Towards Better

02/02/2026

💸 Are $10 tasks stopping you from doing $50–$100 work?

Business owners, the small, repeatable tasks filling your day might feel productive, but they are often the very things holding your business and your people back.

📧 Admin and data entry
📊 Filing and record keeping
📦 Stocktakes and inventory
📅 Scheduling and bookings
📱 Basic social media
🎥 Simple video editing and uploads
☎️ Customer service, inbox and enquiry follow-ups
🍽 Kitchen prep, cleaning and organisation
🧁 Baking support such as measuring, packaging, labelling and prep
🛠 Fabrication support tasks such as material prep, sorting, labelling, quality checks, tool organisation and workshop housekeeping
✈️ Travel agency support including blog writing, destination research, customised itineraries, supplier comparisons and content updates

These are what we call $10 tasks. They are necessary, but they are not the work that grows your business, develops your people or frees you to focus on leadership, strategy and high-value decision making.

💡 What if those tasks could:
✔ Free up hours every week
✔ Allow your team to focus on $50 to $100 work
✔ And create meaningful, customised employment for people with disability

At Towards Better, we help businesses across Townsville and North Queensland identify repeatable tasks and turn them into customised employment roles structured to match the interests, skills, work considerations and contributions of a potential employee, who happens to have a disability. From workshops and kitchens to offices, creative work and customer service, businesses save time, boost productivity develop their team and culture and a bonus: make a genuine social impact.

This approach works well for:
• Cafes, bakeries and food businesses
• Fabrication, manufacturing and trade based businesses
• Travel agencies and tourism operators
• Health, allied health and NDIS providers
• Professional services such as accounting, legal and consulting
• Real estate agencies and property services
• Construction, maintenance and facilities businesses
• Creative, digital and media businesses
• Retail, wholesale and e-commerce businesses
• Human Services, not-for-profits and purpose-driven organisations

👉 Watch this short video to discover: https://youtube.com/shorts/xudtRKL-C2Y?feature=shared

• Two simple questions to identify tasks you could delegate
• How $10 tasks can become part-time, customised roles
• How to free your team to focus on high-value work
• How inclusion can strengthen your business without slowing it down

🎓 Upcoming webinar:
https://events.humanitix.com/event-customised-employment-townsville

💡 Business owners: are $10 tasks holding your business back? This 60-second Short shows you two simple questions that could free up hours every week while c...

01/02/2026

Come & Try Days – Tips to make them genuinely welcoming 👋 (and grow your membership)

A Come & Try day is often someone’s first experience of your club or association. How they feel in the first 5 minutes really matters. A little intention and planning can make all the difference.

✔️ Have a clear plan
Know the timeline, roles, and responsibilities. The day should flow easily so individuals or families aren’t left standing around feeling awkward or unsure of what to do or where to go next.

✔️ Brief your volunteers
Well ahead of time. On the day, Have a quick huddle beforehand so everyone understands the plan, their role, and the tone you’re aiming for – friendly, calm, and inclusive.

✔️ Be clear about what it is and what it’s not
For example: “It’s not about hard-selling or signing everyone up on the spot. It is about keeping kids moving, people getting the best look at your club, understanding what families are looking for, sharing the fun vibes, and building awareness of your club and community.

🚨 CRITICAL: Have a Welcomer
Totally undervalued, rarely practiced, but critically important. At least one person should be responsible for greeting each family, saying hello, answering initial questions, and guiding them where to go. Also have someone (or a few people) available throughout and at the end to chat, answer questions, and check in about how the experience felt.

✔️ Think access and comfort
Clear signage, simple language, flexibility, and a relaxed approach all help. Let people know they can ask questions, take breaks, or step away if needed. Strike up chats with people. Small things reduce anxiety and help people feel safe and included.

✔️ Have something to hand out
Be clear on “what’s next.” Don’t just say “check our page or website.” Give people something tangible with key info, contact details, and next steps.

✔️ Have a Connector
Someone whose role is to introduce people to each other. “You’re both new” or “your kids are the same age” can instantly help families or individual people feel less alone and more at home.

✔️ Think beyond ‘member’
There are many ways people can contribute. Make a list of volunteer roles ahead of time – big and small. Also consider perks such as free items, discounts, or paid opportunities where possible. People like to feel useful and valued, not just needed.

✔️ Invite feedback
Let people know their thoughts matter. A simple question like “What worked for you today?” or “What would make this easier next time?” shows you’re listening.

✔️ Mindset matters
If you do this well, you will attract interest.
Are you ready to welcome a wide range of people – including people with disability, people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, English as a second language, and families outside your usual age range?
Not as a separate group, but as part of what you already have going on.

If you’re unsure, seek local guidance, keep it simple, and don’t overcomplicate it.

✨ Want support to become a more welcoming club and attract members and volunteers?

Get in touch with us at Towards Better.
ricky@towardsbetter.com.au

https://www.towardsbetter.com.au/for-organisations/

28/01/2026

🌟 Got a Hands-On Passion and Natural Talent? Let’s Explore Work That Fits You 🌟

Are you someone who:

🔹 Loves working with tools, fixing things, and solving real-world problems
🔹 Has a natural knack for hands-on work and is curious about plumbing, irrigation, drainage, roofing, civil or similar trades
🔹 Is keen to explore work experience that could grow into part-time work or an apprenticeship

There is a fully supported pathway to discover where your strengths can shine. This includes trying practical tasks on the ground, building skills and confidence, and moving toward earning while you learn.

💪 Whether you are just starting out, figuring out what you enjoy, or ready to take the next step toward a trade, this opportunity focuses on matching your talents and passions with real work that matters.

🎯 What is on offer
✔️ Supported hands-on work experience
✔️ Skills development in trade-related tasks
✔️ Pathways to ongoing paid part-time roles or apprenticeships

If you have a practical spark and love doing, making, fixing or learning by doing, this could be the perfect place to start.

👇 Drop a comment or send an email to ricky@towardsbetter.com.au

Let’s find a way for your strengths, natural talents, contributions to become your work. 🔧✨

👀Life Skills Queensland, Unique Partnerships, Workforce Australia Local Jobs - Townsville

27/01/2026

🚗 Car Detailer – Part-Time Paid Opportunity 🚗

We’re looking for someone interested in a hands-on car detailing role working with a small fleet of vehicles. This role involves washing, vacuuming, and detailing cars using professional equipment and clear, step-by-step processes.

⏰ Hours
• 8–16 hours per week
• One person for all 16 hours or two people at 8 hours each
• Hours can be spread over several days (e.g. 9am–1pm across 2, 3 or 4 days)
• Flexible start and finish times

🧰 What’s Provided
• Power washer, vacuum, and cleaning supplies
• Uniform and workwear
• Clear checklists, visual guides, and structured training

🎓 Training & Support
• Training with a professional car detailer
• On-the-job support to help you learn confidently
• Ongoing check-ins to make sure things are going well

👤 Who This Role Suits
• Aged 16+
• Interested in hands-on work and learning on the job
• Enjoys being outdoors, seeing an end result, and cleaning
• Passion for cars/automotive is a bonus (especially if you’re considering this area for the future)
• Likes step-by-step tasks and practical skills
• Has a driver’s licence or learner’s permit (or working towards one)
• Can get to work independently (car, family lift, or public transport)
• Comfortable using basic equipment and a phone or computer

📋 Other Requirements
• Blue Card (or willing to obtain)
• Medical check if required
• NDIS funding available to support job setup and ongoing support
• Willingness to link in with an Employment Service (Inclusive Employment Australia provider)

📆 Start Timeframe
• Aiming for an early February 2026 start

💬 Interested?
If this sounds like something you’d like to explore, send a message or email and we can organise a chat to see if it’s a good fit.

ricky@towardsbetter.com.au

24/01/2026

🎙️ New Podcast Episode | Towards Better

Creating Inclusive Futures Through STEM: Sarah Chapman on Empowering Girls and Communities in Regional Australia

In this episode of Towards Better, Ricky is joined by Sarah Chapman, Founder of STEM Changemakers

STEM Changemakers, Founder of the Townsville STEM Hub, and Co-Chair of Women in STEMM Australia, for a powerful conversation about inclusion, opportunity, and community-led change through STEM.

Sarah shares her personal journey into STEM, the barriers women and underrepresented groups continue to face, and how community-based initiatives can build confidence, belonging, and real pathways into valued roles, especially for girls in regional Australia.

We talk about:
✨ What inspired STEM Changemakers and the Townsville STEM Hub
✨ Breaking down barriers for women in STEM
✨ Why STEM literacy matters beyond the classroom
✨ How communities, schools, and businesses can get involved
✨ Advice for young people who aren’t sure STEM is “for them”

If you care about inclusion, education, community, or creating better futures; this conversation is for you.

👉 Listen to the episode here: https://www.towardsbetter.com.au/news/towards-better-podcast/

🎥 STEM Changemakers Video Story: https://youtu.be/A30PsPBG6oE

21/01/2026

🌟 Discover Your Skills, Passions & Possibilities! 🌟

Have you ever wondered how your talents, skills, and passions could lead to something meaningful—maybe even your own microenterprise?

Our Microenterprise Discovery Program (small groups, 3 participants) is designed for young people 18–35 in the Townsville area who are ready to take action, commit, and explore possibilities.

We’re looking for participants who are:
💪 Motivated to explore volunteering, study, or meaningful work
🧩 Committed to attending weekly small group sessions and individual mentoring
🤝 Engaged with family or support people who can help along the way
🌏 Curious about learning new skills, testing ideas, and connecting with their community
🚀 Ready to act on their own personal efforts between sessions

Through 6 weeks of guided group sessions and mentoring, you’ll:
• Discover your purpose, strengths, and passions
• Explore ways to turn ideas into microenterprises, community projects, or work opportunities
• Build confidence and pathways to potential valued roles around work.
• Gain skills in decision-making, goal setting, and self-expression
• Learn more and connect to business networks including the ASE Groups 'Real World Ready' program.

Program Structure (6 Weeks)
🔹 Roles-Based Planning Session: Before the program begins, we work with you and your supports to set up for success
🔹 Weekly 2-hour group sessions: Explore your skills, test ideas, and connect with peers
🔹 1.5 hours/week mentoring, planning & connection-making: Support between sessions to help your ideas grow
🔹 30-minute 1:1 Goal Review Calls: Midpoint and end check-ins to track progress and set next steps
🔹 After the Program: Continue your journey with 1:1 microenterprise planning, monthly mentorship check-ins, or creative support like visual résumés and product photography

If traditional workplaces haven’t felt inclusive, this program helps you create your own path, earn an income, help others, and make a social impact.

💡 Limited spaces—3 participants per group & NDIS Funding, where Self Managed, Can be used

📞 Contact Ricky Esterquest
📧 ricky@towardsbetter.com.au
📱 0447 574 600

21/01/2026

🌟 Job Opportunity | Townsville

Dance Tutor & Community Connector

We’re recruiting on behalf of a mentee who is working towards valued roles as a:

Dance Student • Dancer • Aspiring Teacher • Choreographer • Stylist

This role is about learning together, building confidence, and creating real connections in dance, theatre, and creative arts communities. It combines hands-on practice, community engagement, and pathways into valued roles such as performing, teaching, assisting, styling, and other creative work.

🩰 What you’ll do (together):

Explore dance community roles (dancer, choreographer, assistant instructor, stylist, promotions, retail, workshop assistant)
Prepare for classes, rehearsals, workshops, and performances
Practise dance skills outside formal lessons
Learn dance theory, choreography, and teaching methods
Plan and create routines and find real-world places to practise
Engage in movement and exercise that supports dance goals
Connect with learning and professional development opportunities
Attend classes, events, rehearsals, and performances
Build confidence in creative and community spaces

⏰ Hours:

Mix of weekday daytime and weekday evenings
Hours start small for rapport building and increase over time as the role develops

👥 This role would suit someone who:

Has an interest or background in dance, theatre, or the arts
Enjoys mentoring, encouraging, and learning alongside someone else
Is comfortable in community settings and meeting new people
Values inclusion and respects neurodiversity

✨ What this role helps create:

Increased confidence and creative skills
Strong connections in dance and creative communities
Pathways into performing, teaching, assisting, or other creative work
Valued roles, real relationships, belonging, and purpose to the week
Access to further learning and professional growth

📩 Interested or want to know more?

Contact Ricky Esterquest (he/him/his)
Founder & Principal Community Development Worker – Towards Better
📧 ricky@towardsbetter.com.au
🌐 www.towardsbetter.com.au

A Social Traders Certified Social Enterprise

20/01/2026

Something you don’t want to miss.

Whether you attend, a family member or loved one, a support worker, someone else important in your life, or all the above, the best thing you can do for your future is expose yourself to great learning.

Everything we do is in the context of roles. And everything we want to likely become is also in context of roles (tenant, friend, partner, student, club member, employee, volunteer, neighbour)

So it’s important to understand these concepts and have others in your life aligns

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1Ejj88kzzK/?mibextid=wwXIfr

🌟 Final days to register! 🌟
🛠️ Building better lives: An introduction to Social Role Valorisation

This two-hour workshop will be a fantastic opportunity to learn how understanding Social Role Valorisation (SRV) can expand opportunities and improve life outcomes for your family member with disability.

We’re so excited that the wonderful Darcy Elks will share her knowledge in an engaging two-hour introductory workshop.

We hope you’ll join us!

🛠️ Building better lives: An introduction to Social Role Valorisation
👤 A two-hour workshop with Darcy Elks
🗓️ Wednesday 28 January 2026
⏰ From 11:00 am until 1:00 pm AEDT
🎟️ https://imaginemore.org.au/events/building-better-lives/

P.S. If you are interested in learning even more about Social Role Valorisation, we're hosting a two-day workshop, Towards a better life, in March 2026. Read more on our website: https://imaginemore.org.au/events/tabl-2026/

20/01/2026

📢 Important Update from Towards Better

As of 20.01.2026, Towards Better will no longer be accepting referrals from NDIS support coordinators or case managers.

When the NDIS first rolled out in Townsville in 2016, there were rich conversations with individuals and families about hopes, aspirations, and building meaningful lives. Services broadly knew the people they were supporting.

Over the last 10 years, this has changed. Today, outside of our service, we see very little future planning or vision work. Conversations that well intention support coordinators or case managers have with individuals and families are often reduced to funding, line items, referrals, services and what a plan says. People are frequently seen as a name on a caseload rather than as individuals with unique lives, dreams, and relationships who want to become someone rather than be busy doing something.

Our commitment to long term relationships over 'getting a quick referral' and allegiance to individuals and families rather than 'professionals' means we want conversations and decisions to stay as close to the person as possible from the start.

➡️ From 20.01.2026, we will only accept referrals directly from:
• The person with a disability themselves, or
• Their family member.

We do not need to know who assists them; that is entirely up to them, but third-party referrals will no longer be accepted.

We remain committed to building real relationships, meaningful opportunities, and lives of purpose for the people we work with.

20/01/2026

So many of the people we meet have no plan for the present, let alone the future.

They’ve been sold a dream of “becoming someone,” but in reality their time is filled by services, outings, and supports.

Some of these can be helpful—but only when aligned with the person’s goals and vision. What we’re seeing too often is:

No initial goal or vision planning, outside of programs or services thinking

High emphasis on “needing paid supports, NDIS services, programs”

Quick dismissal of ordinary approaches in favour of segregated, disability-only ones

Service practices that increase dependence and reduce chances of unpaid relationships (like friendships)

Few opportunities for individuals or families to develop skills or grow in meaningful ways

The constant churn of workers and NDIS chaos

Families left isolated, unsure of what to do next, with services sold as the “shiny” end goal

Ordinary experiences—study, learning, work, volunteering, friendships, purpose, belonging—often take a back seat to “using your funding.” Too often we hear, “funding doesn’t cover that,” rather than, “how might funding be used to support that?”

So we ask:

What happens when the support is no longer there? What happens when funding runs out or decreases?

If my loved one has no friends, where do we start?

If they have no purpose to their week, what can we do about that?

If you havent set the destination, how do you know where you are headed?

We want to help families start asking the right questions and building a clear vision for a good life. Join our workshop to explore practical ways to create purpose, belonging, and meaningful opportunities:

👉 https://events.humanitix.com/building-a-vision-for-a-good-life-workshop-for-families-disability-towards-better

19/01/2026

🤝Strengthening the Upper Ross – One Asset at a Time!

Absolute pleasure preparing for an Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) training with members of Upper Ross Baptist and residents of the Upper Ross community.

Over two half-days, participants will:
• Explore the theory and practical application of ABCD principles
• Engage in customised exercises and action learning tailored to the Upper Ross, uncovering local gifts, talents, and neighbourhood connections
• Receive materials and resources to continue learning and building a stronger, more connected community

We’ll focus on:
• What makes an ideal, connected community: relationships, participation, inclusion, diversity, belonging, and contribution
• Discovering and valuing gifts: skills, passions, knowledge, and experience of residents
• Moving from deficit thinking to asset thinking – seeing what we have as enough to build a good life together
• Hands-on tools like asset mapping, community walks, micro-conversations, and capacity inventories
• Leveraging local institutions, places, stories, and neighbourhood economies to strengthen connections

As the Jeder Institute reminds us: “The stage is our street, not Wall Street.” Our wealth is in people, place, and culture – and together, we can make it flourish. 🏡💛

Other wisdom we’ll carry into the Upper Ross:
• “Turn over the stones and you’ll find all the bait you need.” – uncovering hidden community gifts
• “Connected communities are not built by services, but by relationships.” – real change comes from neighbours working together

18/01/2026

A common stereotype about disability work is:
“It’s an easy field to get into / an easy job to get ; you really don’t need any qualifications or experience.”

Imagine a builder who does a 50-hour placement, works a few years as a labourer with a bit of online learning, and is suddenly licensed and launching their own business building houses and renovations.

We’d never accept that.

I know some great community workers, some of whom I’ve employed , who had little experience and were excellent.

I also know others, who’ve worked for various organisations, who were time-wasting at best and harmful or manipulative at worst.

So what’s been the difference?

Not just doing a Cert III (if anything it’s mostly only a helpful starting point if you are assisting someone with in home personal care).

But having:
• the right training and ongoing work mentoring
• weekly reflective learning
• a clear work purview (and not trying to do everything)
• a solid 1000 hours of work placement
• a few years of working for a company with a developmental framework

Good intentions are common and they are an essential starting point, but they are not enough.

Even in 2026, I still speak with people with disabilities and families whose workers are:
• watching TV with them
• “doing activities and outings” without purpose
• treating the work like a shift rather than a responsibility
• trying to do everything (much of which they aren’t skilled in)
• centring their work around their own schedules, availability and interests instead of someone’s age, gender, culture, goals, human needs and local community.

We need the right people doing the right work, in the right ways, to meet the right human needs.

And that is hard; because it takes more than getting an ABN and insurance.

It’s an investment.

If you employ a sole trader, or are one, and you know you owe it to the people you work alongside to invest in yourself, we hope to see you here:

👉 https://events.humanitix.com/good-to-great-workforce-development-practical-training-for-disability-community-and-aged-care-support-workers