From the President

On January 26, I was fortunate to attend the Australia Day ceremony in Townsville at the invitation of the Premier’s Office. It was a fantastic event, made even more so by the involvement of both 3 Brigade and RAAF Townsville.

This year, the Governor-General recognised the service of several of our members by awarding them Medals of the Order of Australia. I congratulate you all on receiving this honour and thank you for your unwavering service to the welfare of our Defence family. 

Of course, Townsville has more recently suffered catastrophic flooding. Our thoughts go out to our members and the Defence community during this terrible time.

District AGMs 
Our Districts are all holding their AGMs over the next few months – in the past few weeks, I have been to AGMs at both the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast Districts, where I had the opportunity to speak directly to members about the League’s future direction. 

It is encouraging to see a number of new faces nominate for vacant positions at District level – our success as an organisation depends on the contributions of our dedicated executive members, so I thank both those who nominated as well as those who have filled those positions previously.

Constitution update
Thank you to everyone who took the time to review the draft Constitution and submit their feedback. The Constitution Working Party has been busy reviewing this feedback and incorporating it into the final draft, which will be made public in the very near future. Keep an eye out for it at rslqld.org/Constitution

Strengthening ties with our Defence family
In late January, the Boards of both RSL Queensland and Mates4Mates came together for a valuable strategic discussion around where each organisation is heading, and to confirm our continued commitment to working together to provide a broad range of support services for current and ex-serving ADF members of all ages and backgrounds. 

I’ve also been in discussions with the Commander of 7 Brigade regarding how we can work together more effectively to the benefit of serving and transitioning members. These meetings will be ongoing and may, I hope, be the catalyst for closer interactions with other arms of Defence around the state.

In recent weeks, I’ve also attended several events at both Gallipoli Barracks and HMAS Moreton. I had the very great pleasure of presenting at the Combined Courses Graduation Parade for the Australian Air Force Cadets at Gallipoli Barracks. I was also privileged to farewell the next rotation of troops heading to Afghanistan.

I was also invited to unveil a plaque at HMAS Moreton’s newly created Memorial Garden, together with representatives of many other ex-service organisations and government departments. 

Q&As video
You may have seen my New Year’s message on Facebook, where I mentioned that I will be periodically answering members’ questions on this social platform. This is a great way for me to reach a cross section of our membership and the Defence community, and talk about what matters to them. We’ve had some great questions submitted already, and I will be filming a Q&As video soon – watch out for it at facebook.com/RSLQueensland

In the meantime, take care.

Tony