I would also like to welcome all our members and supporters back to the new year and wish you all every success for the coming year.
A quick rear view comment on 2018. Thanks to you all for
your support during my first nine months in my role. I’ve met many of you and you’ve
been very generous in welcoming me into the ANZ corrosion community.
Reiterating the Chairman’s comments on the success of the
ACA Conference, I also wanted to thank you all for your continued support for
this very important event. Thanks to South Australian Branch President Sam
O’Neill and his state colleagues for hosting the event and contributing to the
number of attendees at the Conference.
I would also especially like to thank Annalee Gielb, ACA
Conference and Events Manager, and her colleagues for the work undertaken over
a sustained period of time to make the Conference the success it was. It really
is a big job to organise a conference of this scale and Annalee took charge of
preparations and organised a highly successful event.
We’ve very excited about the members services and events we
have in place for the 2019 year ahead – our training team led by Skye Russell
has developed and launched a comprehensive training program for members,
covering ACA, NACE, SSPC and galvanising courses.
The courses are spread throughout ANZ and further afield but
we urge you to assess your organisation’s training needs and to register early for
your preferred courses and locations, as places are limited on each course. We
have the ability to conduct additional courses including In House courses, should
demand require it and the calendar allow it. But beat the rush and book your
preferred course today!
A quick comment too on our 2019 ACA Technical Events’ program. The program has been released and is on the website, with the team working with committees to actively organise the first five events to the end of May. The first event in February is the Concrete Structures and Buildings event and finishes with Corrosion & Prevention in Melbourne in November.
The highlight of the 2019 events program will be the
International Symposium – Advances in
Corrosion Science and Corrosion Engineering – scheduled for 24-‑25 July
in Melbourne. There’s lots to do for this event and with the full program and
further information to come of course, but lock the dates in your calendar. The
symposium committee and ACA are working on the program at the moment – a mix of
international and domestic speakers have already committed to present on a full
range of topics including CP, Oil and Gas, Stainless steel, modelling and
prediction, amongst others. If you wish to contribute to the technical
committees and events, let the ACA know and we can steer you in the right
direction.
I finally wanted to highlight the ACA website’s new format
and the work done by our IT manager, Rob Slater. Rob has done some terrific
work over the last year in particular sourcing new articles and presenting a
more professional face to the outside world. I’m sure you all agree that the
website changes have taken our organisation to the next level. If you have
content that you wish to share, just liaise with us at the ACA and we’ll work
with you to get it posted.
Richard Reilly
ACA Chief Executive