The WA Mining Club champions diversity, fosters young professionals and energises the leaders of tomorrow, President Kirsty Danby told the AGM at the October lunch as she ended her seven-year involvement with the Club – the last two as president.
Reflecting on her time, Kirsty said the Club had experienced significant change.
“I’m extremely proud of what has been achieved in my time here with the support of a strong team in the form of our committee and members.”
She said the strategy for the past 12 months had been to build on the Club’s existing priorities of “igniting conversations within the Club and the wider community, promoting the values and benefits of our industry and building on our past achievements”.
“But we have also taken great strides forward,” she said.
“We have successfully created opportunities for future leaders, continued to build on first-rate governance standards, improved member engagement, collaborated with our peers, and secured valuable corporate partnerships.
“In 2019, the Mining Club hosted 40 speakers across 16 events; our biggest line up of industry specialists and commentators ever – gone are the days when we hosted just 8 speakers across 8 events.”
The forums were designed to encourage open, conversational style presentations and feature topical developments facing the industry such as the Downstream Minerals Processing debate where the Minister for Mines and Petroleum, Bill Johnston, was actively engaged in the discussion.
“This year, our ECU Education Series moved from strength to strength and I’m proud that we could bring our first Indigenous Relations debate to our members,” Kirsty said.
“It is the first time in our 47-year history that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander relations were given centre-stage in a meaningful conversation for our industry.”
“I’ve also used this time to increase gender diversity across the membership base, but also in our speaker line-up,” she said. “The first woman that we invited on stage was in 2013. More recently, women speaking at the Mining Club has become usual practice.
The Young Professionals held three events on topics relevant to the industry and all were sold out.
The Young Professionals started the year with a $5,000 budget and KPIs to reach 100 members, for events to break-even and to re-engage with scholarship alumni.
“They did this with time to spare, achieving 138 members, increasing scholarship alumni membership by 200 per cent and securing their own sponsorship to become financially secure and contribute to the Club’s bottom line,” Kirsty said.
“The scholarship program is our flagship community program. Led by Damian Quail, 2019 was outstanding. We committed to supporting nine students by awarding scholarships to the tune of $90,000.
“Scholarships are delivered in conjunction with our co-sponsors who provide structured mentoring programs to students, work experience, career counselling and vacation work.
“Turning to the future, my time as President and working with the committee has ended.
“While I’m stepping down, I’m confident the foundation is set for the Club to continue to build.”
