By Duncan Leys, President, Bulletin 09/2023, November

Prior to writing this President’s message, I went back to have a look at what my predecessor, Ian Stephenson, was writing about this time a year ago.

One matter was depressingly familiar and highlights a problem that impacts many voluntary community organisations. That is the difficulty in recruiting committee members to do the work to enable these organisations to function.

This time last year Ian was reporting that Allan Hogan had taken on the job of acting Editor of the Bulletin while we searched for a successor to Virginia Simpson-Young who had been the Editor for 10 years. Allan has now informed us that the December edition of the Bulletin will be his last and so we will need to find a new Editor.

So, if you are reading this and think you might be able to fill the Editor’s role, or if you think you would like to have a go at the role but feel you are under-qualified, please speak to me.

There are still vacancies on the Management Committee for the following positions.

  • Bays and Foreshores Convenor
  • Environment Convenor
  • Glebe Island Bridge 

I would welcome contact from any member who has an interest in these vital issues of the Society’s concerns.

As I indicated when taking on the role of President, I will be reaching out to other organisations in Glebe and Forest Lodge. This month, I joined two other members of the Management Committee to meet the new CEO of the Glebe Youth Service (GYS), Mitra Gusheh, who showed us their facilities and talked about the work they’re doing. (See separate article)

Funding is an ongoing issue for the GYS. Their ‘permanent’ funding is not indexed to inflation and while the amount remains the same, its purchasing power is declining. Over time the amount does not cover their fixed costs and so other funding needs to be found. Too much management time is spent chasing extra funding at the expense of managing and improving the services they provide.

I have written two letters in support of funding grant applications for the GYS. The applications have been to fund essential upgrades of facilities and to reintroduce a food service they had stopped. They should have been able to afford these activities from their permanent funding.

Allan Hogan and I had the privilege to judge the Glebe Society’s ‘Character of Glebe’ prize at the Glebe Art Show earlier this month. There were many outstanding entries in the category, and it was a difficult decision to pick one work above all the rest.

In the end we selected ‘Three Bridges, Glebe Point’, a watercolour by Julie Keech, as the winner. (See separate article in this Bulletin).