FROM THE CHAIR

While it feels like we have spent most of this year in lockdowns and rehearsing online, we were lucky enough to have two great concerts in the first half of the year, which is more than we achieved for the whole of the COVID-19 affected 2020! It is with considerable relief that we have been able to resume face-to-face rehearsals for our boys and young men, and with any luck we can hear our wonderful choirs perform again soon. It is a great credit to our Artistic Director Mr. Nicholas Dinopoulos, our Institute staff, and our General Manager Ms. Katie Whitecross that we kept the various arms of the Australian Boys Choir engaged throughout this time.

The ABCI Board has remained busy during this challenging year. Budgeting in these uncertain times is difficult, and we have been very lucky to have had Ms. Yuen Fong as our Honorary Treasurer for the last two years. She has done an outstanding job of steering the Institute through challenging financial times with repeated remodelling of the budget and various scenarios. Unfortunately, owing to increasing commitments she has decided to step down from her position as ABCI Honorary Treasurer. Happily, Ms. Deb Damman, who you may remember wrote the letter for our 2020 Christmas Giving Appeal, has agreed to return to the ABCI Board as Honorary Treasurer. Deb has performed many volunteer roles for the Choir community over the years. On behalf of the whole ABCI community I welcome Deb back to the Board and thank Yuen for her outstanding service.

In other ABCI Board news, we have also had the pleasure of welcoming Ms. Fiona Trumble as our Honorary Secretary. She replaced Mr. Dan Heerding who has taken on a variety of leadership and volunteer roles in the ABCI over many years. Fiona is well qualified for this role as a Fellow of the Governance Institute of Australia, Chartered Secretary and CPA. Fiona works in policy, risk and compliance in the independent school sector and is currently the Compliance Manager at Methodist Ladies College. The ABCI Board welcomes Fiona and looks forward to working with her in the future, and thanks Dan for his long-standing service to the Institute.

While there are many uncertainties in the short- to medium- term, we all remain optimistic that the worst of the pandemic is behind us and that the ABCI can return to its role of providing beautiful music to our loyal audiences and supporters. On behalf of the Australian Boys Choral Institute Board, I wish you a hopeful end to this year and a great 2022.

Stephen Duffy, ABCI Board Chair