Vision Australia 2023 AGM Special

room to people in person. Zoom video streaming and online via YouTube. This was then followed up by an acknowledgement of country, before Justine returned to outline the protocol behind questions. At the meeting, before taking a roll call and listing the apologies. Justine then handed the floor to outgoing chair Andrew Moffatt, who welcomed everybody in attendance, and after announcing the confirmation that the meeting had reached a quorum, formally

declared the meeting open. Andrew commenced formalities by noting that the notice of Annual General Meeting has been sent to all members, and took the notice as read. Andrew then took the opportunity to welcome his fellow directors, as well as co-opted committee members and senior management, and invited the

directors to go around the room and introduce themselves. Following the conclusion of those introductions, Andrew briefly returned to further extend these welcomes, and ordinarily, in past years, this was the time for Andrew to make some informal observations about the year just gone. However, things are a bit different this year as Andrew is now stepping down as chair of Vision Australia, so you'll certainly hear from Andrew later

on in the program. But before that, Andrew introduced somebody with whom he has had a very close personal and professional association over the past decade, vision Australia CEO Ron Hutton, who you'll hear from right now. Thank you very.

independence and social inclusion. Everything we do contributes to one or more or all of those aims that we have for people who are blind to have low vision. As an organisation, we divide our organization's goals up into three parts. We have goals for service excellence, goals for an engaged workforce and for business performance. Because we can't forget the

head part of our organisation. These three are interconnected. What we understand very clearly is that we can only provide excellent services with the best possible clinical people in our organisation, and we have marvellous people in our organisation. Many of you will have encountered them. Those engaged people like to work on the best possible services and deliver the best possible quality of service to their clients. When we get

those two pieces right, business performance follows. Over the next few minutes. I'm going to comment on those areas in just a couple of our strategic initiatives that we're very, very proud of. I mentioned before that we provided 37,341 people with service, and that's underpinned by an absolute focus on quality. Our clinical governance approach ensures that we deliver services to that high, very high quality that people deserve

and need. Levels of client satisfaction for our services exceed 95%, and that's been consistent over the last five years that we've been measuring. We've also met every single quality standard, every compliance standard from the NDIS aged care system system, any other system that audits us every single time, we do brilliantly. And I think that's a tribute to the service providers we have, but also the service excellence team that we have who do a remarkable job making sure

that we do a remarkable job for our clients. We have a brilliantly engaged workforce. As I mentioned before, we couldn't deliver the high quality services that we do without that engaged workforce. Culture is a vitally important part of our current and our future success. Very proud to report that the Net Promoter Score for our organisation, the Employee Net Promoter Score is plus 31 zero, is considered about par.

And that feels really good to have that incredibly strong commitment to Vision Australia and our mission amongst our team that are delivering those services. Another thing in the engaged workforce area that we're very, very proud of is that approximately 14% of our workforce is blind or has low vision. That's 119 people in our organization. They bring value lived experience to our strategy, to our thinking, and to our

service delivery. This isn't a token thing. Every single one of them has got a very real job in our organization. They're paid competitive salaries for what they do. And there are a really important element in our success because those people provide advice, they provide guidance. They provide the deepest possible insight you could possibly have in how we shape

our services. So I'm very, very grateful to have that part of our workforce very prominent, and 119 people probably makes us the largest open employer of blind and low vision people in Australia. In terms of business performance. I describe Vision of Australia as an ambitious organisation. We're very proud to sustain, year on year, the level of services that we provide to the blindness and low vision community in an environment where inflation has gone through the roof.

There are many organisations who have decided that the approach to break even is to cut services. I'm delighted that we've taken a different approach. Our ambition comes at a cost, though. We work very, very hard to break even and this year we nearly got there. So we had a small deficit, a deficit of $900,000. But that in the context that our net assets as an organisation increased by $11.6 million,

and we have now 269,000,000in net assets. So we're a safe and secure and strong organisation from a financial perspective that's still able to deliver those services at the same or better level of quality and volume, year on year. The next few years, there's going to be some really big headwinds. No one seeing inflation disappearing any time soon, and we're going to struggle for that financial sustainability. But what I know in our organisation is that we're going

to put services first. We're going to make sure that we get as many services out to as many people at a preserved level of quality as we possibly can. Cyber security has probably been on the minds of many people over the last few years. It's been very much a focus for our organisation in terms of attention and investment. We've been working very, very diligently to protect the information that we hold on behalf of clients, our staff and our donors. We meet all of the government standards for

cyber security. We've implemented cyber defence capabilities, cyber management capabilities, including impressive surveillance of of our borders, and also governance processes that are very much commensurate with how we operate as an organisation and our risk profile. We don't think for a moment the cyber journey is over. That will never be over. But we're very, very vigilant about how we operate through the year. We deliver a project that

both Andrew and I are very, very proud of. It's called The Life Ready Program, and it's a program that's very much about children. It's a program that's been three years in the making and focuses our services for children on building a range of skills. These skills are defined in a concept called the Expanded Core curriculum. That's nine areas of life skills that a person who is blind or has low vision needs to succeed. And it's across

three life stages preschool, primary school, and secondary school. Our aim is that every single child in Australia gets the benefit of our services and is able to develop the skills that they need to be successful in education, in employment, in independence and social inclusion. The Life Reading program focuses a lot on employment and building employment skills from a very,

very young age. In fact, if we had the opportunity to talk to a parent on the day that their child was born and it was discovered that they had blindness or low vision, we would probably somehow in that conversation about hope and future progress, would build a comment about jobs, because we think that the best way to solve the problem that we have today of half the blindness and low vision population in Australia being unemployed, is

to actually get it right for the kids. And then very shortly, I'll be talking about the next stage, which is getting it right for the adults. The Life ready program that we have is also supported by a digital platform.

It's a first, and what it does is connects all of our clients and all of our families with an amazing set of resources and communication into our therapists, and is basically a platform for binding people into the services and providing them with the support that they need through worksheets, through videos, through games, through all sorts of tools that those families can use. As I mentioned, the next stage is career ready. Career ready is the extension of the

Life Ready program to encompass adults. Now, many would probably say that the expanded core. Curriculum that includes things like orientation and mobility. Accessible technology skills is equally applicable to Australians of a working age, and I think that's absolutely

the case. We've started our adult employment program under Amelia Utqiagvik, and what we're going to be doing over the next three years is developing a really, really sophisticated and beneficial program for people who are blind to have low vision, who are seeking a job or seeking to advance in their current job. I'm very pleased to report that through the course of the year, we completed our first Reconciliation

Action plan, our Reflect Reconciliation Action Plan. We completed 30 of the 31 actions and the 31st action is under underway at the moment. Reconciliation Australia, the organisation that governs Reconciliation Action plans, has approved the next stage for us our Innovate Reconciliation Action Plan and our commitment remains ever strong to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities of Australia. Our services in Alice Springs have continued on, as I

reported last year. In Central Australia, we have a service provider who works very closely with the Congress organisation there and is firmly embedded in their service delivery. We've also commenced services and Broome with the Lions Outback Vision organisation and providing services to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities through that organisation. Well in turn to some thank

you messages. As I conclude, our clients and our client reference group are an absolutely essential part of our organisation. We highly value every single one of our clients, and I'll talk a little bit later about the client Reference group. But some of you are represented here today. Our appreciation. My personal appreciation is very high for the contribution you make to our organisation. We have donors who contribute generously.

We fundraised somewhere north of $40 million last year, which makes this a very large fundraiser in the sector and we're pleased to be able to bring that level of investment from Australians into the blindness and low vision community, because the need is very definitely there. We have a fantastic group of volunteers, so we have around about 2000 volunteers. They come in all shapes and sizes in terms of their roles, radio and seeing our dogs are very prominent

and particularly our puppy raisers. And through seeing our dogs. 2 million volunteering hours are contributed every single year. So thank you to our volunteers. I have 850 fabulous colleagues in our organisation and I rate every single one of them. We work as a team to deliver on our mission, and I want to pass on my thanks to every single one of my colleagues in our organisation who do a fantastic job. And finally, to our board, we say farewell to Andrew today and we welcome Amber and I'm

delighted by that. Sad to see you go, Andrew, very, very much. But I'll talk about that a little bit later. Our board is nine people, and the workload for volunteering on our board is very significant. We have long, arduous meetings. We're running a complex organisation. We're a big organisation, and I can only pass on my incredible gratitude for, first of all, the commitment, because every single one of our

board members is absolutely committed to our mission. Every single one of them is incredibly professional and in the capability that they bring to the board. And really, I think my final comment would be I couldn't think of having a better board. So thank you very much to all of you. It's very much valued.

floor for questions. However, there were none forthcoming. As such, the meeting returned to company secretary Justine Heath, who announced the election of directors, including the real action of Bill jolly and so banks. It was further announced that following the conclusion of Andrew Moffat's term as chair, that Bill

Joly would become the new chair of Vision Australia. And finally, Justine was pleased to announce the election of a new board member, Amber Collins, who you'll briefly hear from right now.

on retail and logistics. I have three children here in Melbourne where we've resettled. My eldest son was born with glaucoma, very limited vision and subsequently lost his vision in 2000 2019. I have a daughter who's up in Anu and a young one doing VCA. I've spent my entire career focused on customers, in this case clients. I'm absolutely obsessed on improving outcomes that every single experience and interaction that people

have with this organisation. I've been a customer of Virgin Australia, and I've been a customer of various other organisations in the sector in the NDIS. NDIS. I understand the problems that people, many people face. So I feel like I can hopefully bring not just my passion and commitment for the sector but also a very, very much a client based view on on how it feels to be served by organisations such as Vision Australia. I'm super, super proud

to be part of it. I'm thrilled that Andrew and Bill have put their faith in me, and I'm hoping that I can contribute widely and deeply on a number of issues and serve my board colleagues who I hold in great regard. Well, I look forward to meeting you over the years ahead. Thank you very much.

and you know, I'll stand corrected. I guess my original thoughts of what I was going to do as part of the client reference group have really been blown away.

And I stand here six years down the track, having really gotten involved in the business of Vision Australia and and truly understand how hard Vision Australia works to make things happen and the complexity of all the funding sources like the NDIS and my aged care, you know, and their constant changing and all that sort of stuff and vision Australia has to adapt and change all the time, and I just really applaud the amount of effort by the staff and the management and the board that goes

into ensuring that they can still provide the best products and services and support for all the clients. So a lot of the time when I first joined, I thought, well, I didn't really know what I was going to be doing. And I walked in here six years ago and I was a bit nervous and all that sort of stuff. Anyway, over the course of the last six years, I think the CRC has evolved, I think, between the and the

board and the management. We've both realised that there's a great opportunity to really use the lived experience of the CRC and our greater client base to look at making everything work a lot better, to get the lived experience, the feedback, to really use that information to work like a co-design situation, to just improve things and be agile

and provide the best service. And for what I've been involved in, like this year, there's been some strategic projects, and the CRG gives lots and lots of its time to, I guess, give their input and feedback to help Vision

Australia make sure the projects succeed. One of the first projects that we got involved in this year was that it was on Employment, and Vision Australia, were in an ideation workshop down here in February, and while the CRG attended and quite a few other stakeholders, and it was a two day event and I can tell you we worked really hard. But it was an amazing experience and I know there was a lot of good outcomes from that.

And since then there's been another workshop and quite a few focus groups and all that sort of stuff in the new employment program that is being developed is going to be sensational. I guess I'm a real advocate for it. I lost my vision eight years ago, pretty late in life, and I work full time. I'm an engineer and I didn't know how I was going to keep working, and that's why it's close to my heart. I managed somehow to retain my job and keep moving forward. But there's

many people. I mean, I do a lot of quality living groups and peer support, and I meet many people that have lost their sight later in life, and they just don't know how to get a job or retain their job. And unfortunately, there's many that just don't. And so I think the importance of this new employment program is so good. I think it's going to make a huge difference to the blind and low vision community. Some of the other things that we've been involved in is

around emotional support. As Ron mentioned, there's the new program that's come out for the kids. There's a lot of work being done around older Australians where they're developing, trying to share the quality living process with peer support through the aged care providers and help the older Australians deal with vision loss. There's lots of things around, emotional support

and again, it's very close to my heart. As I say, I'm very involved in quality living and the impact of vision loss is huge and we all need the support when we need it. Just just to round out, I guess I'm moving into the last year of my tenure on the Client Reference group, and this year we've had three new members join. That's Kim Brown Alps and Sam Byrne. You know, I've got to know them over the last

couple of days. And one of the key attributes that you need to be part of the client reference group is passion. And these guys exude passion. And when I do finally step away from the client reference group at the end of this time next year, I'm sure I'll be leaving the group in good hands with those guys. So I'd just like to welcome them officially to the group and wish them all the best in the future.

important our 2000 volunteers are to delivering our mission. And I know Ron highlighted that significantly, that volunteer group is is very visible in terms of in terms of dogs and in terms of radio. But so many things where we're trying to deliver our mission and help people, the support of their peers is incredible in, in technical skills, in, in emotional adjustment and in terms of simply not feeling isolated, not feeling I'm the person, the first person to have

gone on this journey. So Paul, it was a very timely reminder, and I know your personal contribution to that. Peer support staff has been invaluable. And and I know that will continue to be very core part of our service operating. And just to also describe when I said that Ron was nodding. So I'd also whilst we're whilst we're on the side, I'd also like to acknowledge and

thank Nadia Matthias. So who I think Ron would like to say a few more words, so I will now welcome back to the podium for Ron to talk about the bursaries and the career start graduates and and also the Virgin Australia Award recipients. Thank you.

professional in your own right. You're a chief executive in your own right. You provide expertise and leadership within the disability sector every single day. And to have that on our side is just absolutely a remarkable gift, and we thank you for that. We're also, Nadia, very, very grateful for you being a regular participant in our induction days. So we run very special induction days. And they're about

inducting people to the culture of our organisation. And Nadia's role in those induction days quite often is to come along and kind of be a target for a whole bunch of questions that people want to ask about blindness and low vision. And I haven't sat in one of those sessions, but they're actually more highly rated than my own session. Nadia, in the induction. Because what they get is real life stories matched with just a whole lot

of humour and that wicked sense of humour. Nadia, I'm certainly going to miss because we have a lot of fun together. So thank you very much for your participation in the SIG, and I look forward to seeing you at the footy some time soon. But it turned to bursaries each year. Vision Australia, over the last 27 years has presented bursaries to students of all ages, beginning their study, beginning in the tertiary. Studies. We've done 486 bursaries in total.

They're up to about $10,000, and they fund the accessible technology that's needed for students to complete their studies. And they level the playing field between a person who is blind or low vision and their sighted peers. We're delighted this year to award 16 bursaries, and those are supported by generous donors right across the country. The names of the bursary recipients are going to be recorded in the minutes. We also have a really important career start graduate program.

It's called the Ian Paul Career Start Graduate program, after a gentleman who supported us philanthropically for many years and left us a great deal in his estate. He provided the initial seed funding for for this program and just has made a remarkable contribution. We've had well over 40 people through this program over the over the ten years that's been operating, and there has only been one person

out of those who has not completed the program. Graduates spend their first nine months working at Virgin Australia and then do a three month placement with another organization. We've we've probably employed about ten of the 40 back end division in Australia because they're just that good. And the remainder have gone on and got great jobs. So we congratulate Tristan Browne, Tristan Bowen, sorry, Joe Lennox, Olivia Mitchell, Jessie Much Raju and Grace Hobbs on being part of

our graduate program. And I was talking to the Pet Barn people the other day and even about six months ahead of Olivia, being eligible to go out to them. They're already planning about how they're going to bring into their organizations. So she's absolutely rocked her, her interview. So congratulations to all of you. I'd like to turn now to the Vision Australia Awards. We present each year, Vision Australia Awards to people who have made a significant contribution

to the blindness and low vision community. And we do these in three categories. We have individual awards, we have youth awards and we have organisational awards. This year we have three awards and I'm going to announce these now. Andrew's kind of let the cat out of the bag a little bit by saying that he's he's going to get hers. So he'll have to wait till last to get his. The first Vision Australia award is to a

gentleman called Richard Lyle. Richard Lyle is a part of the black and white committee of double Bay, and they have for 85 years raised funds for predecessor organisations consistently for children who are blind or have low vision in the New South Wales and broader Australia. Richard Lyle has volunteered for the Black and White Committee for 55 zero of those years, and that is pretty much a remarkable

contribution as a regular. He's a regular master of ceremonies, and pretty much every event that I go into, and probably every event you go to Larry because you've done a few of those. You, Richard, is the person running the events. Richard can't be with us today. They're running in one of their regular lunches at Otto's in Sydney in a few weeks time, and I'm going to present him his Vision Australia award at that event. Our second award today is for Lara. Natalie. Lara, you're in the

audience here. Are you going to come up? Why don't you come on up? Kate's going to put a microphone in your hand. Because I might just get you to say a few words. Lara, you're a role model for so many young Australians who are blind or low vision. I've known you for, I think, seven years now, and I've seen you grow, which has been absolutely fantastic. You're

an accomplished performer. You've been on Carol's by Candlelight last year, and you're going to be performing again this year on Carols by Candlelight.

from Platinum Creative, um, for being. I'm very supportive managers. For Duncan's my manager, and they're both here today, so thank you.

the United Kingdom, which has been quite exceptional. It's about the role model that you create for so many people, and I know that you're not part of the conventional blindness community, but what you are is, I think, probably an elite sportsperson. Anybody who rides a bike at the speed that you do with the site you have, there's got to be a lead in something. But I think you mentioned to us last night that you also fenced

for Australia, so that probably puts you up there. But you've also had a remarkable career, first in investment banking, and now you're one of Australia's most respected commercial mediators. And to my mind, that inspires many, many to, to to achieve to the same, same level. You have you provided remarkable leadership to our organisation. We've been through the

last ten years, you and I together. But you've been on the board 12, and I can't imagine a time ever where organisations like ours have gone through quite such a dramatic change. We had the NDIS come along, we had a pandemic wander all the way through. We've as an organisation grown incredibly and delivered some great products and built our organisation over that time, and you have been

an enormous part of that, that success. Our fundraising people wanted to me to pass on their grateful thanks for how good a fundraiser you are, an absolutely remarkable networker at events, and probably the characteristic that I'd like to bring out most is, is that we never, ever are going to wonder about you in terms of what you think and, and also also your your absolute commitment to our organisation, the enormous enthusiasm you put into everything, your

willingness to to talk to anybody. If I was to ring up Andrew and say, hey, we've got a five year old boy who lives in Alice Springs who'd like to have a chat to someone who's an investment banker. Andrew would probably fly there to have that conversation as opposed to on the telephone. So, Andrew, your willingness to contribute to our community has just been remarkable over the last 12 years. And I'm sure for the other 13 years that you were part of action for blind people

in the United Kingdom. I'm going to stop there because it's just becoming a fraction emotional for me. I present you with your business award, and you can now talk for as long as you want.

some lunch and make no sorry. Only kidding. So I, as some of you will remember when I was first chair these Vision Australia Awards. So this one, for those of you who can't see, is basically the Vision Australia logo turned into a piece of perspex that would break your foot if you dropped it. It used to be a cylinder that looked like a kind of unexploded bomb, and the first couple of times when I was chairing,

I was giving a Vision Australia awards. I don't know whether any of you remembered I tried to milk such comedies.

I could get from describing audio description, which was accurate, but possibly not entirely absence of sarcasm, but I'm not sure what I can say about this, actually, other than I will be asking somebody like Bill next time I see him to check that the Braille is actually in accordance with the handwriting, which I shall be reading with my magnifying glass, but I'm very thrilled to get it. So yeah, look, deeply emotional moment for me. And there

are some things that I would like to say. When I arrived, there was some fairly obvious recent, I think, trauma, it's fair to say, within the board and across the organisation. And there was also some, some real uncertainty about what the NDIS might mean. So I think I joined at a at a time when there was, I mean, as always, in an organisation like this, there's an opportunity to make

a difference. But there really was in this particular case, fairly shortly after I joined the board, decided we need a change of executive leadership. And through a process, Ron joined us. An extraordinarily energetic and an extraordinarily energetic man, as we discovered a great listener. But at the time, if anyone can remember, I know lots of staff have

been here. We're very good at retaining wonderful people. So I know a lot of the staff were were listening to Ron when he first joined in this bizarre mixture of kind of military jargon and hospital clinical speak, and then a few IT terms put in, all delivered in a New Zealand accent, which was very bewildering. But, you know, we worked through that. What we did discover from Ron is the speech was a bit odd, but the listening

was incredibly acute. And Ron spent a lot of time understanding the staff, understanding our clients, understanding our mission, and fairly soon we started to see the fruit of of that listening. And so there was a, I think, a very energetic, receptive discussion between Ron and the board and the management team. And we started to see, I think,

the fruits of that quite quickly, in fact. So there was some some practical stuff, the most obvious one being as the NDIS was initially rolled out to to two and then three trial sites, I thought a fantastic next step of creating Vision Australia test sites that were in those trial locations, so that we had an ability to work with the very first wave of people who were blind or had low vision in Australia, who were within

the NDIS and within those test sites. The staff were, I guess, liberated from the normal structures and processes of the rest division in Australia and encouraged to try stuff, including stuff that might not work. And I thought that was outstanding and very much, I think the foundations of what have been embedded today, in many cases can be seen from what we've learned in those places. So that

was the first thing. There was a strategic element as well that has been initiated back then and has really stood the test of time, and that is as a result of a long period of, again, intensive listening to clients and working with staff and what have you, which the board was intimately involved with also, and that that confirmed that where we should focus at what was important for our clients were those four domains that still drive,

I think, our strategic thinking today. So focusing on employment, focusing on education, focusing on independence and on social inclusion. And just to remind everybody who was here at the time, we didn't go in with those as foregone conclusions and then suffer from confirmation bias by trying to get people who. That that's actually that makes sense to them. Actually. We listened.

And in fact, the the emphasis on social inclusion, which has been a very important driver in everything we've done since then, that emphasis was materially more from our clients than we'd expected going in. So we had we had, of course, some kind of ideas of what might come out of it. But we listened and we realized that actually our clients would like us to focus slightly differently than than we might otherwise have decided to do. So

that was the strategic element. And then the third aspect was the the cultural element I still have sitting on my desk in my office in the city, a Virgin Australia mouse mat, which, like all good mouse mates, has little circles on with things written on them and the five values that that drive everything we do today. And again, they were they were extraordinarily catalytic things. They weren't the

normal stuff, you know, integrity and whatever. You know, the normal waffling motherhood statements that lots of organizations tend to adopt as values, they were real. They drove change. So stuff like agility, customer focus, accountability, these kind of things. They have, again, provided a clear message for our staff where we see them working with clients, with the organisation. And those cultures have been clear enablers for us, for

everything we've done since. So that's the foundation now then, you know, rolling forward over the coming ten years. What do I think are the defining features of a Vision Australia firstly, and Ron spoke about it before ambition. Now the ambition I think is a virtuous, challenging but a

virtuous cycle. Our message to our clients, some of you in this room, but all the others to our message to our clients, is you may be blind or have low vision, but you can be ambitious for yourself in whatever area in which you choose to live your life. So we are empowering and encouraging and enabling our clients to be more ambitious, but in order to be able to then support them in fulfilling those ambitions, we in

ourselves have to be more ambitious. We have to do more and better in more places, with more people in different ways. And so that ambition is constant. So somebody I'm getting lots of people asking me how I feel about leaving the place. And the answer is, yeah, it's it's emotionally challenging. But one of the things is there is no concept at Vision Australia to say, well, we've

got it all sorted now. I've known for well, I mean, it didn't occur to me when I joined the board that I'd ever be chair, but but even if I had known that, I would have known 12 years was the maximum. But there's no concept to say, okay, Andrew, put your skates on, work out, work up to October 2023 and have everything fixed. Because as soon as we achieve one thing, we find ourselves striving to do more and better in furtherance of our mission than we have

done before. And I think that's a wonderful thing. I think Amber talked about it, and you can see, I think every single utterance, I hope from everyone at Vision Australia that that ambition is felt at an organizational level, but also at a personal one. The second characteristic I'd like to talk about is a willingness to make decisions.

And that should be something we take for granted. But it was astonishing when The Andrew and Ron Show first went on the road and we started talking to other organizations in our sector and other organizations in the disability sector in particular, as the NDIS was starting, and we think, okay, you know, we've worked on this. We're bringing the finest minds we have and our best hypotheses, but it would be really good to to get understandings. And it was astonishing, Ron,

wasn't it. Every single one of them was saying, oh, we don't know. We're just going to wait to see what happens. I think really we were we were sitting there, we were saying, okay, what do we think might happen in the future? What are the doors we need to keep open? What are the doors we should close? What are the risks that we need to prepare for? We're not willing to just be blown around by fate and wait, subject to whatever decisions might happen. Because the people who

will suffer from that are fundamentally not Vision Australia. It's all our clients. And if we just sit passively and wait to to see what happens for a whole lot of people, the uncertainty will fall on them. And I think in that case, we fail to make our deliver our mission. So one thing I think with Vision Australia that I have noted I am proud of and I believe I've been part of, is ensuring that we make decisions. We look at the facts, we we look at our mission.

We gather as much information as we can, but we still haven't managed to have a crystal ball, Ron, have we? We're taking expectations about the future and making plans, but we are making decisions and implementing those decisions vigorously until such time as we discover we get different data and then we we adjust our decisions. And I think that's important. And for those of you who've been involved in other organisations,

I'm hoping you will. You will see that that's something that Vision Australia stands out in, because certainly lots of lots of organisations in the in the not for profit sector and indeed in the commercial sector struggle with decision making. And I think, I think Australia, Australia is struggling with that at the moment even as a nation. So one of the other things I'd like to say is we we've also one of our characteristics is to be opportunistic.

It's funny opportunism. It seems to be regarded. It's used as a kind of term of abuse. You're being opportunistic. But actually I can't imagine what you do with an opportunity other than take it. If it was a good one. It's never made any sense to me. Why that seems to be a corporate insult, but we've looked at opportunities

when they've come up. So in every case, tying back to remember the four strategic priorities that we've identified and the overarching mission that drives everything and how we respond. So we're an organisation that's ambitious, we're organisation with that's well led, and we're occasionally an organisation that's lucky and I think that's a good thing. We should embrace that.

Of course I need to thank some people. I mean actually I need to to thank a list of people that's way longer than Justine's roll call and fraught with danger, because no matter how many people I try and thank individually, I'll miss somebody. And that would be inadvertent, but I understand that would be wounding. So therefore I'll go the other way. I'm only going to namecheck two people here. The first is Ron as as Ron mentioned, he and

I have worked very closely since he joined. It was an odd day when Ron joined because I wasn't there was a there was a board subcommittee that was charged by the board with choosing the chief executive, and they weren't quite as consultative as the rest of the board thought they were going to be. So my first meeting with Ron was, yeah, we're going to bring the candidate in for the board meeting, but you've only got 20 minutes because he's signing his contract in HR upstairs thought, okay,

it's that kind of consultation, I get that. Tough, tough way to start, Ron. But we've we seem to have got into a rhythm one way or other over the time. My my relationship with Ron is a very organic one. So we we we have I think over the years, as you would expect, a pretty good idea of the areas where we can benefit from consulting each other. We tend not to kind of arrange chats. We simply call each other. And if I missed a call from Ron or he's missed a call from me, we'll call back.

And it might be at 7:30 a.m. or 9:09 p.m., but that that tends to be okay, because my assumption is that if Ron calls me, it's not to discuss the weather and vice versa. So we speak often organically, and I think that's been wonderful. We challenged. Each other a lot. There have been times when people have suggested that we. We look like we agree with each other too much, but actually in reality, you know, the, the, the proverbial swan, you know, cruising smoothly on the surface

and kicking like mad, invisible under the water. So we test our thinking with each other. Eye test on behalf of the entire board. Ron's thinking on topics, and Ron has become very comfortable testing his thoughts on Vision Australia.

You know, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year. And through that process that I think has driven the messages that Ron is sending back to the management team and how the organization is managed and, and very much then the messages that the board needs Ron to have and that needs Ron to be thinking about. I think that's worked really well. So it's been extraordinary. I'm going to

miss it very much. It has been, I suspect, well, certainly the the closest and probably longest relationship I've had in my, in my commercial life. And, and I very much hope and I believe that it's been one that has worked well for the organization and its mission. But, Ron, I'm going to miss it. And I wish you hadn't said about being emotional earlier, because that doesn't help. The second thing, second person that I'd like to namecheck, of course,

is Bill now. So Bill's governance career at Virgin Australia very much interconnects with mine because of course I'd met Bill in my early time on the board. But Bill first joined our formal governance structure when I was chair of the audit, Finance and Risk Committee, and Bill joined

that before he became a director eight years ago. So Bill and I have worked very closely on the audit, Finance and Risk Committee bill, as we all know, is a formidable intellect, incredibly knowledgeable about the blindness world, but also incredibly open minded as well. And it's a rare privilege for us as an organization to have somebody who can be so aware of history but not constrained by it.

So it was only natural that when the board asked me eight and a bit years ago, whether I would consider taking over the chair entirely unexpected, my first response was, and Ron was my was. Ron was right to say, I don't see myself in any way and have not been a member of the blindness community. So I was very keen to make sure that Vision Australia's. Message reputation status in the blindness community was not undermined by having somebody who's got some kind of vision, at least standing

at the lectern like this. So I spoke to Bill in good Bill and Andrew Way over a beer at the Keong Lawn Tennis Club across the road, and asked Bill, put this on the table. I said, Bill, you know, I've been asked about this. The only scenario under which I would consider taking the chair is if the blindness

community would would be very supportive of that. If it makes it look like the organization's focus is drifting away from our core mission, then I'm doing the organisation a disservice by taking that role, and Bill assured me I can't remember the precise words he used, but but broadly speaking, the blindness organisation like the organisation, the blindness community, like the organisation as a whole cares about my ability and the fact that I can also see a little bit,

you know, isn't necessarily seen as a disqualifier. And so Bill and I have had a fabulous organization, a fabulous relationship for the whole time I've been on the chair. Bill has been a person who's been my go to when I need counsel about the blindness community when we have fires, fires to fight, which happened from time to time. I have always been very comfortable asking Bill advice. Bill has always been very comfortable imposing advice on me, even if I didn't ask for it. And that has been

fabulous and foundational. And and Bill, I couldn't be more pleased to to pass across leading the organization to you. And I look forward to keeping in touch over the coming, the coming years, so that you'll be relieved to know.

Nearly brings me to the end of my discussion. Of course, I'd like to thank all the other people who went to name so my fellow directors who are on the board now, and those people who've been on the board during the rest of my tenure, of course, the staff, all of our volunteers, our clients who've engaged with me very generously in lots of. Ways our donors. I'd like to thank everyone. It has been a wonderful process and

I've always felt very, very welcomed. And I've always found I've had very energetic discussions and I've been getting a tsunami of emails and texts over the last day, which which every time brings a lump to my throat. Finally, I would like to address the future and what gives me enormous confidence about Vision Australia going forward. I mean, apart from all the other stuff that I've been talking

about the last few minutes. But Ron's right. So I have apparently about 15% vision and yes, he's right, I fence and and I cycle. I haven't been cycle racing for a few years, but at various points in my life I cycle race and not on the back of

a tandem on the front of a bike, of course. So. And people who who know me socially, who are aware of them socially or professionally, who are aware of that, they look at me and they think something doesn't make sense because you don't seem like a complete idiot, but you do this stuff. Now, just to be clear, I am not remotely in the same league in terms of lunatic risk taking as Kevin Murphy or Chris Edwards. Okay, different level, but I'm asked this quite often, how do

you do that? And my message is. Actually, if you're riding a bicycle reasonably quickly. If you know the direction you're intending to head. If you look as far enough ahead as you can, then. You encounter something? Something, you hit a pothole or whatever, then. What you have to do is hold your nerve. If you break suddenly. If you try and swerve. You'll probably crash. Sometimes you'll crash anyway. But. You know your direction. You get back and you continue. Okay,

now that has got me here. Cycling for most of my life. A few days short of my 57th birthday. So that's been my strategy. And if I turn that strategy to Vision Australia, I think it maps perfectly. Vision Australia knows its mission. Absolutely. It looks far ahead. It's it's looking to looking ahead where it needs to go,

making the decision that it needs to get there. Armed with a group of people who know that there will be uncertainties that come up in our way, and obviously Covid was one of them, but only one, there will always be more. And when those uncertainties come, don't forget the direction you're needing to head. Deal with the obstacles you have and pick up. And I think Vision Australia is better equipped to do that than any other organisation I can imagine, in any sphere, anywhere in the world.

So I know I leave the blindness community in good hands. So thank you.

2023 Annual General Meeting closed. And that concludes this talking vision. Special highlights of the 2023 Vision Australia Annual General Meeting. The recording of the entire AGM will be available shortly on the Vision Australia website. Vision australia.org that's Vision Australia or one word.org. Remember as well that you can tune in to Talking Vision each week on a Vision Australia Radio, the Vision Australia Radio website as well as the Vision

Australia library and wherever you find your podcasts. This has been a Vision Australia radio production. Thank you very much to Ed Gamble, Dale Simpson, Mark Ridout, Kate Davies and Sanjeev Rajendran for your invaluable organisation and production skills which make this program possible. On Sam Cully, it's been an absolute pleasure to be with you today, but until next time it's bye for now.