BAMOS Vol 33 No.1 March 2020 | страница 4

4 BAMOS Mar 2020 President’s report Angela Maharaj, March 2020 This is my first President’s column but I have had the pleasure of being an AMOS member since the last millennia (1999, I believe, as an honours student), moving through roles in the NSW regional chapter, then National Council and then the Executive. Over the past two decades I have seen AMOS grow in size, diversity, visibility and profile. I look forward to the next two years of serving the professional society that has nurtured me for so long. For those who were able to join us in Fremantle for AMOS2020, I hope you enjoyed the program and travelled back home safely, especially those from the eastern seaboard who may have returned to floods and power outages. I foresee a very busy year for our members in their various professional roles responding to the severe weather and bushfire crisis that the nation has experienced since last spring. AMOS will be looking to see what role it can play in supporting and representing members on this but for now, back to the conference. Congratulations to the AMOS2020 organising committee: Jatin Kala (co‑convenor), Andrew King (co‑convenor), Jennifer Hopwood, Sarah Perkins‑Kirkpatrick, Jeanette Dargaville, Thomas Kavanagh, Melissa Lyne and Natasha Rice for putting on a fantastic scientific and social program. Thank you also to Linden Ashcroft who started revamping our student presentation prize judging process. This revamp aligns with our renaming of the prizes to the Fellows Memorial Prize and is much needed for our growing conference with its multiple parallel sessions. Our 2020 Annual General Meeting, held at the national conference, marked some major changes to roles so the rest of this column will be largely dedicated to thanking and welcoming the hardworking and committed people who keep this society running. Many thanks to outgoing president Andrew Marshall who has done a tremendous job of leading the society for the past two years and will be moving into the role of Immediate Past President. Thank you also to the outgoing Past President Mary Voice for her significant contributions to council including as AMOS representative on the JSHESS Board. I would like to welcome Roger Dargaville to the AMOS Executive as the new Vice‑President and Tess Parker as Treasurer. A big thank you (but not goodbye) to our outgoing Treasurer, Mitchell Black. We are fortunate to retain Mitch on National Council as an Ordinary Member. Our Secretary Sonya Fiddes also rates a special mention for achieving the mammoth task of submitting her PhD thesis late last year while continuing seamlessly with her secretarial duties. Congratulations Sonya! Welcome also Harun Rashid to the National Council as an Ordinary Member and many thanks to outgoing Ordinary Member Lynette Bettio who provided much needed support as a council liaison to our expert groups alongside Rob Colman. Lynette has also helped out at numerous conferences over the years. Ordinary Member Christian Jakob has taken on the role of the Equity and Diversity Committee Chair with gusto, corralling the entire national conference for a photo for the International Day of Women and Girls in Science within a day of moving into the role. Thanks to outgoing chair, Melissa Hart for all her efforts on the committee. Melissa continues to serve the society through her role in the Awards Committee. While on the topic of equity and diversity, it is pleasing to note that five of the seven 2019 AMOS award winners and Fellows were women. This is the first time in the history of AMOS that women have outnumbered men in being recognised for excellence. The previous three years were close to, even a testament to, the growing diversity of our membership. By the time you read this we should be close to the 8th of March so I would like to wish all our female identifying members a happy International Women’s Day. If you use social media to celebrate the occasion, do consider looping AMOS into your posts on Twitter (@AMOSupdates), LinkedIn or Facebook. In an education community of practice that I belong to, a senior colleague provided a motto for educational progress and best practice: Care for old. Courage for new. I think this is a good motto for a professional society as well. I hope in my time as President, I can ensure that we celebrate and reflect on our legacy while also having the courage to address contemporary challenges facing our profession and sciences.