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BAMOS April 2021
President ’ s report
Angela Maharaj
This time last year , I penned my first President ’ s column for BAMOS in the midst of a global pandemic and a national lockdown in Australia . So much has happened since .
AMOS has navigated the murky COVID-19 waters through 2020 quite well . You can revisit our 2020 achievements in the
President ’ s report prepared for the AGM .
Since my last column , AMOS ran a successful virtual conference in February which was attended by more than 500 attendees . My gratitude to the conference organising committee and our events team for all their hard work . Running a five-day conference with four breakout sessions , as live presentations , bookended by workshops and a WCRP regional climate research forum is no mean feat . See the report from the conference convenors in this issue . I would also like to remind the community that presentations were recorded and the conference portal is still open to registered attendees to catch up on any part of the program that they may have missed live .
We also held a very popular online annual general meeting in February . Thank you to all the members who attended or sent in their proxy vote to aid us in moving forward on a number of issues for the society . In addition to the AGM , the AMOS National Council also ran a very productive strategic planning meeting with the AMOS Fellows which will inform our future planning from our 2021 calendar of events to our longer-term goals .
A big thank you to Sonya Fiddes , our outgoing secretary . Sonya was a rock to the executive team throughout her term as secretary . I am very grateful to her for her time and efforts in managing the executive and national council meetings . A very warm welcome to Steven Phipps , our incoming secretary .
Another notable changing of the guard this year is Max Gonzalez taking over from Veronica Tamsitt as chair of the Education and Outreach committee . Veronica has been a wonderful advocate for education and outreach within AMOS and I would like to thank her for her dedication to the committee . Congratulations and thank you to Max for taking on this role .
We also received sad news in the community with the passing of Vanessa Haverd and Gemma Narisma . This news was particularly poignant as we mourned for our colleagues while celebrating International Women and Girls in Science Day and International Women ’ s Day . Vanessa and Gemma are a great loss to the Australian and international scientific community and our thoughts are with their family , friends and close colleagues . You will find tributes to them in this issue .
Finally , as with the column I wrote last March , I would like to wish you all a happy World Meteorological Day for last month . The theme this year was “ The ocean , our climate and weather ” to herald the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development 2021 – 2030 . A fitting theme for AMOS .