Connecting Country’s 2016 AGM and Annual Report

Posted on 14 October, 2016 by Connecting Country

Connecting Country President, Brendan Sydes, addresses the 60 strong crowd.

We were thrilled with the strong turn out and great atmosphere for our 2016 Annual General Meeting on Tuesday the 11th of October 2016 at the Campbells Creek Community Centre. We are also excited to share our 2015-16 Annual Report. We are proud of our achievements in the past year, and this report provides an opportunity for us to celebrate them with our supporters. In the spirit of mindful resource use, we would encourage you to view the report in a digital format by clicking on the cover below. Huge thanks to Eliza Tree for the use of her painting titled Jarra Country on the cover and for bringing it along to the AGM for viewing.

The general business part of the AGM saw the election of our volunteer Committee of Management members. Brendan Sydes was re-elected as president, Deb Wardle – Vice President, Marie Jones – Treasurer, Jenni Thomas – Secretary. Max Kay, Malcolm Trainor, and Saide Gray return as general committee members.

Following a light meal, we heard from six local experts about their vision for the Mount Alexander region. Kath Coff gave an indigenous perspective, Ian Higgins spoke about vegetation management, Beth Mellick gave an insight into the history of Connecting Country and our relationship with the Norman Wettenhall Foundation, Paul Foreman spoke about keeping water in the landscape, Carla Meurs shared the benefits of vegetation for wildlife on her farm and Geoff Park talked about, you guessed it, birds!

L-R: Paul Foreman, Kath Coff, Beth Mellick, Carla Meurs, Ian Higgins, Eliza Tree and Brendan Sydes.

We all then broke into working groups according to their area of interest and discussed how Connecting Country could achieve their vision. Connecting Country staff and committee now have the task of collating all the feedback from the night and our supporter survey and deciding on our future directions. A huge thank-you to everyone who attended and gave their time, energy and ideas. We really appreciate the feedback and support from attendees and our community in general. We will be provide regular updates as we progress through this process.

If you missed out on our AGM, Connecting Country is encouraging people to be involved in shaping our future direction by filling out our Supporter Survey. To participate, please CLICK HERE. There are a relatively small number of questions, and will take approximately 5-10 minutes to complete. This survey will remain open until Sunday the 16th of October 2016. We have had a great response so far and we thank everyone for their very valuable input.