NSW Early Career Chemists Group

AGM 2020 Report

by William Li (Past Chair, NSW ECCG)

 

The NSW Early Career Chemists’ Group held its AGM online on Wednesday, 25th November 2020.

The AGM marks the end of another successful year of the relatively short history of ECCG.  Despite COVID-19, ECCG managed to salvage 2020 and meet its goal of hosting 10 events (2 were co-hosted). It did organise 2 site tours and 8 online events, with Zoom coming in quite handy. In addition, it managed to reach out to an Australia-wide audience for the first time (and beyond NSW), and has also attracted some overseas participants as well – which would be more difficult without Zoom.

 

As per the AGM motions, ECCG NSW Committee for 2021 consists of:

  • Chair: Erin Humphries
  • Secretary: Andrew Gray
  • Treasurer: Sherly Hadi
  • Media and Marketing Manager: Ian Pan
  • University Ambassador: Dinil Jayasekara
  • General Committee Members: George Lewis, Rima Chakrabarty, Pegah Ghozhmani

During the last 3 years as Chair, with help of cooperative committee members, there were numerous achievements made that made ECCG stand out among all RACI groups around Australia. Broadly, a relatively dormant group has been transformed into one of the most active ones, organising 22 events during that period – well over double that of all the prior years combined (ECCG was formed in late 2013).

 Some other achievements:

  • No fewer than 45 professionals were invited to speak or participate in networking of some sort in at least 1 ECCG event
  • Over 150 unique people attended at least 1 ECCG event
  • Social media was expanded with a LinkedIn page and over 500 Facebook likes

More importantly, ECCG continues to build upon the work of the previous Chairs, George Zavras and Jonathan Wojciechowski, to organise activities that are in the best interests of ECCG and RACI as a whole. This includes providing opportunities for keen students and graduates to find ways to increase their chances at landing suitable employment, as well as being a society for like-minded people together to help build each other’s professional networks.

On behalf of fellow former NSW ECCG Committee Members, we thank everyone who has supported us along the way, including the NSW Branch Committee and anyone who attended an ECCG event.

Now it is up to the future ECCG Committees to continue to provide a quality service to aspiring chemistry students and graduates with RACI values in mind.