Message from the Chair

Submitted by subed on Tue, 01/04/2008 - 10:55
in
Dear Members, On the organizational front I should report that we have a new Treasurer and Company Secretary. Will Fowles has stood down from this portfolio partly because of work pressures and partly to afford more time to other ARM activities. Will did a lot to set up modern accounting procedures during his tenure. Rob Forbes, an ACT member, has volunteered to take on the portfolio at least until the National Committee elections in Oct / Nov 08. Rob is an accountant and practising Company Secretary as well as a long term member and sometime Treasurer of the ARM ACT Council. We are lucky to have Rob in this vital portfolio and this will be particularly the case as we move towards achieving a five days each week presence in the National Office later this year. Rob has been coopted to the National Committee and as Treasurer and Company Secretary also becomes the fourth member of the Executive. I am delighted to be able to tell you that three members generously responded to my appeal in last month's Newsletter for donations to cover the additional costs involved in distributing our media releases through a professional service provider. Thanks to the generosity of John Hirst, Mary Gallnor and another member who wished to remain anonymous we will be able to improve the effectiveness of our releases during the remainder of 2008. It is very heartening for your National Committee to be reminded that we have such generous members willing to help in very practical ways. Our draft submission to Australia 2020 Summit was referred to our Consultation Group and, after analysis of the very useful responses, has been completely redrafted to make our message more direct and less emotional and firmly focussed on the parameters of the Summit. The submission is due to be endorsed by the National Committee on 31 March and will be submitted shortly after that. The analysis of the responses provided by our Consultation Group of volunteer members to the questions posed about re-branding has been completed. We are almost unanimous in wanting our organization to be seen as patriotic, committed, positive, forward-looking, open, inclusive, reasonable and respectful of tradition. You have set the bar very high!! We also recognize that re-branding is much more than adopting a new logo - the message is the issue not the logo - but are strongly for adopting a new logo to help us sell our message. As the National Committee moves forward on this initiative we will be trying to ensure that our message accurately reflects the qualities we want to be seen in our organization. Many members of the Consultation Group also pointed out that it will be important to seek the opinions of people outside the ARM, perhaps by conducting some targeted polling, as we move forward. Conscious of the high cost of such polling...

...this month's request is:

that any member  reading this who has any contacts who might be able to help in this regard or any other advice relevant to this issue email me at chair@republic.org.au. I look forward to hearing from you. Mike Keating National Chair April 2008