SSAA NSW

2 Sporting Shooters Association of Australia (NSW) Inc. President's Message To begin this quarterly report, I would like to thank those members who responded to my last report. I had asked for input into the strategic plan and three members called or emailed with suggestions for key goals for SSAA NSW. There were also calls or emails commenting positively on the report, which was pleasing, and there were also several emails pointing out areas we can improve. All responses were presented positively and in the case of the possible improvement's there were suggestions offered rather than just voicing a complaint. All this was very gratifying - at least 12 people read the report! Seriously though, this was almost as many responses as we got from the Open Line to the Board program from two years ago. This feedback is very healthy for our Association – please, please keep it up. Many of these suggestions will make the Board meeting agenda. We can't fix what we don't know! Email: lancem@nsw.ssaa.org.au We regret to announce the retirement of Diana Melham from her position of Executive Director of SSAA NSW. Diana has given our Association 8 ½ years of long hours, many weekends and extraordinary passion. This is a long time for anyone in a top job, especially of a member organisation that has its core structure based on firearms and the politics around firearms. Diana leaves a strong legacy. Diana has driven the change to a mature and professional organisation. Our SSAA NSW Office team, our processes, governance and financial management have all benefited from Diana's management skills while our ranges, legislation, lobbying and research have all grown under Diana's leadership. I wish Diana and her family many happy weekends together and I am sure we all wish Diana the very best in her future. Now we have a change coming in mid-December when Diana finishes up. Change creates an environment which, if managed properly, creates opportunity. As I write this, we are well along the recruitment path for a new Executive Director and we are on time for Diana and the new appointee to manage a professional transition. Our recruitment process is focussing on many of the outcomes from the recent research project written up in the last NSW Shooter Quarterly Review. The top requirement from the members who completed the research was for better lobbying of Government. Logically that means lobbying is our top criteria for the job description. We need funding for infrastructure – especially ranges, and we need legislation input to work with the legislators and Government to ensure good practical regulations for law-abiding firearms owners. After lobbying we have several important criteria beginning with our membership, with special emphasis on our volunteers. Those committee members, discipline chairmen, firearms safety trainers, range officers, range carers and all those members who contribute their time and skills to help their Branch and our Association. Without these volunteer members this Association would not exist. Our SSAA NSW Office is also vital to our future success. The processes, governance and financial management that Diana has built, along with a dedicated team of enthusiastic staff will continue to provide specialist service to our members and volunteers. Public relations are also something that is identified in the research. We have made good ground in our media coverage with the drive to differentiate law-abiding firearms owners from criminals. But clearly, we have a lot more to go to normalise our sport with the media and the general public. The future of our sport requires the whole sport to work together and our future growth and influence requires funding beyond the current membership model. These are the top line criteria for the new Executive Director key skillsets for our unique organisation. Recently I read something that is having a significant impact on our sport. The book was about population growth and the stand out quote was that "in my lifetime the world's population will increase by 2.5 times to 3 times". This is a stunning statistic. It took 65,000 years for the population to grow to one billion around 1800 AD. 200 years latter we are looking around at 8 to 9 billion people.

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