Supporting a community can take many forms. Sometimes it means providing financial backing to help an important local initiative continue. Other times, it means giving people within your own team the opportunity to contribute their time, knowledge and experience.
For McGrath Central Tablelands, our ongoing involvement with MaxPotential brings both of those elements together.
MaxPotential is a youth leadership development program that connects young people with local business and community leaders, helping them build confidence, develop leadership skills and turn their ideas into meaningful action. McGrath Central Tablelands is proud to support the Central West program each year, but our involvement goes beyond sponsorship. In 2026, our Agent Services Coordinator, Hannah Peggs, stepped forward to become a mentor as part of the program.
What is the MaxPotential program?
MaxPotential is designed for young adults aged 16 to 21 and runs over a 22-week leadership cycle. Participants are paired with trained community coaches and take part in one-on-one coaching, group workshops and a community service project. The program encourages young people to explore their goals, build their personal leadership skills and consider how they can make a positive contribution to the community around them.
The Central West program is based in Mudgee and forms part of a wider Max Potential network operating across several communities. For participating young people, it provides something that can be difficult to replicate in a classroom alone: regular access to an adult mentor from outside their usual school or family environment who can listen, ask questions, encourage them and help them work towards their own goals.
An important part of the program is the Community Service Project. Each young adult identifies a need within their community and develops an idea to help address it. The program encourages them to think beyond their own personal development and consider the impact they can have on others.
Getting our own team involved in MaxPotential
This year, McGrath Central Tablelands Agent Services Coordinator Hannah Peggs became directly involved in MaxPotential as a mentor.
Hannah works behind the scenes supporting our agents and helping keep the day-to-day operations of our business moving. Becoming involved with Max Potential gave her an opportunity to take skills used within the workplace, particularly communication, organisation, listening and supporting others, and apply them in a completely different setting.
MaxPotential describes its mentors as “community coaches”. Coaches undertake training before being paired with a young person and are supported throughout the program. Over the 22 weeks, each pairing takes part in a series of personalised coaching sessions designed to meet the young person’s individual goals and circumstances.
Importantly, the learning is not all one way. Max Potential’s coach training develops the leadership and coaching skills of the participating adults, giving businesses an opportunity to invest in their own people while those team members give something valuable back to their community.
This is one of the reasons the program is such a natural fit for our team.
Community support that goes beyond sponsorship
McGrath Central Tablelands has been part of the Central Tablelands community for decades, and supporting local organisations, sporting clubs and events remains an important part of how we operate.
Sponsorship provides essential financial support, but we also believe there is considerable value in encouraging our people to participate personally when opportunities arise.
Programs such as MaxPotential create that connection. They bring together young people, schools, local organisations and people from the business community, with everyone contributing something different.
For a young person, that might mean access to a mentor who helps them see a new possibility or gives them the confidence to pursue an idea. For a staff member such as Hannah, it creates an opportunity to develop new skills, share existing ones and build connections outside their everyday professional role.
For the wider community, it helps develop young people who are increasingly confident about contributing to the place they call home.
That ripple effect is what makes initiatives like MaxPotential worth supporting.
Looking ahead to MaxPotential 2027
The 2026 Central West MaxPotential program has now wrapped. You can apply for the 2027 program now.
We congratulate the young people, community coaches, organisers, schools and businesses who contributed to this year’s program, and particularly Hannah for representing McGrath Central Tablelands as a mentor.
We are proud to continue supporting initiatives that create opportunities for young people while also giving members of our own team the chance to become actively involved in the communities we serve.
If MaxPotential sounds like an opportunity for you, your family or someone you know, learn more about the program through the MaxPotential website.
