways to build the skills needed to capture economic opportunities. There is a growing interest in investing in projects in regional Australia, and it will be a missed opportunity if we can’t build the capacity of local people to capture these opportunities.

Tracey has a range of industry development experience, being a part of the management team that developed Humpty Doo Barramundi from 2010 to 2021.

Prior to working in aquaculture, she spent 25 years in the horticulture industry and was heavily involved in the development of the Mango, Tropical Fruit and Asian vegetable industry development in its early years.

“My first week has been an interesting one. I was feeling a bit lost without internet on Friday, so I managed to set myself up on the verandah and tap into the Sky mesh Wi-Fi.

While I was sweltering away in the heat out on the verandah, I discovered a bunch of people working in the air-conditioning on the other side of the wall, wondering why I was sitting out in the heat “. #LMAO#Happy Friday!