CEO Karen Lee reports on IPEd’s submission to senate inquiry
Welcome to the October issue of Gatherings.
During September, IPEd made a submission to the Senate Standing Committees on Education and Employment, which is inquiring into the Higher Education Support Amendment (Job-Ready Graduates and Supporting Regional and Remote Students) Bill 2020.
You can read our submission and others. (IPEd’s submission is #20.)
I have also received a lot of member feedback about the responses from Education Minister Tehan’s office and shadow minister Tanya Plibersek after I wrote to both on the board’s behalf about the Bill.
Many of you have pointed out that even the wording in their responses show why editors are so vital.
Here is one member’s response: ‘Doubtless other members also saw the following errors and offered feedback.
‘A scrambled sentence in Plibersek’s reply (‘Every one of Scott Morrison’s Liberal Cabinet Ministers went to university, but they don’t think other people don’t deserve the same chance’) which actually [implies] the opposite to what she intended to say and careless, almost word-for-word repetition in the reply written on behalf of the Minister for Education.
‘Was it lost on them that they were replying to the peak professional body for editors in Australia? No doubt many replies must be written in haste but that doesn’t justify such careless errors.
‘Perhaps a position could be created in their respective departments for a member of staff to proofread their written replies before they are despatched and circulated in the public domain. Any editors who could be encouraged to apply?’
Thanks for your feedback; it is much appreciated. IPEd will continue to advocate on behalf of our members and the editors of the future.
Members’ forum
On 14 September, IPEd ran a members’ forum and we were so pleased to see that close to 90 members registered and we had a turnout of 75 on the night. The forum was facilitated by Association Forum’s Adrian Hart and we discussed a range of issues that members were invited to contribute to before the forum. We had a lively and engaging discussion on issues such as:
1. What IPEd can do to recruit more members working in and with:
- commercial book publishing
- assisted self-publishing with independent publishers
- self-publishing organisations
- authors seeking traditional publication, agent representation or self-publication.
2. IPEd participation in the publishing industry.
3. IPEd endorsement of new style guides (AMOS v Style Manual).
I gave an update on questions we had received earlier in the year on the following issues. Expect further updates in the coming weeks and months:
- IPEd’s advocacy in the past year
- What IPEd is doing to develop further services to support editors
- Developing a calendar of professional development events and webinars
- Improving the appearance of the ED and website.
Members indicated they were happy to participate in a short survey to help us improve future formats for members’ forums. The next members’ forum will be in November at the plenary session after the formal business of our AGM. I highly encourage as many of you as possible to join in, have your say on any of the issues and be part of the process of how IPEd can work with you and the profession.
Membership Director
Due to feedback from members requesting more targeted attention to membership issues and the difficulty of dealing with these issues with the currently limited staff resources, IPEd has appointed a Membership Director.
We are so pleased to welcome Peter Griffin to our Board and he comes to us with a broad level of experience on membership issues. Peter is General Manager of the Real Estate Institute of NSW and responsible for operations of the business, including membership recruitment and retention, training and events, the retail store, marketing and communications, finance, HR and IT.
You can read his profile article in this issue here.
I look forward to working with Peter to develop IPEd’s strategy on membership engagement, retention and acquisition.
Warm regards
Karen Lee
Chief Executive Officer