A view from the Chair

Your 2020/2021 School Council

by Andrew McMeekin, President

Like all of us in our fair city this year, the Preshil Council has had to learn new ways to meet and perform our role for the School. Although we have managed to meet face to face a couple of times, our regular monthly meetings and all sub-committee meetings are held via Zoom; took a bit of getting used to, but we seem to be managing OK.

Councillors are elected at the AGM in May and the constitution requires a third of members to retire each year. This year our retiring members were George Anasson, Andrew Apostola and Justin Baré.

Andrew and Justin stood for election and were re-elected, however George decided to retire and I would like to take this opportunity to thank him for the contributions he made to the School in his capacity as councillor and for the support he provided to me as President on a number of occasions over the last few years.

We were able to welcome two new councillors at the AGM, Belinda Esperson and Graham Parr.

I would also like to note the contribution of Phil Winbanks, a councillor for 13 years and our Treasurer for a lot of that time. Phil has guided Principals and Business Managers over that period and has been a consistent, calm and steady influence on successive Councils. Phil has indicated that it is time to retire and will step down from Council in December.

Although we continue to concentrate on the business as usual activities, a great deal of our focus has been on assisting Marilyn, Cressida and Dan, along with the rest of your teaching and administrative staff, wherever we can to deal with the requirements of continuing to deliver a school program online during the lockdown periods.

Having had a lot of feedback from parents and students over the last few months, I know that you would join me in extending our thanks and congratulations to all of the staff for the extraordinary job they have done, and continue to do, through this difficult time.

As we may be unfamiliar to you, I asked that everyone supply a photo and short bio so that you could put faces to names.

It should be noted that, although not included below, Marilyn also holds a seat on Council on top of her role as Principal, ensuring that the group is well informed on the day to day operations of the School. Marilyn holds responsibility to the Council for the educational, strategic and financial performance of the School.