RSL Queensland Annual Report 2020

11 Continued on next page Robert Skoda Interim CEO, RSL Queensland / CEO’S REPORT RSL Queensland Annual Report | 2020 Year In Review CEO's Report We began 2020 with such enthusiasm at RSL Queensland. Off the back of the excellent work undertaken the previous year to develop our Strategic Plan, we had a bright and ambitious year ahead planned. And I’m so proud to be able to say that there was a lot of positivity throughout the year, despite the challenges we faced due to COVID-19. There’s been a clear indication of resilience across the entire business, which is remarkable given any number of market and economic factors that have impacted many businesses this year. From when we first started to feel the impacts of the pandemic in March, right through to the end of the year, RSL Queensland as an organisation – and our people – have been incredibly resilient. Not only have we continued to operate, but we’ve also shown growth and incredible strength as we continue to progress towards the goals of our Strategic Plan. The first horizon of the Strategic Plan runs from January 2020 to June 2021, and in the first 12 months of the horizon we have achieved so much. This time period was about securing the future of the membership in Queensland by reimagining the membership model and reinvigorating the brands. In line with our strategic goals of relevance, influence and sustainability, and with our new purpose in mind – "A bright future and enduring legacy for all veterans and their families" we focused our efforts in 2020 on understanding who our customer is and ensuring we were structured in the right way to enable us to extend our support to our membership base and beyond. We established a whole new Membership and Network portfolio to do just that. The Membership and Network team have done incredible work to strengthen relationships between State Branch and Sub Branches, and restore some of the trust that we know had been lost over time. Our organisation has never had the level of this resourcing before. Our priority is a deeper understanding of how we can better support Sub Branches and Districts, and provide tangible and tactical solutions to some of their challenges. We’ve seen some great results of this work play out in 2020, and it will only get better into the coming years. We also focused on how we can enhance our embedded service delivery programs by considering the services we provide and making sure that they’re effective and are reaching as far and wide as they need to. We changed the title of Veteran Services to Service Delivery to make sure that it is understood that we are an organisation for former and current serving Defence families and we are not exclusive. We’re focused on ensuring that the services we deliver are impactful, that veterans know what support is available to them and their families, and making access to that support as easy as possible – all with the objective of increasing the quality of life metric of veterans to at least match that of the general Australian population. But it takes a strong workforce to underpin this support. To ensure we can deliver on our strategic goals, a key stage in our planning this year was to look critically at our organisation and establish where we needed to bolster our human resources. We need people who are passionate; people who can connect with our purpose and align with our values and vision.