Dear ACA Members and Colleagues,
I hope you’re all in good spirits and good health as we move towards the holiday break in what has been an eventful year, to say the least. Throughout 2020 the team at the ACA Head Office have been working hard to keep our association strong and the broader corrosion community connected, informed and engaged and I’m happy to report that we’re in a strong position moving into 2021. I write to you today to update you on some of the significant changes and news from across our association.
Governance
On Wednesday the 18th of November, the ACA Council met online in what would normally be the annual catchup meeting at our C&P Conference. A major component of this annual gathering of Councillors is to facilitate the election of ACA Member Directors and this year we had three positions to fill. The resulting council vote has filled those three ACA Director positions and I’m pleased to welcome Dr Patricia Shaw from NZ, Mr Wayne Burns from QLD and Dr Aaron Sudholz from VIC onto the ACA’s board. Many of you will be familiar with our newest directors already, for those of you who aren’t we will share a proper introduction to each of them, as well as our fourth non-executive director to be elected shortly, in the coming weeks. We also say farewell to three outgoing board members Wayne Thompson from the QLD Branch (3 years), Graham Carlisle from the WA Branch (6 years) and Dean Wall, who has come to the end of 6 years as a director including 5 as our Chairman. I want to thank each of these three gentlemen for their ongoing service to our association, their tireless advocacy for our members and the broader corrosion community and the incredible amount of time and effort they have each volunteered over their respective directorships. On behalf of myself, the ACA Staff and all of our members thank you for your remarkable contributions to our Association. You leave our Association in fine shape and considering the impacts of this unprecedented COVID-19 affected year that is a remarkable achievement. Thank you, gentlemen, well done! The election of our new ACA Board Chair will take place in the coming weeks so be sure to look out for that announcement as well.
Conference
One of the final pieces of business overseen by the former board of directors was the significant decision to relocate the 2021 Corrosion and Prevention Conference from its original destination of Perth, to the new location of Newcastle NSW, with the Perth iteration of the Conference being slotted for 2022. While our commitment to ensuring that each of our branches receives an opportunity to host Corrosion and Prevention remains unchanged, the sizeable financial risks associated with running a large conference in Perth 2021 were considered simply too great at this time to continue with this plan. I would like to give a big thank you to our conference coordinator, Rachelle Rigby, for all her input working with me in formulating a business case to present to the board so a call could be made as quickly as possible during this tough decision-making process. A special thank you to all of our Sponsors, Exhibitors, local branch committees, technical committees and board directors for their patience, understanding and valuable input in this undertaking. More details regarding the conference, including expression of interest regarding attendance, sponsorship and exhibition enquiries can be found on the conference website. Make sure to click the red bell to sign up for notifications to find out first when new information is released.
Events
I want to thank all of our members and our various technical and branch committees for their continuing involvement and engagement with our online content, we’ve run over 30 online webinars including many guest lectures, expert panels and even an incredibly successful online academic competition. We have seen over 2000 individual registrations for these sessions with guests and presenters joining us from all around the world and we’re not finished yet. You can still register for final of the Brian Cherry Awards Forum, the Hidden Corrosion: Prevention, Detection and Remediation half-day online event presented by the ACA NZ Taranaki Division and the Oil and Gas Technical Group, Microbially-Induced Corrosion: Global Experiences in the Oil and Gas Industry and the 87th Australian Electrolysis Committee Meeting, all coming up in the next month. Don’t forget that many of our previous webinars are available to be viewed in your own time for all ACA members, online in our webinar library (just make sure you’re logged into your ACA account.) While we are excited to see some of our branches returning to in-person events to conclude the year our online offerings will undoubtedly remain a staple of the ACA events calendar into the future.
Training
Our Training Coordinator Jeffrey Lim has been working non-stop to prepare a loaded Training Calendar for 2021, so we encourage anyone and everyone who is thinking about undertaking one of our ACA, NACE or SSPC accredited courses in the near future to view our Training Calendar and get in touch with Jeffrey now to reserve your place for next year. Our blended course delivery model will continue into 2021 in many cases and we thank our students and lecturers for their willingness to adapt to these new learning environments.
Finally, I would like to thank all of our members for their ongoing support of our association and the work we do. It has been a difficult year for all and we are sincerely grateful for your ongoing membership and all of the contributions each of you make to keep our Association strong.
Wishing you all the best for the remainder of 2020,
Ross Boucher,
ACA General Manager.