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The Annual General Meeting, the Peter Rowland Memorial Address, as well as the Council's annual award ceremony were held at the CSIRO Discovery Centre.
The Peter Rowland Memorial Address
Presenting this year's address, Chris Sturrock spoke about her experience as a volunteer in Fiji for two years. Chris is a registered nurse and midwife with many years experience with ACT Health and SHFACT.
The placement in Fiji was to set up, open and run a sexual health clinic targeting sex workers and street kids in Suva as well as training health workers, peer educators and the community about sexual health issues.
While in Fiji Chris also became involved in strategic planning for HIV/STI in the Pacific and in accessing treatment for people living with HIV/AIDS.
Chris is currently studying a Masters in Applied Epidemiology as she believes these new skills will be useful in sexual and reproductive health work.
Annual General Meeting
President for four years, Joey Tabone, announced that he was not running this year. John Guppy, who has been Vice-President of the Council for four years, was elected unopposed. Also elected to the board of the Council were:
- Mike Wight Vice-President
- Kevin Playford Secretary/Treasurer
- Megan Hansford Ordinary Member
- David Benger Ordinary Member
- Paul Curwell Ordinary Member
- Leo Hardiman Ordinary Member
Annual awards ceremony
Each year the the AIDS Action Council recognises the invaluable contribution of our members, volunteers and supports to our work. This year the recipients were:
The David Widdup Award
Shawn Gath, of Blake Dawson Waldron
Legal advice is often an intervention which whilst needed by any organisation, is particularly costly to a community organisation with little excess resources. In a community organisation there is a conscience that any extra resources should be spent on meeting client need rather than investing it in advice which we intellectually know to be in the client’s longer term best interests.
The recipient of this year’s David Widdup award provided such legal advice to the Council on a number of occasions this year. On receipt of a phone call or email, he would immediately be available to provide advice on issues which then allowed the Council to move forward with as little impact on the clients as possible.
This year’s recipient of the David Widdup award goes to Shawn Gath, of Blake Dawson Waldron. Shawn, we thank you for your assistance over the year, and equally we thank Blake Dawson Waldron for allowing us so much of your time.
The Community Award
The Connection
This year the Council awards the Community Award to 'The Connection'. The Connection is a peer support service for indigenous and non-indigenous users and their families and friends. It operates a drop-in centre providing education, information and referral to programmes and services in Canberra and surrounds. It’s a great place for a cuppa, a feed and a yarn! It’s a warm and welcoming place and demonstrates the value of a grassroots community/peer based approach. The council wishes to recognise the Connection for their useful contribution to harm minimization, and for advancing sexual health awareness.
The Communication Award
Canberra Museum and Gallery
This year the communication award recognises the management and staff of Canberra Museum and Gallery for their curatoring of, Reflections: 20 years of HIV/AIDS activism and education exhibition, held from December 2004 to January 2005.
From the time of the initial meeting with the Director of CMAG [say as a word] Peter Haines in December 2003 and the ongoing commitment from Allison and all the other CMAG staff to the close of the exhibition in 2005 their professionalism, dedication, care and attention to detail to see that this was an extremely successful exhibition to further raise awareness of HIV/AIDS in this day and age made it a wonderful partnership with the Council.
Fabulous Membership
Brian McKinnlay
This year’s recipient of fabulous membership has been a member of the Council 'forever'’ – so long that he doesn’t even know, but he does remember that it was some time when we were located in the building above Avis rental cars!
For all of us here we have sat through a meeting process which we don’t really understand most of the time, but we know we need to do it once a year because that thing called a constitution says we must. What we don’t realise is all the work that goes on in the background which actually makes this meeting official, and allows us to meet our obligations under the corporations act. This member of the Council has been providing us with the support that allows us to carry out this task for probably longer than he would like to remember.
The President's Award
Rachael/Richard Allen
This year the President's Award recognises an individual who does what he does 'just because'. He is a volunteer of the Council. He is always around. If anything needs to be done, he’s there. Media coverage is getting more and more difficult to come by as HIV/AIDS becomes ‘less sexy’ so to speak – people living with a long term illness just aren’t as attractive to the media as scores of people dying. Often the media are only interested in covering an event if they can put a human face to a story. When this person was approached to ask if he was willing to be the face of the Candlelight Memorial this year, he happily obliged, even allowing himself to be photographed without his ‘face’ on.
Whether it is sharing his story to the media, or new volunteers, organising a Canberra presence at the Gay and Lesbian mardigra, cooking for events, setting up for and cleaning up after catered affairs, or just being there for his friends, he is always there. Sometimes our greatest concern can be how can we get him to do less, rather than more?
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