Chair’s Report
The Resilience of Values
This year we learned about the true resilience of FLN, and a whole
lot more. It was a year in which we bounced back financially and
developed a new strategic plan to focus on our vision of a strong,
fair, inclusive and engaged community. In the process we
strengthened our foundations and can now move confidently into
the future.
The financial turnaround is worth noting. After two years of
deficits, we delivered a $100,000 surplus -- this represents a
turnaround of more than $200,000 from the previous year. We
improved our revenue by $170,000. This turnaround was achieved
through the leadership and hard work of our Treasurer, Bill
Bowman, CEO Jemal Ahmet and Finance Officer, Astrid Amado,
who developed a clear, rigorous and transparent financial
management and budgeting process.
The improvement in our financial performance meant that we
could begin to address some key issues identified in our strategic
plan, in particular, retaining and recruiting quality staff through
competitive pay and conditions, modern facilities and a supportive
environment and investing in our staff and providing professional
development opportunities to develop their skills and knowledge.
New revenu e was secured as a result of targeted, compelling
funding submissions by a team including board members Chris
Hrynevich, Sue Parkes and Cam Smith and our skilled volunteer
Alma Gill. Our Quality and Compliance committee led by Sarah
Midford and Antonia Mochan continued their strategic and
systematic review of our policy framework.
Secretary Alastair Pharo, helped shape the agenda and keep
us on track by reminding us about what we agreed and
needed to do (and by when!), and our immediate past
Chair, Claire Woods, continued to give the Board the bene-
fit of her organisational knowledge and wisdom.
Our strategic plan is a simple formulation. We need to
continue to provide high-quality, integrated programs and
services that respond to community need, and to do that,
we need to improve our facilities, infrastructure and
systems and make Fitzroy Learning Network strong and
sustainable. That’s our focus for the next three years.
However, a plan and an organisation are only as good as the
values that inform and drive what it does. And the values
that we have captured in our plan are values we see
demonstrated every day at FLN: leadership, respect,
collaboration, belonging and integrity. The living of these
values makes us more resilient.
The work of the Board though pales into insignificance
when we consider the work of our dedicated staff and
volunteers. Our teaching team led by Kathryn Williamson,
Volunteer Co-ordination and Refugee Support led by
Amandine Ballet, our Clubhouse led by Alex Last and Ellie
Purseglove, our administrative team of Maria Coutts and
Astrid Amado as well as Eugenia Mezquida, who keeps the
place spick and span. And bringing the team together, our
CEO, Jemal Ahmet.
It has been a privilege to work with the Board and the CEO
and to support and witness our staff and volunteers as they
go about their great work to increase opportunities for
social, cultural and economic participation in the Fitzroy
community and beyond.
Mark Madden, Chair
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