Caltex’s magazine for employees, franchisees & resellers
Issue 41 Feb – Mar 08
Gallery
Members of the winning team with their new Caltex-sponsored boat.
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Fuelling Change Program tops $100,000 in its first year
Caltex’s employee charity donation program Fuelling Change celebrated its first year with a significant high point. With Caltex matching all employee donations dollar for dollar, a total of $102,000 was raised for participating charities in 2007.
Hundreds of Caltex employees are currently signed up for the program which donates to six charities. Analysis of income for the year shows the Cancer Council is the most popular followed by Caltex’s long-standing community partner the Starlight Children’s Foundation, then The Smith Family, RSPCA, Heart Foundation and OzGreen.
“We’re delighted with this wonderful achievement,” says program manager Suzanne Cohen. “Now we’re looking to grow employee participation so we can give even more to our charities in the year ahead.”
Fuelling Change is an effective way to make a difference, Suzanne points out. Charities get to use 100 per cent of the money because they don’t incur the cost of fundraising, and because Caltex matches donations they go further to alleviate need.
Plans for 2008 include email and poster campaigns across the company to raise awareness and build participation, bulletin updates on what the donated funds are spent on and education sessions by some charities.
For more information contact Suzanne on 02 9250 5059. Employees who would like to sign up should please contact the HR Service Centre on 02 8114 2030.
Lytton sponsorship going swimmingly
Queensland’s Rainbow Bay Surf Life Saving Club is celebrating girl power and much else as it enters the tenth consecutive year of sponsorship by Caltex’s Lytton refinery in 2008.
Largely as a result of the club’s youth development program begun with Caltex funding, Rainbow Bay crews have achieved outstanding results at state and national surf life saving rowing championships. The competitors, all of whom live in the suburbs near the refinery, have won five national medals over the past decade. But one of their proudest achievements came at the state championships on the Sunshine Coast in March last year.
Their all-girl team won the inaugural under-23 event in a four-year-old boat sponsored by Caltex, becoming the first all girls’ team in history to triumph in such a contest.
To celebrate the win, Lytton refinery and Lytton terminal have jointly bought the club a new $26,000 boat. “Though we usually sponsor the club solely from the refinery, we bought the boat in conjunction with the terminal on this occasion,” explains Lytton’s Community Relations Coordinator Toni Dugdale.
Caltex is the club’s biggest and longest standing sponsor, says club Deputy President Peter Hickey. The Caltex brand is synonymous with Rainbow Bay surf boats which are highly visible around the bayside communities of Wynnum, Manly and Redlands.
“Caltex is strongly identified with surf boat competitions round Australia because Rainbow Bay attends all major surf life saving carnivals,” says Peter.
Big-hearted Starlight support sees more wishes come true
Five-year-old Paris from Sutherland Shire in Sydney longed for “a special cubby house”, a hideaway where she could play and have tea parties with her friends and little brother.
She deserved it. Born with a digestive problem that sent her to hospital 12 times and on 40 visits to doctors and specialists last year, Paris has had most of her bowel removed and requires daily medical treatment. Her three-year-old brother suffers from the same condition.
Thanks to funds raised for the Starlight Children’s Foundation by the employees at the nearby Caltex Kurnell refinery, Paris got her Starlight wish, a bungalow cubby house decorated inside and out with flower boxes and furniture. “Paris loves it, it’s given her a chance to have fun and be a kid again,” says her mother Annita.
This was all part of a special Caltex Starlight program in the run up to Christmas, when Caltex employees again showed what big hearts they have, supporting Starlight with great generosity. Teams at sites and offices across the country raised almost $65,000, but with Caltex generously matching the funds, the grand total is just under $130,000.
The team at Caltex’s Fremantle terminal led the way with a splendid $38,000 raised mostly from a business development manager day with an employee ‘slave auction’ (see opposite), caricaturist, hat sales, donation boxes and raffle.
Others sites held barbecues, picnics, Christmas feasts, Santa hat sales and parties. Newport terminal in Melbourne organised a live auction, while in Sydney Banksmeadow terminal held a barbecue. 2Market Sydney office arranged a Russell Ingall visit, a sponsored silence, a head shave and much more including – and this must be a first – a Nintendo Wii competition.
“These efforts will enable Starlight to brighten many sick kids’ lives,” says Helene Patounas, Caltex’s Starlight Relationship Manager.
Roy's 'Slaves' feel the heat
WA/SA Retail Sales Manager Ross Bohan and Operation Support Manager Andrew Triplett had a sweltering introduction to ‘unpaid’ work in the Pilbara in February. The two worked as ‘slaves’ for a day at a Caltex site at South Hedland, 1,800 kilometres north of Perth.
The hard yakka, conducted in 45-degree heat, was the brainchild of Roy and Kathy Horsman who have been franchisees at the Star Mart South Hedland since 1981. Roy and Kathy bought the services of Ross for $10,000 and Andrew for $2,500, with the money being donated to the Starlight Children’s Foundation.
They got their hands dirty as the Horsmans intended. Wearing uniforms and ‘trainee’ badges, they washed pumps, emptied bins, shifted cartons, swept floors and manned the tills of the 24/7 operation that sells $18,000 of excellent food from a busy kitchen each week. Ross even helped local kids pump up their bike tyres.
“We’re in a remote location and don’t often see these guys,” says Roy. “It was good to show them the challenges we face – and that we can organise the shop better than they can!”
Ross and Andrew learned a lot. Though the forecourt is not as congested as those of some metro sites it was a challenge to serve fuel and food and answer customers’ questions, Ross says.
“With fuel at around $1.60 per litre, some big diesel sales were common. Certainly Andrew and I have a better understanding of some of the operational challenges in our remote locations in the northwest.”
Staying safe: Safer tankers for safer drivers
To support the zero incident driving program for Caltex drivers, some of the barrels in the company’s tanker fleet have been replaced with a new model with extra safety features.
The $3.25 million project was aligned to the principles of the Loss Prevention System. Using the safe performance self-assessment (SPSA) framework – starting with “what’s the worst thing that can go wrong?” – the national logistics team assessed the risks against the history of truck-driving incidents and near misses and analysed them to work out how to stop them happening in future. Then they made recommendations and decisions using the Chevron Project Development and Execution Process (CPDEP).
“Learning from past incidents, determining the root causes and rectifying problems is the essence of LPS,” says Darren Mason, National Logistics Compliance Manager, Supply and Distribution.
Twelve of the new 42,000 litre barrels have already been delivered to Caltex terminals in Newcastle, Fremantle, Adelaide and Lytton, with more still to come. They are a blend of state of the art technology and simplicity in safety features.
For example, says Darren, some drivers had experienced overfill incidents when they weren’t aware of retained product still inside the barrels. The team recommended that probes should be installed in the compartments to alert drivers when product was retained.
“The program supports our drivers and the relentless approach of the logistics team to achieving zero incidents,” says National Logistics Manager John Morgan. “It will improve our fleet’s reliability and competitiveness in reducing repairs and maintenance.“
"This project combined with the SPSA approach for every task will help us in the journey to zero incidents and losses. We’ll all stay safe every day.”