From the CEO

25 May

On Thursday we hold our Annual General Meeting at 41X in Melbourne. If you have the opportunity, I encourage you to attend. It is the formal meeting for members to receive the annual report and exercise their voting power. We will be addressing some of the challenges the Institute has faced during the past year, as well as outlining the measures we’ve put in place to secure the future of our Institute.

The AGM marks the end of David Karotkin’s tenure as National President. I would like to thank David for his commitment to the Institute and his passionate advocacy for the profession.

At the meeting, Jon Clements will be inaugurated as National President. Jon is a founding director of Jackson Clements Burrows Architects (JCB), established in Melbourne in 1998. In addition to practice, Jon has an active role representing architecture within the industry. He was President of the Victorian Chapter from 2012 to 2014.

On behalf of the Institute I welcome Jon as National President and look forward to supporting him in this capacity over the next twelve months.

I’d like to close with a few words about our 2015 National Architecture Conference, which was held 14-16 May.

Bringing together over 1500 colleagues from Australia and beyond, RISK inspired, invigorated and interrogated. Thanks to the creative team: Donald Bates, Hamish Lyon and Andrew Mackenzie, our guest speakers, the coordinating committee, the events team and sponsors for producing a fantastic, sell out event. I also thank everyone who attended for taking the time to engage with and support the profession.

Events like the conference highlight the importance of knowledge sharing and collaboration for our profession. In this spirit, we thought the conference the ideal occasion to sign an historic Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with our closest colleagues, the New Zealand Institute of Architects. We were honoured to have Pip Cheshire, President of the NZIA, in attendance to sign the MOU with David Karotkin during the Saturday morning presentation.

The MOU recognises that the members of the architectural profession in Australia and New Zealand are dedicated to high standards of professionalism, integrity and competence, and bring to society special skills essential to the development and protection of the built environment in both countries.

This MOU records the principles governing the future direction of the formal relationship between the Institute and the NZIA for the purposes of mutual support and cooperation.

Kind regards,
David Parken.

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