President's news

摘要

This is my last column as President. I will use it to review changes and initiatives the Board has put in place since I became President Elect in November 2006. In retrospect it has been a turbulent period with major changes in areas such as financial management, operational procedures, membership criteria, strategic planning and membership services. The first significant change after I joined the Board was restructuring the financial management of the RACI. Graham Taylor, who was Treasurer at the time, began by consolidating well over 40 individual bank accounts into a single entity. Every financial unit - Branches, Divisions, Groups and so on - was given a ledger line entry in the RACI accounts. Positive results were immediate. From paying close to $3000 a year in bank charges, we found ourselves with around $1 000 000 in the RACI account. The bulk of this was promptly placed in suitable interest-generating accounts with much increased investment income. The move also allowed the Board to develop a central financial management service, moving much of the accounting burden from local Treasurers to the National Office and dramatically reducing the workload during the annual auditing exercise. Once the new systems were embedded, we made substantial savings by transferring financial management to an accounting firm. Then Frances Separovic, as Graham's replacement, reviewed our investments and put in place more effective management and investment strategies.