From the committee
By Paul Anderson and Russell Noakes
The EdNSW committee met on 9 August for its monthly meeting via Zoom, with four apologies.
This was the first meeting of your new committee for 2022–23.
Minutes were accepted for:
- the July committee meeting
- the Annual Branch Meeting (ABM) on 2 August 2022.
Written reports received included:
- Accreditation Board delegate
- budget commentary with financial outcomes and preliminary estimates to 31 July 2022
- IPEd Board and branch presidents’ meeting notes (prepared by our attendee, Elizabeth Beach AE)
- IPEd Board update
- membership
- mentoring
- speaker presentation schedules (confirmed for 2022; and a draft for 2023).
The main item of business was to formalise the new committee. The new committee elected the branch executive and assigned the following roles to the committee members:
- Budget officer – Russell Noakes
- Member liaison officer – Kaaren Sutcliffe AE
- Mentoring coordinator – Elizabeth Beach AE
- Networking coordinator – Olivia Wroth
- News editor – Elisabeth Thomas
- News writer – Paul Anderson
- Presentations coordinator – Kai Jensen
- Professional development delegate – Meredith McGowan
- Secretary – Julie Ganner AE.
No nominations were received for the role of branch president and it will remain vacant for the time being. We have operated successfully while this role has been vacant by sharing its responsibilities. To that effect, Julie Ganner will act as our principal contact for IPEd staff and other committees, and branch executive members will take turns chairing our committee meetings and attending IPEd meetings. Russell Noakes will be our principal contact for the IPEd Board and its subcommittees.
The EdNSW committee will hold 11 monthly meetings per year (excluding December).
There was no speaker presentation in August, with our ABM and fun quiz instead. We have two remaining speaker events this year:
- Aditya Vasudevan will present “Defamation law for editors” on 6 September.
- David Seale will present “Commonwealth Government departments’ use of editors” on 4 October.
We have a vacancy for a Zoom assistant to help run online events and will advertise the role. This is a good opportunity for any member seeking an entry-level position on the committee – come join us, assist with speaker presentations and, in return, receive some free professional development.
Four IPEd professional and two IPEd associate members joined the branch in July.
Three new mentorships formed across IPEd, one involving a mentor from NSW. The Mentoring committee is trialling a new matching method to form inter-branch mentorships.
The next committee meeting is scheduled for 13 September 2022.
Annual Branch Meeting (ABM) 2022
By Paul Anderson
(Q: What was the first novel published in Australia? Read on for the answer.)
The EdNSW ABM was held on 2 August 2022 via Zoom, with two apologies.
Thank you to those branch members who attended (and stayed on for the fun quiz).
Julie Ganner AE, Secretary, gave an overview of the year for the branch.
“Your amazing branch committee has been as active as ever in the past 12 months, creating and participating in events and activities that support and promote our work as editors … Meeting by Zoom has meant that any [EdNSW] member can now join the committee and participate fully in our activities without being in Sydney.”
Julie thanked each of the outgoing committee and delegates to IPEd committees/boards.
Committee members gave brief reports – some highlights below.
Presentations by Kai Jensen AE
We ran six speaker presentations in 2021–22:
- “Which book to read now? What choice do I have?”
- “Editor without borders”
- “Editing practices for a culturally safe editing profession”
- “What’s in a world? World-building in fiction”
- “The heart of editing a romance”
- “Copyright aspects of online presenting and training”
Attendances varied between 35 and 65 – enough that, overall, presentations contributed to branch revenues. We plan a dynamic series of six presentations for the year ahead.
Networking by Elizabeth Beach AE (for Olivia Wroth)
There have already been a handful of editors’ lunches this year – in Moruya (South Coast), Newcastle, Wollongong, Hornsby and Bathurst – with at least two more planned. They are called networking events, but they are casual, with no agenda other than chatting with colleagues about anything at all over a meal.
News by Elisabeth Thomas and Paul Anderson
EdNSW has been well represented as a contributor of content to IPEd’s newsletter Gatherings, providing the branch and the wider IPEd community with useful and interesting reading matter.
Our speaker presentations were the feature articles in the February and July editions this year.
Elisabeth thanked the committee for getting the details we needed in time for publication each month. She thanked Paul Anderson, news writer, Robin Appleton HLM for proofreading, and EdNSW member Mark Taylor for cryptic crosswords. Thanks also go to Gatherings editor Kate Tilley and her successor Catherine Van for all their work over the past year.
Gatherings has an open invitation to all members to contribute content so please get in touch at any time via ednsw.news@iped-editors.org.
Member liaison by Kaaren Sutcliffe AE
We were joined by 36 new members during 2021–22. This was offset by some member attrition, with the result that we numbered 367 active financial members at 30 June 2022 (marginally down on the previous year).
Mentoring by Elizabeth Beach AE
There has been a lot of activity in New South Wales during the past 12 months. We set up eight mentorships that involved either a mentor or mentee. Four of these have finished, and the rest are either ongoing or on hold. Elizabeth thanked the EdNSW mentors.
Accreditation by Linda Nix AE
The Accreditation Board’s (AB) focus for most of the past year has been on the 2022 accreditation exam. The AB finalised renewals for the 2011 and 2016 cohorts of AEs and is currently assessing renewal applications for the 2012 cohort.
Finance by Russell Noakes
Our budget officer presented a financial overview for the branch.
Consolidated results for financial year 2021–22
- We budgeted for a net deficit across all activities of A$1,031.
- We achieved a net surplus of A$915.
- We finished the year A$1,946 better than budget.
- We achieved a surplus instead of an expected deficit.
Budget summary for 2022–23
- We have budgeted for a net deficit across all activities of A$3,128.
- We have not budgeted to spend any of our branch reserves in 2022–23.
2022–23 committee
Linda Nix AE, acting as returning officer, announced the election of the following voting members to the new committee:
- Elizabeth Beach AE
- Julie Ganner AE
- Kai Jensen AE
- Meredith McGowan
- Russell Noakes
- Kaaren Sutcliffe AE
- Elisabeth Thomas
- Olivia Wroth.
Julie Ganner also formally invited associate member Paul Anderson to join the new committee and he accepted.
We remain keen to have more people work with us on the committee so please get in touch at any time via ednsw.secretary@iped-editors.org
The meeting was formally closed.
Kai Jensen compered our fun quiz. There were 10 somewhat literary, multiple-choice questions – bragging rights ultimately going to Elizabeth Beach.
(A: Quintus Servinton, by Henry Savery, originally published in 1830.)
Bathurst editors’ lunch
By Paul Anderson
From left to right: Mark, Fiona, Jenny, Paul. Photo credit: Paul Anderson
Central West editors Fiona Sim, Jenny More, Mark Filmer and Paul Anderson met for lunch in Bathurst on 22 July. Fiona organised this editors’ lunch and The Hub café was our venue. It was a great choice – close to the library and the regional art gallery – and offered a varied menu. We were blessed with a fine winter’s day so chose to sit at a table in the courtyard. It was good to get out of work-from-home mode and network with fellow editors. Our conversation ranged from nonfiction and government editing to wide shearing combs (you had to be there).
July dinner
By Elizabeth Beach AE
From left to right: Kirsty Arnold, Pam Peters, Juliet Richters, Lindy Ferris, Elizabeth Beach, Louise Scahill, Sally Asnicar, Adam Raffel, Russell Noakes and Meredith McGowan. Photo credit: Elizabeth Beach
On a soggy night in Sydney, 10 intrepid editors braved the damp conditions to meet at a favourite winter dinner venue, Diethnes, in the CBD. We dined on traditional Greek specialties and drank Cretan wine, which inspired several conversational tangents about adjectival and demonymic forms of place names.
It was great to catch up, and we all agreed to meet up again when the weather is warmer, perhaps at a rooftop bar and with a few more of our branch colleagues. We would like to thank Allen & Unwin and Pan Macmillan for generously donating a selection of fabulous books and Macquarie Dictionary vouchers as prizes for our lucky attendees.
Upcoming events
Many EdNSW events will continue to be held via Zoom.
Please check your email for the latest information on any event.
Please make bookings via the IPEd Events webpage.
Details of our next event are below.
Government departments and editors
Date: Tuesday 4 October 2022, 7.00 pm AEDT (Note: Daylight saving starts in NSW, ACT, VIC, TAS and SA on Sunday 2 October 2022).
Location: online via Zoom
Details: This presentation will provide insights into how Australian Public Service agencies strive to achieve a high editorial standard of their publications and communication products, and tailor these to their audiences. David Seale will explain how editing works in-house, where agencies are mostly likely to engage external editors and why. He will share war stories about how well – or not – public servants adhere to the Australian Government Style Manual and internal style guides, and the challenges communication practitioners face. In addition, he will provide some tips on how to get a foot in the door as an external editor.
Presenter: David Seale, A/g Assistant Secretary Communication, Australian Department of Education, Skills and Employment. David’s duties routinely include proofreading documents to ensure they are consistent with departmental and Australian Government style, including annual reports, corporate plans and publications, along with media products such as press releases, speeches and talking points.
He has worked across various media and communication roles in the Australian Public Service since 2005 when he joined the then Department of Immigration, Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs after leavingThe Canberra Times, where he worked as a reporter and subeditor for more than six years.
David has led up to 100 staff in an agency that handles more than 6,000 media requests and drafts several hundred press releases a year, along with supporting its most senior public servants in their many internal and external speaking engagements. He knows an editor’s eye for detail is crucial to the quality of any communication product. David has worked on many annual reports, glossy brochures and corporate plans, through to producing a coffee table book, website redevelopment and content refresh projects, and thousands of press releases.
Bookings: here