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So give me some more details about this Board model... |
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The devil isn’t always in the detail, and our proposed board model is really quite simple. Most importantly it is also flexible, and before we implement it, we will refine it based on the feedback and ideas we get from AMSA Council to ensure that what we introduce is in the interests and wishes of everybody.
The board will consist of 5 people. These will be the current President, the IPP, and an independent lawyer, accountant and community representative. The President will obviously be the main conduit from the Board to the exec, and Council, whereas the IPP will now finally have a formal channel through which to maintain their connection to the organisation after their term on the exec instead of ad hoc communication and 3 Council meetings per year.
The independent lawyer and accountant are intended to provide sound and informed guidance to the executive’s decisions when they are (often) needed. The skills of a bona-fide lawyer and accountant are ones that AMSA desperately needs and generally cannot generate internally. Exec and Council are never short of good ideas, motivation or enthusiasm, but legally or financially trained medical students who get involved in exec bids are few and far between, and inherently only stay for one year. The lawyer and accountant will not only help provide the exec with sound counsel and advice but also help us to become a more independent body that need not rely on the AMA to provide our legal and accounting services in-kind.
Finally, the community representative is our last proposed member. The main reason behind rounding off the board with a more independent and high-profile community representatives is a strategic one. AMSA has a lot of friends in high places, but it often fails to capitalise on these relationships, and by having an experienced member of the medico-political establishment on our side will help us to better fulfil some of our longer term objectives.
Having a few non-medical students on the board will not impinge upon the independence of AMSA as a medical student run and led organisation, because as mentioned earlier, the Board will fulfil an advisory or strategic function, and not an operational or policy one. We also do not anticipate difficulties in finding the right people for this – while it is not appropriate to name names, particularly before AMSA Council has had a chance to examine, amend or ratify our proposal, we have good people in mind and will approach them in due course. Moreover, as AMSA is not a for-profit business, Board members would only receive token remuneration for their time, and quarterly meetings, this would not be a cost-burden.
Overall, the board model will help establish AMSA in the long term. It will provide us with a greater degree of financial, legal and accounting security as well as helping to retain our corporate knowledge and traditions. It is a flexible model, but one that is realistic, achievable and entirely worthwhile.
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What is the rationale for the ‘board’? |
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Introducing a ‘board’ is an idea that has been floated among previous execs and Councils for some years. There are a number of rationales which underpin this, and our team proposes a flexible model to finally implement it. To start, we need to be clear about what in practice the board will do differently from the executive, and why we need it.
Firstly, a board model which help AMSA maintain its institutional and corporate knowledge year to year. One of AMSA’s weaknesses is that apart from the Executive Officer, almost its entire personnel turns over each year, from the executive, Council and the MedSocs which support it. This constant turnover means that executives in particular are constantly repeating the same mistakes made by their predecessors and taking the organisation in different directions instead of building on work already done. Under this set up, it is hard for AMSA to truly grow and develop what it is able to achieve, and our board model seeks to redress this by having in place a constant group of people who help guide the organisation in the long term. These people will be an anchor point for each new exec, helping them to avoid the perennial pitfalls each executive faces, advising them on legal, financial and strategic direction, helping to explain and maintain AMSA’s external relationships with other organisations and individuals and assisting them in any other area.
The board will not be a policy making body, nor will it impact upon the ideas, the integrity or the independence of medical students in running their own organisation. Rather, it is a permanent advisory body that will benefit successive teams in years to come and provide AMSA with greater continuity and strategic direction.
Furthermore, the Board will also provide greater oversight over the Exec and Council, which helps mitigate the risk – however unlikely – of future execs engaging in questionable ventures. In today’s corporate environment, this is the best-practice model. It is also the model that works for similar professional associations and peak bodies like the Australian Medical Association.
The board model will not only free up the exec to focus on the day-to-day management of the association instead of investigating areas they have no expertise in, but in the longer term, it will act as in important institutional resource and reference point for strategic direction. |
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What’s your big plan to keep AMSA financially secure? |
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Unfortunately there is no one ‘silver bullet’ to keep AMSA finically secure. The key to maintaining a strong and viable organisation now and into the future lies in a combination of strategies and long-term planning.
In the short term, further incremental cost reductions are a must. Our team has identified many things we can eliminate or reduce in our budget with minimal functional loss. These areas include internal, secretarial and relocation costs and cumulatively, amount to significant savings when implemented. Our projects and plans are fully costed and budgeted and are ready to roll.
Furthermore, we have to re-evaluate how we relate to one of our most important sources of income: our sponsors. This has both a short and a long term element to it.
In the short term, we need to be offering sponsors opportunities to invest with us where they see value. Our current sponsorship prospectus is outdated and inappropriately values much of what we have to offer – some things are priced far too high, and some items we are giving away too cheaply. We will re-work our entire sponsorship regime so that we aren’t losing out, and maximise the value we get from what we already have.
We will also bring a longer term outlook to sponsorship. By negotiating longer-term contracts, financial instead of calendar year deals and getting better feedback from our sponsors, we will bring stability to AMSA longer than the one year term of any given executive.
Furthermore, AMSA’s previous attempts to secure lucrative government and private sector grants have met with mixed success. While we have received some specific-purpose payments in the past, particularly for events like Convention and GHC, our team have looked into the reasons for AMSA being knocked back in the past, and are perfectly placed to see future applications meet with success.
We are always on the hunt for new sponsors and sources of revenue, but we are also mindful of the economic and political place AMSA inhabits at the moment. These are tough times, and AMSA has already demonstrated it has the capacity to pull through them, but the key to ongoing prosperity isn’t found in the hype of a flash new proposition – it will be through the continued hard work of the many medical students that keep contributing to our national body. |
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