Industry talking - Planning for the sector's future

The middle of the year is a very busy time for our industry. During June we saw a very successful Sydney dinner with an attendance of around 150, which was excellent when you consider the competition on the night from State of Origin football. The first Comms Connect conference in Sydney was also a great event - it was particularly wonderful to see the level of support from NSW Government personnel; their support will help to make sure there will be more events in Sydney.

As we look ahead, the ARCIA Regional dinner in Brisbane will be held on 31 July (make a note in your calendar) at the Victoria Park Golf Club. This event will be along the same lines as the Perth events, with seminars in the afternoon followed by the dinner in the evening. Some excellent presenters are being arranged for this event, so watch the websites for details and make sure to support this local initiative.

October will see the Annual Gala Dinner in Melbourne, for which arrangements are now underway. This is always an excellent function, so make a note to be in Melbourne on 1 October. It is again being held in conjunction with Comms Connect, and early indications are that there will be another excellent conference program. The standard of presentations and the range of topics are increasing every year, so make sure you are there.

The ARCIA Economic Research project is now well underway, information is being gathered and we are working towards releasing details in conjunction with Comms Connect. This fulfilment of this project will be an important milestone for the communications industry. We also note that the government is conducting a review of communications governance in Australia; ARCIA will be making submissions on behalf of the radiocommunications industry.

To cover the costs associated with the many functions of ARCIA, we rely heavily on memberships (have you joined yet for this year?) as well as partnerships. There are still some silver and bronze partnerships available, as well as some award sponsorships. These represent an excellent opportunity to promote your organisation to a vibrant and growing industry. For a copy of the prospectus, please contact ARCIA quickly or you may miss out. The benefits of our partnership program are excellent value and you will be supporting our industry in a positive manner.

Recently, our Training & Education committee conducted a survey to identify the priorities for topics that need educational modules developed. Thanks to all those who responded, we now have an overview of the order in which we need to develop training modules and this will aid our training plans. We arranged for a group of school students to visit Comms Connect in Sydney, where they were given an overview of our industry, visited several exhibition stands and were given an outline of communications options. This was a very successful pilot and we hope to be able to do similar things in the future; reaching out to our students is an important exercise.

Ian Miller

Executive Officer

(for Hamish Duff who was on leave)

Australian Radio Communications Industry Association