AGM Reports
2024 -2025
May 19th 2025
The ASM Vic branch will continue to report to our members via a detailed annual report in lieu of an Annual General Meeting. This report will cover the activities conducted between 2024-2025. Any queries or comments, please send through to vicbranch@theasm.org.au marked “AGM”. We will attempt to post these (and responses as required) in future newsletters.
Activities
Victorian ASM membership remains healthy at around 500 members, and we’re pleased to have provided several events throughout the year to support our people. These events include:
Awards: ASM Vic Branch awarded a record number of prizes this year to support the education, achievements and travel of our members. These included:
- Nancy Millis: ASM National conference travel support for a PhD candidate
- ASM ECR award: ASM National conference travel support for an ECR
- Clinical Award: Clinicon travel support
- Teaching Award: Educon travel support
- Undergraduate Academic Prizes: Awarded to the best 2nd and 3rd year microbiology undergraduates from participating Institutions
- Summer scholarships: Project support for research lab placement for ASM student members over summer
- BacPath travel award
- AusME travel award
- MGE SIG conference award
Seminars and Workshops: ASM Vic Branch also organised and supported a number of seminars and workshops since our last report, including:
- August 2024: Ocular Workshop (with AIMs), Visiting Speaker: Colin Hill, Public Health Night
- October 2024: One Health Night, Bi-State (with ASM Tas)
- November 2024: News From the Hospitals; MEEM (supported event)
- March 2025: Nancy Millis and ECR Awards night
- May 2025: News From the Hospitals
Social Functions: ASM Vic Branch also continued to support social functions for our members to come together in less formal environments, including:
- September 2024: Trivia Night
- December 2024: Christmas Party
- January 2025: Microbial mixer
We look forward to supporting all of these events and more in the next financial year, with organisation underway for the return of the Mentoring program and visiting speakers!
Finances
Our current financial position is as follows:
These costs are predominantly in our awards and the catering for the events we run, particularly as we see substantial engagement from our community (eg. 70+ participants at our awards, seminar and workshops, and 100+ at our last News from the Hospitals). The committee has discussed reductions to spending in both these categories, but aim to provide the same quality and breadth of events and awards to our membership in the upcoming year.
Committee Updates
We have had a year of turnover at the Vic Branch, bidding goodbye to long-time members Catherine Satzke (June), Mary Valcanis (September) and Maria Liaskos (November) who will move to honorary positions; and to Taylor Corocher after a year (December). Steve Petrovski has also stepped down as Chair, but fortunately remains with our committee.
Our new Committee structure consists of our executive team, supported by a general committee and teams for clinical microbiology (our Medical Microbiology Group), communications and EDI representative:
- Executive: Sarah Baines (Deputy Chair), Emily Gulliver (Secretary) and Chris Stubenrauch and Harshini Weerasinghe (Treasurer and Deputy treasurer)
- Medical Microbiology working group: Seema Kanade (lead), Sara Sujansky and Mikaela Kingston
- Communications: Jane Hawkey, Lauren Zavan and Emily Gulliver
- EDI Representative: Zahra Islam
- General Committee: Andrew Greenhill, Eliza Nikolaou, Sam Manna, Steve Petrovski
We have also just finished a round of recruitment and welcome A/Prof Senaka Ranadheera and student members Abigail Rafa Hartono, Alex Hall and Liana Theodoridis to the committee.
2023-2024
August 16th 2024
The ASM Vic branch will continue to report to our members via a detailed annual report in lieu of an Annual General Meeting. This report will cover the activities conducted between 2023-2024. Any queries or comments, please send through to vicbranch@theasm.org.au marked “AGM”. We will attempt to post these (and responses as required) in future newsletters.
Finances
In the past year the Victorian branch has increased the number of events we run for our members and are working together to ensure there is at least one event per month. In addition to the regular events that we organise such as news from the hospitals, Nancy Millis awards, trivia and Christmas parties, we have increased the number of awards for ECR’s to provide opportunities for members to attend our ASM national conference, EduCon, CliniCon, as well as AusME and BactPath. In the past year this has increased our spending and is summarized below;
• Catering costs (2023/2024) = $17,872.95
• Awards (2023/2024) = $12,486.63
• Conferences and meetings (2023-2024) = $2,022.76
• Other general expenses (2023/2024) = $716.44
A summary of our financial position is outlined below.
Updates
· The committee has increased with the addition of seven new members; Emily Gulliver (2022), Mikaela Kingston (2022), Zahra Islam (2022), Elena Colombi (2022), Eliza Nikolaou (2023) and Taylor Corocher (2023). We farewelled Elena Colombi after 12 months as she moved to NSW.
· Some of our members have transitioned to an honorary position on the ASM Vic branch committee where they provide professional advice when required, these include Karena Waller, Louise Sonneveld, Pricilla Johanesen and Catherine Satzke. Our honorary members served on the Vic branch committee for several years and have had such a positive impact on ASM and will continue to support the Vic branch when required.
· The Vic branch has worked on events and initiatives in small groups. Thanks to ‘Working Group’ (WG) leads and members in 2023-24. We revisited the working groups and have dissolved professional development, One health and Regional working groups. The events organized by the dissolved working groups will now be divided among individuals on the Vic branch committee. The following working groups continue to work in their small groups;
o Medical Microbiology, Seema Kanade (lead), Sara Sujansky, Mikaela Kingston, Taylor Corocher
o Inclusion and Engagement: Zahra Islam (lead), Harshini Weerasinghe, Sarah Baines, Andrew Greenhill, Chris Stubenrauch
o Communication, with Lauren Zavan, Jane Hawkey and Emily Gulliver
· Our Vic membership has been consistent at around 500 people
Activities
· The medical microbiology working group have organized at least two news from the hospital events twice a year and have been very successful with almost 100 attendees at the events. The events have been held at the Austin Hospital and the Northern Hospital. They have also been sponsored by external organisations.
· Nancy Millis and Vic branch prize award have been organized and held in March each year. In addition, the Vic branch have organized initiatives to fund an ECR to attend the ASM national conference, attend EduCon and CliniCon.
· Sam Manna organised the mentoring program that was rolled out in 2023. This was very successful and connected senior academics with PhD students/ECRs.
· The inclusion and engagement group are newly formed and have been working with the national committee to introduce financial subsidies and initiatives and events to support diversity.
· We have organized our annual trivia night as well as our Christmas party.
· A new event that has been introduced is the microbial mixer where we organize an event for our members to attend and meet other microbiologists within Victoria.
· In place of the one health group, we are organizing events such as pathogen night, we also sponsor MEEM which occurs bi-annually and attracts many microbiologists within Victoria.