The 65th Annual Meeting of Australian Alumni Singapore was successfully held virtually for the very first time in AAS’ 65 years history. AAS Vice President-Geoff Howie, the official Chairperson for the AGM called the meeting to order at 6.36 pm with a quorum of 33 voting members.
His Excellency, Mr. Bruce Gosper- High Commissioner of Australia to Singapore, was invited to deliver his Welcome Address as the Guest-of-Honour. In his speech, Bruce shared that it has been a remarkable year and the landmark achievement made this year was that in March, the First Virtual Summit between Australia and Singapore was held between two leaders (Mr Lee Hsien Loong could not visit Australia due to COVID-19) and a few Virtual Agreements between the two countries was digitally signed, including Defence Treaty and Digital Economy Agreement. Also, an announcement the formation of Climate Technology MOU (that will set a framework for a much deeper collaboration between two countries on some the relevant issues that will impact climate change such as development of the hydrogen economy, electricity trade, carbon capture. He acknowledged that there are a lot both countries can do together moving forward.
AAS President- Joseph Kwok, shared the Annual Report which summarised some of the significant developments in the past year after apologising to all stakeholders for the delay in conducting this year’s AGM, which was traditionally held in March due to the COVID-19 situation. He conveyed sincere thanks to our Term Sponsors: Platinum – James Cook University, Gold – Lendlease and Silver – Trust Capital , Wine Sponsor – Wolf Blass and University Partners : Platinum – James Cook University and Silver – The University of Queensland who contributed to AAS’ success. Joseph also sincerely thanked HE Bruce Gosper, his team and Ms Lauren Hernandez from the Australian High commission for the invaluable support rendered to AAS. In his closing remarks, Joseph sincerely thanked Johnny Chee and Davian Sim for their dedication and contribution to AAS as they step down from the Management Committee.
Next to be invited by Geoff to speak was AAS Treasurer- Paul Ho, presented the highlights of the AAS 2019 audited profit and loss statement and balance sheet. Thereafter, the following Committee Members were each invited to share:
- Chair of Activities – Johnny Chee shared some highlights of the 10 Events which AAS successfully organised in 2019.
- Chair of Membership – Raj Kurup shared that in 2019, AAS performed very well and experienced another year of growth, with net increase in total membership by a whopping 216%, up from 256 to 811.
- Chair of Digital Transformation – Kevin Dam shared the key highlight of Digital Transformation initiatives that were carried out in 2019 was AAS’ website tab now links to Eventbank platform.
Clarence Lee & Ms Dipanti Das were nominated and welcomed into the management committee for 2020-21 term. Andrew Han, who held the post of AAS Auditor since 2016 stood uncontested and was re-elected for the position.
To address the last item on the agenda, AAS Legal Advisor – Jeremiah Huang ( Partner at RHT Law ) gave a very detailed and clear presentation on the reason & justification behind each of the 15 proposed changes to AAS’ Constitution. There were no questions were during the Q&A dialogue session thereafter.
Members adopted all of the resolutions submitted by Geoff for their approval via 3 virtual voting polls which were conducted during the meeting during different intervals. These concerned:
- “That the AGM Minutes for the 64th AGM be accepted and received.”
- “That the Audited Accounts for the financial year ended 31st December 2019 be and are hereby approved and adopted.”
- “That the 15 proposed changes in AAS Constitution be and are hereby approved and adopted.”
Before the meeting came to a close, Chris Cheah- Chairman of Council of Advisors took the opportunity to thank Joseph and MC for doing a great job in their efforts of raising funds for the Australian Bush Fire victims as well as their successful coffee campaigns at SGH & NUH for Singapore Frontline Fighters. He also commended that AAS’ management team has done a great job for managing the cost well.
In response to Chris positive feedback, President Joseph thanked him for the encouragement and conveyed that he and his team aspire to do more CSR programme moving forward and hope to garner the support from AAS Council of Advisors.
Both Chris and Joseph sincerely thanked Mr Jeremiah for all the hard work he had put into the Ammendment to the Constitution proposal. One of the proposed amendments in particular worth mentioning here, will enable AAS to hold virtual meetings moving forward.
There being no other matters, the meeting was declared closed at 8.03 pm with a vote of thanks to the 39 person in attendance.
Please click on the links below to access the 65th AAS AGM’s :