President’s report
by Margaret Trudgeon AE
I hope everyone is managing to stay warm on these cold and wintery days. Our most significant recent event was the Editors Victoria Annual Branch Meeting held on 3 July, where we elected our executive members for the new 2024–25 term and reflected on our achievements over the past year.
Thank you to all the Victorian IPEd members who responded to my rallying cry and attended the event to help us form our quorum. The response was very heartwarming. Since then, I’ve been busy filling the remaining positions on our committee and I can now announce our full committee for the new term, which you can see in full below. Three of our former subcommittee members – Donald Ritchie, Kylie Howard and Sophie Chan – have stepped up to take on the roles of secretary, events officer and PD officer respectively. We also have two new subcommittee members, Amanda Holder and Joyce Protacio, who I’m looking forward to meeting at our next committee meeting. I’m also very grateful to our other executive and ex-officio members who are staying on in their current roles, including Thirangie Jayatilake who will remain as Inclusion and Access Advisor for another year. There will be a bit of training going on behind the scenes as the new members settle into their positions, but we already have some excellent plans underway for upcoming events and PD workshops.
There are a couple of events taking place in August for Editors Victoria. Firstly, there’s an online speaker event on 20 August, “Biotext: Content design – using evidence from users to develop content”, where science content specialist Carrie DeHaan will speak about content design for effective user-focused websites.
Then on 21 August another lunch is planned for editors from Melbourne’s eastern suburbs – to be held at the Mitcham pub. For further details see the Friday events bulletin.
I’m also excited to announce that next month, on 8 September, Editors Victoria will be involved in something a bit different. IPEd is holding a stall at the Emerging Writers’ Festival as part of the National Writers’ Conference, at the Wheeler Centre. Some of our committee members have volunteered to pitch in and help. I’m looking forward to getting out there and gauging knowledge and awareness of IPEd and helping to raise our profile a bit.
Thanks to Donald Ritchie for the following write-up about our recent ABM.
Editors Victoria ABM
The Annual Branch Meeting (ABM) of Editors Victoria took place on 3 July and saw a significant turnout from our members. During the meeting, reports were presented on all of our activities and events held over the past year, including our professional development programs and outreach initiatives. The budget was also discussed, with a positive outlook predicted for the coming year.
Theresa Pitt kindly acted as electoral officer, and the committee for 2024–25 was appointed. Returning members Margaret Trudgeon as president, Jenn Zabinskas as budget officer, and Cecile Shanahan as communications officer were joined by new committee member Donald Ritchie as secretary. New committee members Kylie Howard and Sophie Chan have subsequently been appointed as events officer and professional development officer, respectively. The president and committee expressed their deep gratitude to outgoing committee members Ann Philpott (projects and outreach), Lee Ellwood (events), Caroline Arnoul (professional development) and Bridget Blair (secretary) for their years of dedicated service.
Following the formal proceedings, attendees were treated to a special presentation by guest speaker Monique diMattina. A renowned musician, DiMattina entertained the audience with a fascinating discussion on editing content for the stage. She also presented excerpts from her upcoming musical Stella, which delves into the life of Stella Miles Franklin. Franklin, known for her seminal work My brilliant career, was also a close friend of Beatrice Davis, the namesake of one of IPEd’s most prestigious awards and the subject of a book published by Editors Victoria.
Editors Victoria Branch Committee 2024–25
Executive
President: Margaret Trudgeon AE
Vice president: Vacant
Secretary: Donald Ritchie
Budget officer: Jenn Zabinskas
Communications officer: Cecile Shanahan
Events officer: Kylie Howard
Professional development officer: Sophie Chan
Projects and outreach officer: Vacant
Ex-officio
Accreditation Board rep: Susan Pierotti AE
Editors Victoria director: Stephanie Holt AE
Student advisor: Steph Huddleston
Inclusion and access advisor: Thirangie Jayatilake
Subcommittee
Jenn Zabinskas
Amanda Holder
Joyce Protacio
New members
Welcome to last month’s new members.
Professional members:
- Jackie Bos
Associate members:
- Nat Podesser
- Sarah Halfpenny