If you’ve kept up with our SCOPE newsletters and other communications activity over the past 9 months, you’d know that the ASC Executive have been running a structured discovery-led strategic review process. This has been the primary purpose of our work in 2022, and we’ve made some significant progress.
We wanted to share an update of where we are up to with this piece of work, what’s next, and a short outline of where we hope to be in the coming months.
Discovery
Initially envisioned as a series of working groups, this shifted into a series of facilitated open and closed roundtables with members and friends of the ASC. Through this process we’ve been addressing questions on what the core value of the ASC is to members, what kind of role we should play in the sector more broadly, and how to better support local activity.
We further supplemented these sessions with a suite of interviews of key stakeholders, some directed surveys, and desktop-research into our archives to understand past efforts.
While we feel we have a reasonably good grasp of the member sentiment currently, we recognise that not everyone was able to attend the roundtables or a personal interview. It is still fundamentally important to this process that we capture as many views on what the ASC could and should be into the future.
To that end, the team have put together a survey to ensure that there’s the opportunity to capture your thoughts. The survey touches on the general themes covered by the roundtables, along with some additional concepts prompted by our archive investigations.
We are keen for as many members and stakeholders of the ASC to fill in the form. Note that if you’ve already attended the roundtables, we’ve included the ability to skip over parts where you’ve already had your say.
The form is not limited to ASC members, so please share it with any who you think have an interest in the ASC.
The form will close on 1 November 2022, so get your responses in by then.
Development
Through October to December, the Executive team will be digesting all of the insights gained via discovery, and formulating our point of view on the future direction of the organisation. Building on that, we expect we will have a drafted guiding strategy document, with recommendations for a suite of constitution changes by the end of the year.
We’re also hoping to document a suite of overviews on the various discovery phase outcomes. By creating this archive, we hope that this will help simplify the role for future executive committees in their strategy development.
It is worth noting that the AGM will be held in November, and with that we are expecting some minor changes in the executive team. As such, we expect the the strategic development phase will be handed over November/December, informed by the outgoing members where appropriate. Of course, we thank all the energy that former executive members have put into the organisation.
Implementation
We hope to call a Special General Meeting in February/March 2023 to formally adopt the forward-looking strategy and the first round of any required changes to the constitution. As per constitution rules, we will be giving a formal notice to the membership prior to the changes being adopted.
After the Special General Meeting, the strategy will be considered either approved, provisionally approved (with some exceptions or amendments required), or rejected.
Changes to the Constitution will be considered approved or rejected.
Pending the outcome of these votes, the implementation phase will commence supported by the National Council.
Review
Critical to any strategy is a structured review process to ensure that it remains fit for purpose. Minor annual revisions will be scheduled as part of the AGM process, with a formal revision to be published every 5 years. The Constitution will be reviewed as required.
And that’s it
Both of us want to thank the whole membership for your valuable support through this year so far. It has been a journey and will continue to be into next year, and we thoroughly appreciate all the energy and time members have invested in this process.
If you’ve any questions or want to further engage in this process, please do not hesitate to reach out to us at presidents@asc.asn.au
Jirana & Tom