Message from National Office - December 2021

Written by Roger Stapleford, CEO, RACI

Published 9 December 2021

Hi Fellow RACI members,

Another Covid tainted year has flown past and, congratulations, we survived. The RACI actually did remarkedly well thanks to our Branches and Divisions who all embraced the virtual world and provided a multitude of online events for the membership.  To put this into perspective 180 events of various sorts went though our events system in 2021, 109 in 2020 and 106 in 2019 [the last non Covid year]. Granted, attendee numbers and revenues were not huge but things happened.

I know all our researchers and academic members are experiencing physical conference withdrawal symptoms but, worry not, 2022 is a big year for conferences we have out national congress in Brisbane [July] a combined Medicinal and Organic division conference [OMC2022] in Wollongong in November followed a week later by a flow chemistry/Micro reactor conference [IMRET16] in Melbourne. To Finish off the year we have the Pacific Polymer Conference [PPC21] in Brisbane, mid-December.

We’ve just had a radical change to our Board structure with 5 of the 9 members leaving at the 2021 AGM so we have a whole new leadership team to take our Institute forward. From a CEO view point it’s unfortunate we have to lose some excellent people but, the upside is, we won’t stagnate as fresh ideas and viewpoints are coming in to the governance structure. I would like to say a special thankyou to the outgoing general secretary, Renate Griffith, who has suffered through 2 years of correcting my minutes and was instrumental in the rewriting of many of our procedures.

I would also like to thank the National Office team for providing superb service levels under very trying conditions. Melbourne suffered through 142 days of lock down as well as many work restrictions outside the embargo periods in 2021. Mid November was the first time in the year when all the Vale street based staff could be in the same office.

In closing I would like to wish you all and your families a happy, safe and enjoyable holiday period.  Recharge your batteries and let’s make up for lost time in 2022.

Ciao

Roger

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