Managing a financial portfolio with a budget worth over 1 million dollars requires a confident treasurer who is able to deal with complex corporate financial structures, and utilise their technical expertise to optimise income and minimise expenditure. My goal for AMSA’s 2010 budget is to create stability and balance through consolidation, innovation and change. Facing a difficult year of economic challenges, AMSA’s budget must be thoroughly re-evaluated.

Working closely with the financial team, and members of the previous executive, we have devised a comprehensive plan to tackle all aspects of AMSA’s finances.

Thinking outside of the box

Sponsorship dollars are a vital part of AMSA’s income, and in recent years, several sponsors have decided to scale back or withdraw their support. We need to improve our sponsor retention and implement better feedback procedures to address their concerns and keep them happy in the long term. The Marketing & Sponsorship Officers and I will investigate avenues of ‘in-kind’, rather than just monetary, support. This will include support from food, beverage and transport companies, which remain significant costs to AMSA. Aside from sponsorship, we have a plan to attract grants from a range of government and private sector sources and believe that with proper planning and preparation, we will be successful in this pursuit.

In terms of long term strategic planning, we intend to split the function of the board of directors, as defined and regulated by ASIC, from the executive, which will focus on the day to day running of the organisation. This will give AMSA a longer term perspective to financial management and address many of the problems we have had with a constant annual turnover of executives and councils.

Slimming down

Our goal is to decrease the AMSA executive’s operational running costs while maintaining its maximal functionality. As there have been significant cost cuts and reductions in a number of key areas in 2009, our cost reduction strategy focuses on internal items which include meetings, stationary, publications, transport and logistics. Being located across Sydney, Canberra and Newcastle, our transport costs to those areas are automatically zero. Sydney is also the most competitive transport hub to all of Australia’s other capital cities. Furthermore, the significant cost burden of handover and freight fees involved in relocating the executive office is also eliminated.

I would treasure the opportunity to be involved in AMSA as its treasurer in 2010 and look forward to contributing my expertise in financial management. I am thrilled to be working with a group of enthusiastic and like-minded students and look forward to meeting the extended AMSA family.