A busy year ahead for ARCIA

2023 is an important year for our association as we get back to a more normal year, and the calendar is in full swing.

The annual planning day was held in Brisbane on 8 February and was well attended by committee members. Paul Davis has been busy over the break and presented a number of plans to streamline the administration and marketing of the association. Spirited debate was held around the direction of our industry and how to best represent all members. In the evening ARCIA hosted partners at the Greek Club to continue the day’s discussions and a great night was had by all.

Event planning is full speed ahead, so make sure you check https://arcia.org.au/events/ for all events as there are now a number of event dates online across Australia.

Key events for Perth on 22 March, Sydney on 31 May, Brisbane on 27 July and of course the Annual Gala Dinner in Melbourne on 18 October are in place, so make you save the dates and get your teams involved.

The committee is happy to receive feedback on major events, especially the annual gala dinner; we want to ensure that everyone has a great time and that these events meet members’ expectations. Please reach out if you have any ideas or concerns from previous years.

It is likely there will be some changes to awards for the annual gala dinner as the committee feels that some of the awards needed a refresh. Make sure you put your local industry members forward to be recognised by their peers. It is also important to remember that at the various dinners around Australia there are awards for the local ‘Industry Professional of the Year’. This is separate to the annual awards and if you have someone you feel should/could be considered, please get in touch with a local committee member or contact us directly — don’t wait until the end of the year.

Training dates have also been announced, with the first online course to be held in May including an introduction to radio communications, an introduction to digital LMR standards and a microwave radio masterclass. More courses are in development and we need to thank our new CEO and training convenor for putting in huge amounts of work to finally get this going.

Check the ARCIA website regularly for details on all training matters — there will be multiple updates coming along that hopefully will be in place by the time this article is printed, and I would encourage young and old members to get involved.

Ian Miller recently circulated information from an ACMA Spectrum Tune-up conference call around the 3.4–4.0 GHz band and the availability of spectrum for local area wireless broadband (aka private LTE systems); this is an important opportunity for our members and also for our clients. In addition, Ian also attended an agricultural conference in Adelaide and reported back that in every session he attended the emphasis was on how ‘data is the new oil’ and will open many productivity gains in the future. The other common thread was that connectivity is one of the critical issues for mobile data in agriculture in all sectors — an opportunity for our industry?

So, welcome to 2023 — it shows potential for being another great year for our industry, our events are back, and we have training locked in throughout the year. What a great start.

Image credit: iStock.com/Feodora Chiosea