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<br><P style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; MARGIN: 6pt 0cm 3pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><FONT face=Verdana><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #c0ffff"><FONT size=4>President's Address, AGM, 19 May 2003, John Castles AM<BR></FONT><BR></FONT>Twelve months or so ago, I said this:<BR><BR><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">[N]ext year </SPAN></FONT><FONT face=Verdana><SPAN lang=EN-US style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">I hope to report on a Council that has become leaner but more focused on priority issues, innovative but adhering to a clear concept of professionalism, and whose influence is increasing as an advocate for the professions and professionalism. <BR><BR></SPAN>I am happy to report considerable progress on each of these fronts. <BR><BR>We are certainly <I>leaner</I>. We are committed to Professions Australia (PA) as an organisation delivering a valuable service to its members but doing so from a more realistic financial base. <BR><BR>If our AGM this week agrees to recommendations from the Board, then the subscriptions paid by all member associations will be less than half what they were in 2001. <BR><BR>We are more <I>focused</I>. Our scan of priorities a year ago showed professional indemnity at the top of the list for a majority of member associations. Members will agree that this issue has indeed been the centre of attention for us. <BR></FONT><I><SPAN lang=EN-US style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><BR><FONT face=Verdana>I suspect there has been more exposure for PA on this issue in the last year than there has been on all issues we have addressed for the last ten years.<BR><BR></FONT></SPAN></I><FONT face=Verdana>We have not forgotten, however, about our other priorities, higher education, competition policy and professionalism and ethics. Our revamped website (http://www.professions.com.au ) contains useful resources on each of these issues and I expect continuing advocacy on them in the coming year.<BR><BR>On <I>innovation</I>, I would single out, first, our continuing flow of information through the <I>Alert</I> service and, secondly, the proposed changes to our Constitution which make our membership criteria more flexible, while preserving our concept of <I>professionalism</I>.<BR><BR>On <I>increasing influence</I>, we can claim some credit for the climate of change in governmental attitudes to professional indemnity. This influence will carry forward, we hope and expect, to legislative change in this area and to impacts on other areas as well.<BR><BR><SPAN lang=EN-US style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">So, progress there has been. We have refined our value concept down to a simple equation, which I described in <I>Newsletter</I> No. 4 – </SPAN></FONT><FONT face=Verdana><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">I = 4<I>i.</I> <BR><BR></SPAN>I is the <I>investment</I> that is made in PA by constituent or member associations on behalf of their individual professional members. Then, 4<I>i</I> is the return that member associations expect to receive from their investment: better <I>information; </I>greater <I>interaction; </I>improved <I>internet</I> presence; increased <I>influence</I>. <BR></FONT><SPAN lang=EN-US style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><BR></SPAN><FONT face=Verdana>This is the message that the new Board will take forward to our existing member associations, to our former members whom we will be encouraging to rejoin in 2004, and to some potential new members.<BR><BR>PA still has a distance to travel, but as we look back we have moved a long way in the past 12 months. Please tell the Board in what ways you believe we need to improve, for, as I have said before, the strength of this organisation is in the relationship between it and its member bodies.<BR><BR>I would like to thank the members of the Board who have contributed much to the advances made this year, to wish Dorothy Jewell well, as she has retired from the Board after her long and significant contribution, and to thank all those whose involvement and attendance has enabled us to improve our support service and influence.<BR><BR>To David Stephens my special thanks for the great role he has played in the rejuvenation and evolution of ACP to PA. For his stimulus, vision and application, I am sure we are all grateful.<BR><BR>David, too, I am sure, will join me in thanking Georgina Bryant for the quiet and solid support she has given during this period of growth. <BR><BR>Thank you for the support, friendship and opportunity I have enjoyed over the past two years as President of Professions Australia.<BR><BR></FONT></P>
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