Western Australian Institute for Educational Research President's Report 2015 Susan Beltman

Tonight I complete my fourth year as President of WAIER. It has been wonderful to have what I believe is the largest ever WAIER committee of 21 members working all year to promote educational research in Western Australia through the activities of WAIER. I would just like to give a brief overview of our major achievements for 2015 and acknowledge each member's contribution. I will be mindful of time and only give a brief mention to individuals so please be aware that this is only a quick taster rather than the whole menu! We have been fortunate this year to welcome Pauline Roberts, Veronica (Ronnie) Gardener, Liz Criddle and Saul Karnovsky as new members of the committee. Already they have taken an active part in WAIER events. It was also great to have Chris Glass return to WAIER after a period away - I think this is also a first - to have a committee member return!

As President I have been delighted again to have had the support of Eva Dobozy as Vice President as well as across different activities as evidenced by her receiving the PTCWA Professional Service Award. Thanks to the other members of the executive. Anne Coffey has combined her new role as secretary with the busy one of Forum Coordinator. Greg Hine has led us efficiently - and again into profit - as our expert treasurer and managed all the membership payments and details.

Thanks to Brad Gobby, Rosana Stout and others who have contributed to the website. Now, thanks to our publicity officer, Paula Mildenhall, we also have a Facebook page. The online presence is our wider public face and it is looking pretty good!

Once again Clare McBeath and Roger Atkinson have continued their excellent work in supporting the quality of the journal IIER as well as supporting all of WAIER's other activities. Rita, Angela, Anne and Roger are Associate Editors who do copy editing and some emergency reviewing. Roger developed guidelines for this role and these are being implemented.

The big event for WAIER each year is the Annual Research Forum and this year was a special one as we celebrated 30 years of Forums. We also were able to acknowledge the publication of a book by our member Angela Evangelinou-Yiannakis. Thanks to Caroline Mansfield for hosting this part of the Forum. I must again thank the Forum Coordinator Anne Coffey. And really thanks to everyone on the committee for their support - to Roger and Clare for managing the submissions and producing the program, to Saul for looking after sponsors this year, to Michelle Murphy for the raffle coordination, to Sonja Kuzich for organising the framed certificates, to Jenni Parker for her help with the catering and to Brad for adding the relevant information to the website. If I missed your specific contribution my apologies - I do know on the day I was removed from the long line of committee members packing the bags as I was not efficient enough - what a great thing to happen!

Our Forum is also the occasion where we present our various awards and I would like to thank Rita Tognini again for her work in managing all the preparation that goes into this important aspect of WAIER. Thanks too to Anne and Leanne Fried for again assessing the Early Career Award applications.

The other key event for WAIER is the Research Seminars and this year we five seminars and had larger numbers participate. So thanks to Leanne who, with help from Michelle and other committee members, did a great job of organising these and ensuring our sponsors and speakers were well looked after.

Perhaps the highlight for me this year has been that a dream I had and mentioned in my president reports in 2012, 2013 and 2014 is actually going to be realised! That is the desire to use some of our funds to support new researchers. I really want to thank Sonja for her leadership on this and Greg, Anne and Pauline for their contribution on the working party. Sometimes change doesn't happen overnight but it does happen!

So once again thank you to all of you for your commitment and contribution to WAIER and for your creativity in thinking of new ways we can support research in our community. I look forward to working with you all again in 2016.

Thank you.

A/Prof Susan Beltman
WAIER President
November 2015