Board Level Blog: Autumn

Greetings everyone and welcome to the Autumn Board Level blog.

I would like to acknowledge the Darug and Guringai peoples who are the Traditional Custodians of the Land on which I live, and I pay my respects to their Ancestors and Elders, past, present and emerging.

As I write this post, our colleagues in Victoria are enduring yet another lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic. While other states have experienced short and sharp lockdowns over the past few months, Victorians are reminded of the gruelling 4-month lockdown they endured last winter, and this hits particularly hard. We are holding you all in our thoughts and hearts – let’s hope this is over quickly.

2021 ACBS Virtual World Conference

The ACBS Virtual World Conference is on 24-27June with Pre-Conference Intensive Workshops scheduled for 12-13 June. The time difference is more favourable for us in Australia and New Zealand than last year, so it’s a great opportunity to attend workshops by well known speakers and meet colleagues from around the world.

We are hosting a networking session for ANZ ACBS on Thursday 24th June at 5pm (AEST Melb/Syd time). The link will be in the final programme. Come along and meet colleagues, cup of tea or cocktail in hand. It will be a great way to kick off the conference!!

And if you are up alone in the wee small hours or watching sessions with colleagues, please take a photo and send it to us at james.fowler@uq.edu.au

Webinars and Events

In April, Dr Hayley D Quinn presented a webinar on the Foundations of Compassion Focussed Therapy. This was one of our most well attended webinars and the new 90-minute format allowed participants to gain a deeper knowledge of how incorporating CFT into a personal practice can help our own lives and that of our clients. You can still grab tickets to access the webinar here

Our next webinar will be presented by Jodie Wassner in August on ASD and Young People. This will be a must for those of us working with this population and wanting to use a contextual behaviour approach. Stay tuned for further details.

And in late July early August, Brendon Knott will be running 4 x 2 hour workshops on Thinking Functionally in the Therapy Room: Using Functional Analysis to tailor interventions with precision. We are very excited about this workshop series as it offers a different training opportunity for members. Details will be posted on the Facebook page in the coming weeks.

The Webinar and Events Committee is committed to offering workshops and webinars that showcase the skills and knowledge within our community. If you have ideas for future webinars please contact our Webinar Committee Chair, Shelley Viskovich at shelleyviskovich@gmail.com

Membership and Communications

The Membership and Communications Subcommittee is currently working on a Contributing Author Project. Each month the subcommittee will ask a member from the ANZ ACBS community to write a short article outlining their work for our website blog with links to our social media pages. There are so many members in our community who have written books, authored papers and this is one way we can hear about this important work.

If you are interested in writing a short article or blog post, please contact James at james.fowler@uq.edu.au

Action & Advocacy Committee members Clare McLeod and Deb Hart wearing orange for Harmony Day.

Action and Advocacy

The Action and Advocacy Committee has been continuing their work in improving the ability of ANZ ACBS to respond to key issues affecting our communities. In collaboration with James Fowler, our Communications Officer, the committee has developed a social media strategy that is alerting and engaging with members around key issues throughout the year.

ANZ ACBS Book Club

Board members Elizabeth Maher and Andrew Duirs have started a Book Club to create an active CBS reading community to support consistent learning and practice. If you are like me and demonstrate excellent ‘book purchasing’ behaviour but not necessarily great ‘book reading’ behaviour, joining the book club is a must!

The book club will be a bimonthly one-hour online discussion and a Facebook page to encourage discussion, reflection and communication. The first meeting is on July 6th and the book to be discussed is Living with Your Body & Other Things You Hate: How to Let Go of Your Struggle with Body Image Using Acceptance & Commitment Therapy by Emily Sandoz and Troy DuFrene.

Our friends at New Harbinger Publications have given us 10% discount via their Australia distribution partner Booktopia.

For further details check out the Facebook page or contact Andrew at secretary@anzacbs.com or Elizabeth at liz@nz-act-training.com

2021 ANZ ACBS Online Conference

We are thrilled to announce that the 2021 ANZ ACBS Virtual Conference will be on November 26-28. As you all know, our Auckland conference was postponed last year due to the pandemic, and we made the decision earlier this year to move the conference online as it was uncertain we would be able to travel with confidence. I think that decision has been proven to be prudent.

Our Conference Organising Team is outstanding: Daniel Simsion, Deborah Hart and Michael Swadling are Conference Co-Chairs and Shelley Viskovich and Giselle Bahr are Programme Co-Chairs.

We will send out details in the coming months.

Financial Update

At a recent Board meeting we made the decision to provide a quarterly summary of the organisation’s financial position. We have recently engaged Atlas Administration Services to manage our payroll and optimise business processes. The contract is negotiated annually to allow each new Board a chance to review the process if required.

ANZ ACBS continues to be in a solid financial position, despite the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on our ability to run live events. We are on track to delivering a net profit next quarter.

Current balance as of 1 June 2021: $152,472.76

Profit and Loss

For the 3 months ended 31 March 2021

Trading Income: $5277.25

Cost of Sales: $41.98

Gross Profit: $5235. 27

Operating Expenses: $10,021.23

Net profit: ($4785.76)

I would like to thank our wonderful treasurer Farah Gulamoydeen for her commitment and expertise in managing this portfolio for the organisation.

That’s all from me for this quarter. There are lots of events coming up over the next few months and all of them will be promoted on our Facebook page so keep an eye out. And if you’re passionate about changing the world through love and science, please let colleagues know about the ANZ ACBS community and encourage them to become members.

Stay safe and warm.

Julie

PS: Hot off the press! If you’re in Perth on July 27th, our Past President Tiffany Rochester is presenting a workshop “When the Family Fractures: Working with adults or children from separated families” as part of the ANZ ACBS (WA) Winter Warmer Series. Thanks to organisers Tracey Hart and Alyssa Garret. See the Facebook page for more details.

Bye for now.