This month has marked just over 12 months since I commenced as Qld Manager for Engineers Australia. Earlier in November we celebrated the year with members and took the time to reflect on the Queensland activities of Engineers Australia. Below are some of most notable of these activities:
- Our Tertiary team, supported by some of our regional committee members, had face to face contact with over 7000 engineering students. This includes a joint lecture with the Board of Professional Engineers to all 4th year students.
- A mentoring scheme has rolled out that has 60 mentor/mentee relationships now 3 months in to the 12-month scheme.
- Across the state we have been focusing efforts where we can on celebration of our member’s achievements across all phases of their career, through their attainment of chartered, Fellow or Engineering Executive.
- We welcomed 471 new Chartered members in Queensland last financial year, an increase of 7%.
- In September Engineers Australia introduced a new chartered assessment process.
Across the organization there has been active engagement with industry to educate them about the changes and to promote chartered credentials. I’d like to recognize the efforts of our local client management team (Kathryn Barwick, Megan Purdy and David Spediacci) who have collectively delivered 250 presentations or one on one meetings with organisations since July to brief them and assist them with any questions they have about the new process. Megan also recently travelled to Townsville to brief local members.
Many of our groups and committees have just gone through (or are about to go through) their annual committee renewal via AGMs around the state. It has been pleasing to see the Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan being embraced by current committees with pro-active approaches towards us hitting the target of 30% gender diversity on all committee by 2020. There have already been a number of examples of committees who had no females nominating in 2016, who this year have had 4 to 5.
If you are interested in getting more involved the Qld group AGMs, a number are still upcoming:
Structural – 28 November
Toowoomba – Thursday 30 November
Leadership and Management – 4 December
Civil – 5 December
Rockhampton – 5 December
Sunshine Coast – 5 December
JCEC – 6 December
Young Engineers – 12 December
Cairns – 19 December
Gladstone – 19 January
Assisted by all of our committees there have been over 150 technical and networking events delivered during the 2016/2017 financial year which were attended by over 7400 members (an increase in attendance of over 1000, or 15% from last year). 65 of these events were held in regional locations.
The Civil College has re-invigorated and re-formed a Qld branch this year, and we have also seen some increase in activity from the Society of Fire Safety and will soon see more from a local Bio-Medical group who are in the early stages of reforming a committee.
Over the course of the year Engineers Australia met with government Ministers, MPs and Directors Generals or senior executives over 80 times and on behalf of the profession we had significant input in to a range of inquiries and submissions including:
- Climate Change
- Flood Resilience
- Qld BIM Policy
- SEQ Regional Plan
- Great Artesian Water
- Local Government Sustainability
This is just a small local snapshot, and has not mentioned any of the other areas that have had a more national focus including submissions on; Modernising Australia’s Electricity Grid, Productivity Commission Issues paper on National Water Reform and many more. All submissions (over 30 so far in 2017) are available for public viewing on our website so I encourage you to have a look.
2017 has been busy but hugely enjoyable. I have been fortunate enough to travel to most of our regions across the year, and to have attended either events or meetings with most of our 40 committees (although not all!) to meet with members.
I look forward to much more engagement in 2018 and wish you all a happy and safe festive season.
Stacey Rawlings
Qld Manager – Engineers Australia