ARCIA update: words from the CEO

By Paul Davis, CEO
Monday, 18 September, 2023

With ARCIA President Hamish Duff away at the time of writing, it has fallen on me to share with you some thoughts for the coming issue of Critical Comms, and as I reach the 12-month mark in my role at the association, there’s no shortage of thoughts to share — it having been an incredibly busy year for the association so far.

I’ve been encouraged by the level of engagement that we’ve seen all around the country from members and non-members alike and from our partners, highlighting that what we do is valued and that the radio and critical communications community is keen to learn, share ideas and collaborate when and where possible.

With Comms Connect just around the corner, and with it our Gala Dinner and much-revamped Excellence Awards (have you nominated your colleagues, customers or partners yet? The closing deadline is fast approaching!), the opportunity to continue to work together returns and we’re looking forward to being part of the region’s largest gathering in the critical communications community. If you haven’t yet booked for these important events, there’s no reason to delay further.

The association’s conferences in Perth, Sydney and Brisbane in the last six months were very well supported, with excellent content delivered by manufacturers and end users, with the feedback received being extremely positive. Based on their success, the plan is for ARCIA to continue with these events into 2024, in conjunction with our popular state networking dinners, with the possible addition of a conference in Adelaide next year, which this year saw a very well-attended dinner on 7 September.

Training has been on the wish list for a long time and it’s been great to see some traction with this for those who are able to commit the time to what’s being offered. As is often the case, even for those who tell us they want and need the training, actually freeing up the space is the challenge, and we understand that, having delivered our first courses online in a flexible format to address this. We aim to add more courses in the months ahead and would appreciate your feedback around content and delivery methods.

Our AGM was held in August with, I’m pleased to say, all of our committee being nominated to continue with their roles for the year ahead. We did, however, also have a number of new nominations, giving us the opportunity to bring new ideas and energy to what we do and we welcomed Dina Rubis of Telechnics and Peter Dunkin of Unicom to our ranks, with our ex-officio committee members now as strong in numbers as our full members, which is great to see. The work our committee carries out underpins all that we do and I’m personally very pleased to see our numbers grow across the country.

And with new members also comes change, with our longstanding Treasurer, Andrew Wyborn of Radlink, stepping down after eight years of delivering the financial oversight that we require to operate as an association, as he passes the baton on to an equally committed member in Brad Welch of TPL Systems. On behalf of ARCIA I’d like to thank Andrew for his years of dedication to the role and look forward to his continued involvement with the association, where he remains on the committee.

The new financial year saw our partner agreements updated and we were extremely pleased to see that the very strong market support for what we are doing continues. Not only did we have an almost 100% retention rate, but we gained a number of new partners at various levels, with some existing partners pledging their support for the year ahead, but at a higher level. This very public support demonstrates their ongoing commitment not only to ARCIA, but to the market as a whole, investing for everyone touched by critical communications, as their significant contributions ensure we can continue to deliver what we need to — so a big thank you to all of our 2023–2024 Partners, we look forward to working with you throughout the year.