A Message from QLD Branch President Nicole Davis

It looks like the QLD Branch program of events for 2022 will start with an almost sold out Industry Breakfast on 30 March 2022. There are currently 220 people attending the Brisbane event and regional delegates attending hub events in Cairns and Townsville and several other organisations hosting boardroom breakfasts for their employees.

And this is just the start of the QLD Branch program for 2022. The branch will also be undertaking our planning session before the breakfast. These sessions help us develop the program and the sub-committees to guide our events and actions throughout the year, so stay tuned.

As you would all know, Ozwater’22 is coming to Brisbane. And, with the small amount of rivalry between the states, QLD usually tops the numbers of delegates, so get on and register. Early bird registration closes at the end of March. 

With Ozwater being in Queensland, the QLD Branch has decided for this year only to combine NQ Water and QWater. We recognise that our members and exhibitors will have a full dance card this year, and we are trying to ensure that we continue to deliver value for money and ensure that our members have a quality offering. The combined conference will become a signature conference and hopefully attract many delegates and exhibitors. It will be hosted in Cairns on 20-21 October, which is a beautiful time of the year to go north; pencil it in.

Other upcoming events are the AWA and WSAA joint conference ‘Voices for the Bush’ on 9 - 10 August 2022, in Alice Springs. The regional, rural and remote focus for the conference themes are:

• Public and Environmental Health
• Technology and Innovation
• Industry Challenges and Solutions
• Driving Change Through Governance, Funding and Policy
• Water Education
• Wildcard

And finally, you may or may not know that my tenure as QLD Branch President finishes at the end of June 2022 - this will be my last Source article as President.

At our March Branch Committee meeting, we ratified Margit Connellan as the Queensland President-Elect from 1 July 2022. Congratulations, Margit and then I move into the more relaxing role as Immediate Past President, a more advisory role.

I have to say that I have truly enjoyed my time as President of the Queensland Branch. It has been a COVID presidency, but I will say that I have been lucky that I have attended a number of face to face events.

I have been and will continue to champion the regions. During my presidency, I have increased the number of regional committee members (thanks Janice, Narelle and Jeff) and championed a Regional Liaison Officer, Janice Wilson, who leads a subcommittee focused on the regions. I am proud of these achievements.

The other thing that I have achieved, and much to do with COVID, was extending the events to the regional areas via online ability. This online approach is now embedded as a new way of connecting, and face-to-face engagement is the added bonus as it is still very important to our members. I have also worked very hard to extend these regional events to a “Hub” where an organisation provides the venue, but individuals can attend those sites. This allows the regional approach to continue and also enables networking to occur at the same time. So please, support the regional hubs and stay engaged with this approach.