Dear ACA members
Following the recent ACA Council meeting in November, the following members were elected as new ACA Board members.
- Dr. Patricia Shaw
- Wayne Burns
- Dr. Aaron Sudholz
We are pleased to welcome them in a fresh capacity onto the ACA board and thanks to all candidates who stepped up and nominated. I particularly would like to thank the previous ACA Chair, Dean Wall, and board members, Graham Carlisle, and Wayne Thompson. It has been great to work with them over the years and it has been privileged to get to know them. We should thank each of them for their wonderful contribution to our association over their respective terms on the ACA Board. I wish them all the best for their future endeavours.
Congratulations to Dean Ferguson who was appointed as the new ACA Chair during the December Board meeting. A previous ACA Victorian Branch President and YCG National Steering Committee Chair, he is also the General Manager of Infracorr Consulting. I am sure that he will bring his energetic leadership style and focus into his new role.
As we approach the end of this unusual and challenging year, I have been reflecting on the many great achievements of the past 12 months. Often when we are working hard in challenging times, we don’t take time to step back and consider what we have achieved.
Just a few of the things that stand out to me are:
- Keeping our association financially healthy by reducing costs and restructuring the organisation in response to COVID-19;
- Adopting new technology to create novel services and fresh technical solutions enabling online technical training courses;
- Maintaining regular technical webinars in place of face to face technical meetings in the light of government restrictions for physical contact and social distancing;
- Continuous effective communication with members through ACA weekly or fortnightly newsletters;
- Growing a successful business relationship with NACE and SSPC;
- Moving the ACA into our new head office in Preston VIC that includes new classrooms and facilities for ACA training courses;
- A positive trend in ACA membership numbers with 1775 members on June 30 to 1932 by the end of October 2020; and
- The successes of our online annual conference in delivering 15 technical papers over 3 days with more than 200 attendees per day.
Whilst the ACA business has been challenged in ways it has never experienced before, I believe it is safe to say that the ACA has had a successful year overall in 2020. We look forward to 2021 being an even better year.
Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a safe, happy, and enjoyable Christmas and New Year holiday.
Vahid Afshari