Last week, I took the opportunity to travel to Mildura for FRSA’s AGM. Whilst technology has its plusses when holding meetings for national audiences – saying goodbye to people on line who have been such an important contributor to the life and times of FRSA doesn’t feel quite right. So – with FRSA’s AGM coming up and the then Chair, Teresa Jayet stepping down from her position as Chair and as a Board Director – off I went.
It was great to be able to catch up with Teresa in her last few hours as Chair of FRSA and work alongside her for that final AGM held at midday on Thursday 28 November 2024. My sincere thanks to all FRSA members who attended that meeting. Thank you for gathering to hear directly from our Chair and Treasurer about the year that has been. As a mechanism of accountability and feedback to the membership it was great to have so many of you there. The FRSA Annual Report 2023-2024 was also released and is available on our website.
At the AGM – as Returning Officer I also returned the results of the FRSA Board election process. Those elected (through independent company Australian Election Company) were: Allison Wainwright, Leanne Strommen (re-elected Directors) and new Directors Graeme Westaway from Better Place Australia and Cheryl Lierton from Uniting Communities. Sincere thanks was also expressed at the AGM to all Board Director nominees for their interest in being part of the FRSA leadership.
Today, the first FRSA Board Meeting for the newly assembled Board was held and Office Bearer positions and Committee membership was resolved. I am pleased to share the news with you that the Board Executive and Committee/Working Group Chairs will be:
- Chair, FRSA Board – Allison Wainwright
- Deputy Chair, FRSA Board – Leanne Strommen
- Treasurer – John Bouffler
- Finance, Risk and Governance Committee – Chair, John Bouffler (Treasurer)
- Sector Events Committee – Chair, Leanne Strommen
- Research and Policy Committee – Chair, Felicity Williams
- Reconciliation Action Plan Working Group – Chair, Cheryl Orr.
Full Membership of these Board Committees is available on the FRSA website.
Making the most of my time in Mildura – which was also my first, I did manage to spend some time with Mallee Family Care staff learning more about their work in CfC FP and FRSP services – especially their FRC and related work and the Children’s Contact Service (CCS). You are never too old to learn something new and I did learn that the CCS site in Mildura was the first regional site of the Commonwealth funded pilot CCS program which opened its doors in 1996. Here I am with Sharen Riley, Team Leader at MFC outside that building holding a scrapbook of treasured memories from that opening. My thanks to Teresa, Jenny, Chris and Lisa-Marie and your wonderful staff (you know who you are!) for taking so much time out to spend with me whilst in town. It was certainly too good an opportunity to miss.
I also wanted to send a big thank you out to all those people who have submitted abstracts to the CIP Forum and FRSA Conference 2025 Call for Abstracts processes. We ended up with 43 abstracts for the CIP Forum and 150 for the National Conference. This was an amazing response from the FRSA network and beyond. Our reviewers have been very busy assessing abstracts and our aim is to have that process finalised and authors notified/offered a position to speak as part of their respective event by Friday 20 November 2024.
There is still plenty going on so, I encourage you to read on to find out more.
