ACT Branch 2020 Year in Review

Written by Dr Ashraf Ghanem, ACT Branch President

Published 12 April 2021

Since day 1 in pandemic last year and during the shutdown in Canberra, the RACI ACT prepared a response to the community in Canberra and immediately stepped in to assist in spreading the knowledge about how to prepare hand sanitisers at home. We circulated the recipe/formula following the TGA “Therapeutic Goods Administration” (https://www.tga.gov.au/hand-sanitisers-and-covid-19) and WHO guidelines for the preparation of hand sanitisers at home. The video captured by university of Canberra at my farm residency got over 3600 views on Facebook and over 600 views in Youtube. You can watch the video here. 

Crystal Growing Competition

The ACT crystal growing competition did run successfully in 2020 with many students from ACT entered the competition. My Application for National Science Week ACT seed grant funding was successful, and we received $1900 in sponsorship of event used to purchase alum and trophies for the winners. The event was run in a Covid safe environment with schools receiving alum and submitting their crystal via post. 

You can watch the Crystals being judged on video captured by the SciTech at University of Canberra. Watch the video here. 

We will be running the Crystal Growing Competition again this year. I am also informed that the Titration stakes will run at ANU in the week of 10th may.

National Award Presentations

The Pandemic did not prevent us from celebrating the achievement of our RACI ACT members who were recognised by a National award. We celebrated such achievement in a dinner/reception subsidised by the RACI and under COVID safe protocol in October last year. Around 40 members and their partners attended the event. 

Image 1: Former RACI president Dr Vicki Gardiner presenting Dr Nicholas, ANU RSC, with the Rennie Memorial Medal 2020

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