ADCA - Australian Defence Colleges Association

PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

Welcome to the Australian Defence Colleges Association website, which I trust will continue to bring ADCA members the most up to date news about activity within the Association and the Australian Defence College at Weston Creek.

The Australian Defence Colleges Association Council has been actively working towards giving effect to give effect to a range of initiatives aimed at reinvigorating our Association.   The most significant of these actions was to revise the ADCA Constitution to allow ADCA to absorb the parallel Alumni organisation.   This has removed ambiguities associated with which body represents Australian Defence Colleges graduates and directing staff.   Along with the graduates of similar institutions (such as the single Service staff colleges and equivalent overseas institutions), ADC graduates and directing staff will automatically be considered ADCA ‘members’ although of course we would prefer you to become ‘financial’ members.   In this regard, Council has also acted to remove the significant overheads associated with administering annual paid memberships, opting instead for paid life memberships.   I am happy to report that the number of paid life memberships is significantly up on the number from this time last year.   Should you be reading this and not be a financial member, I encourage you to do so via the membership form on the ADCA website.   We need your contact details to stay in touch.   Meanwhile financial members will continue to receive a hard copy of Yolla and other benefits.

With regard to Yolla, I congratulate Brian Hewitt on his continuing efforts to produce our Association’s magazine.   Until recently, publication of Yolla was funded by the Australian Defence College.   However, tighter funding across Defence has limited ADC’s ability to assist us in the same ways it has done in the past.   Importantly, this does not signal a reduced lack of commitment to ADCA by the Australian Defence College with which we continue to enjoy a close and cooperative relationship.   Recognising the current and likely future financial climate, the Australian Defence College has offered to underwrite the cost of Yolla production by including it as a self-contained and separately identified supplement to the ADF Journal.   While this proposal would see Yolla cease to be a physically separate publication, it does have a number of benefits, not the least of which would be the opportunity to both produce Yolla at no cost to the ADCA and expose Yolla and the ADCA to a significantly wider audience.   (I receive similar benefits from receiving my university’s magazine and The Public Service Informant via Canberra Times.)   As cost is driving so many other publications to a web presence only, the ADC offer is very attractive, noting of course that Yolla will continue to be posted on the ADCA website.

I am interested in your views on issues such as the ADC sponsorship offer for Yolla.   To this end I have asked ADCA Council member, Group Captain Carl Nixon (Yolla Award winner for 2008) to survey our members on a range of issues associated with ADCA.   If we have your current email contact details, you will have received Carl’s survey instrument which I encourage you to complete and submit.   ADCA must remain relevant to both the needs of our members and the objectives of our Association, which, as stated in the ADCA Constitution are to:

• foster friendship, communication and understanding between members to promote ongoing domestic and international engagement between professionals engaged in international security issues,
  
  
• provide for a continuing interest by members in issues of significant defence interest, and
  
  
• maintain an avenue for contact between the Colleges and equivalent overseas institutions and graduates and former officers of their staffs.

As I indicated in my last message, the ADCA’s objectives align our organisation with the Australian Defence College’s Charter of fostering relations between graduates, both in Australia and overseas.   Our continuing relevance to those objectives makes it easier for the Australian Defence College to expend finite resources in support of ADCA.  Late last year, when attending an ASEAN Regional Forum conference in Pakistan I was reminded of the value of the ongoing contact between ADCA members.   The connection of two fellow delegates with the Australian Defence College, (COL Wasu (Thailand) DSSC 2005, and COL Aminuddin (Brunei) DSSC 2006), provided an instant connection between the three of us, and a useful basis for us to gain maximum benefit from the conference.   I expect other ADCA members will have enjoyed similar positive experiences.

The ADCA social program in Canberra, which includes our wine maker’s dinner, annual formal dinner and monthly Happy Hours enjoyed good support over the last year, the wine maker’s dinner in particular attracting record attendance.  On your behalf I thank my fellow Council members for their efforts in making such events both possible and successful.   I take this opportunity to remind ADCA members in locations outside Canberra that we are able and happy to financially support ADCA gatherings outside.

I also take this opportunity to thank Nannette Holliday and ADC staff for providing us with the ADCA’s first class website that informs our international membership.   I commend the website to you and invite you to contribute, via the ADCA mailbox your news and photos.   I also draw your attention to the nomination form for Council membership, should you wish to take the opportunity to become more closely involved in the work the ADCA Council does on behalf of the Association and its members.

AIRCDRE Ian Pearson
ADCA President