From the USANZ Operations Room
For UroNews 7 May 2021
April has been another busy month at the USANZ office, with the entire team kept busy with preparations for two events on the USANZ calendar.
On 24 April the 2021 USANZ and ANZAUS Annual General Meetings were convened. Due to ongoing pandemic restrictions and concerns, the meeting was again held virtually. While this was the second year that we have held the meeting virtually, there was still an enormous amount of work involved in producing the event online. We again employed the assistance of Lumi to manage the technical side of the event, seamlessly coordinating presentations from the Operations Room in Edgecliff and six other locations across Australia and New Zealand. The backup support provided in the office was ably managed once again, by Madeleine Bennison (Governance & Secretariat Coordinator) and supported by Deborah Klein (Education & Training Manager) and Jonathon Street (Communications Manager). I'd like to thank all of the people involved, for their part in ensuring the smooth execution of this event.
Gavin (Lumi) and Deborah (USANZ) preparing for the meeting.
Dennis (Lumi) guiding me through dealing with multiple screens and a camera.
Due to our increasing use of technology to connect for our day-to-day work, the organisation has also recently implemented another stage in our digital upgrade. The new conferencing system is now installed in the Board room providing state-of-the-art audiovisual equipment to facilitate our online collaborations.
The Board Room's new audiovisual equipment in full flight.
The other focus of the office has been the planning for the Urology Program and the USANZ Hubs across Australia and New Zealand. Planning any 'in-person' meeting has been an enormous challenge over the last year, but there have been some particular challenges with organising the USANZ Hubs as various jurisdictions have tightened and loosened restrictions around gatherings in line with health advice regarding the pandemic. Even as this week's UroNews is being put together health advice in NSW is changing. We will provide the latest information to Members when it becomes available. I'd like to thank Anna Tartakovskaia, USANZ Conference Manager, for the extraordinary amount of effot she has committed to organising the USANZ Hubs, and the resilience she has shown in such challenging times.
I look forward to seeing many of you both in-person (at the Sydney hub) and online for the Urology Program as part of the RACS ASC.
Until next month,
Michael Nugara
USANZ CEO