The Australian Beef Industry Foundation Annual General Meeting held in Melbourne on Tuesday 4th June re-elected Frank Archer, John Gunthorpe and Michael Pointer to the Board of Directors. They join Darryl Schipp, Ben Stockwin and Laura Cutajar as the ongoing directors.
The Board then elected John Gunthorpe as Chairman. In accepting the position John paid tribute to outgoing Chairman Frank Archer for the leadership role he played in consolidating the Foundation and developing a raft of new initiatives.
“During his term of office Frank presided over the establishment of the ANZ Rural Leadership Scholarship and the Simon Gubbins Scholarship, both for Australian students to study at Lincoln University in New Zealand, and a number of additional initiatives designed to provide leadership training to encourage young Australians to pursue careers in the Australian beef industry. Frank’s drive and commitment has been instrumental in the expansion of the Foundations programs in recent years, and at the same time he has minimised the organisations costs”” John Gunthorpe said.
In his Chairman’s Annual Report tabled at the AGM Frank Archer referred to the five students from the Northern Territory, Queensland and northern New South Wales that were funded by ABIF to attend the 2012 Marcus Oldham Rural Leadership Program and the role of ABIF in reintroducing the Merial Howard Yelland Award for outstanding contribution to the Australian Beef Industry.
“Looking ahead for the next twelve months the Board agreed to fund seven scholars to attend the 2013 Marcus Oldham Rural Leadership Program, provide bursaries to Charles Sturt University Wagga Wagga to enable third year students to progress to fourth year studies, provide bursaries to Murdoch University WA students to undertake a beef supply chain field tour and facilitate a visit to Australia by Adjunct Professor Jude Capper from Washington State University to participate in a range of seminars on sustainable beef production. In addition during the balance of 2013 ABIF will be seeking candidates for the ANZ Rural Leadership Scholarship and the Simon Gubbins Scholarship to study at Lincoln University, New Zealand in 2014”” Mr Gunthorpe said.
