76th Annual General Meeting for SAE-A

Gary White, President of the SAE-A opened the 76th Annual General Meeting on 30 May 2024, this was his first in his role as president.

On a very wet night in Melbourne the SAE-A held its AGM in Auburn with an audience both at the venue and also online. After the formalities of voting on the minutes of the previous AGM, Mr White reflected on his entry into engineering and remarked on his time spent in his early years with long time SAE-A member and wellrespected engineer Harry Watson who was present. He then confirmed the work being done in the background such as VTE magazine, which has evolved and is now in the process of morphing into a journal with more technical articles, and coming in line with common practices such as a reliance more on softcopy issues than hardcopy magazines before Mr White moved on to speak to the PERS assessment.

“The news is, as you know, we were approved as an assessor for the PERS or Professional Engineering Registration Scheme, which means that we can help our engineers get onto the registration list for Victoria and that has reciprocal rights in other states as well,” he confirmed. “It’s quite an important thing for our professional engineers that are working in engineering generally.”

Mr White also touched on the SAE-A’s return to an office environment after COVID with an office area in the new VACC building in North Melbourne.

“It’s got excellent meeting rooms and we’ve been having productive times brainstorming using their facilities. It’s a really good location right near the station. The VACC has been a very good landlord for us, and we hope that continues and we may actually expand our presence there in the coming year,” Mr White said.

From there the focus turned to Formula SAE-A and its return to Calder Park, which was initially unexpected but turned out to be embraced wholeheartedly by the teams and organisers.

“We’re prioritising Formula SAE-A. It really is a way for mechanical engineering and electrical and business students to really get a handle on what goes on in real automotive engineering and engineering in general,” Mr White said. “Autonomous vehicles or automated vehicles are part of this. I think it’s going to be a big event this year.”

Other events are also in the planning stages such as a possible technical conference centring on transport mobility for accessibility, and re-introducing the SAE-A Excellence Awards.

Past president and current honorary CEO Adrian Feeney was then applauded for his great work with the SAE-A with a mention of his impending retirement from his current role.

“Adrian will help us work out a path forward and deciding on a replacement. But Adrian won’t leave completely,” Mr White said. “He’s still going to be the standout member that he has been for the SAE-A – coordinating, guiding and leading.

“And as I noted just last year when he was conferred the lifetime membership Greg Shoemark said, ‘few have contributed more conspicuously than you’. And I think that’s true. To many, Adrian is synonymous with SAE-A Australia and the work he’s done to revive it and keep it alive.”

The SAE-A is back, and it has been restored; with a high level of competition in FSAE, the APAC21 conference and the appointment as an assessing authority for PERS –that has all happened under the leadership of Mr Feeney and the SAE-A owes a great debt to his perseverance.

Treasurer’s Report

Mr White then handed over to Paul Nation, the treasurer for the SAE-A.

“For those that don’t know me, my name’s Paul Nation. I am a regular army officer. So, some people would look at me and go, what does a regular army officer have to do with automotive engineering in Australia? I’m a reliability engineer within the army,” Mr Nation said by way of an informal introduction.

“I work at Victoria Barracks Melbourne, and the companies that I deal with, are the predominant companies within the automotive engineering domain at the moment in Australia.”

Mr Nation then went on to describe the financial situation for the SAE-A referring to the 2021, 2022 and 2023 years in terms of a Statement of Profit and Loss summarising the revenue and expenses for the reporting period.

“For 2023, we had a total revenue of $376,926, total expenses of $323,338, which left us with a net profit for 2023 of $53,588. Next, we have the financial position, sometimes referred to as the balance sheet. The purpose is to summarise all the assets and liabilities within the organisation, and in very simple terms, it’s what the organisation owns against what the organisation owes,” Mr Nation said.

“Total assets sum to $455,962431,281. Total liabilities, $98,423, which leaves us with net assets of $332,859. Adding the 2022 retained earnings from that year and the current 2023 cash surplus from our profit and loss statement gives us a total accumulated funds value of ($72,174).

“And finally, the Statement of Cash Flow. So, this particular table just tracks all the money flowing in and out of the organisation.

“Just summarising the three slides very quickly, the profit and loss statement demonstrates that the society is operating and delivering a net profit in 2023.

“The Statements of Financial Position and Cash Flow demonstrate the liquidity of the society, that is the ease at which assets can be readily converted into cash. Important to note, the largest asset class is in fact cash within the organisation.

“The Society is solvent, referring to its ability to meet longerterm debts and other financial obligations, and overall, there are no significant financial concerns, the financial health of the organisation is sound.”

The constitution

Part of this year’s AGM was a vote on a change to the SAE-A’s constitution regarding a specific clause which says a director appointed under clause 31.1 will hold office until the next general meeting of the company when the director may be re-elected.

The SAE-A wanted to change it to a director appointed under that clause will hold office until the next general meeting of the company when the director may stand for election in their own right and if elected, serve two full terms from that meeting as per section 32.1.

A director will be eligible for election for only two consecutive three-year terms of office. After two consecutive terms, the retiring director will not be eligible for re-election until the second annual general meeting following their retirement.

Basically, what was discovered was that if there was a casual retirement and therefore a casual replacement, that replacement could only serve out the remaining term of that retirement, a replacement could only stay on the board for four years, which was never intended. The proposed change allows that board member to serve out the remaining 12 months of that person’s resignation plus a full six years.

The amendment was voted upon and agreed unanimously.

New Directors

Due to a retirement from the SAE-A Board and one resignation two places had to be filled –Mr Richard Taube resigned due to a change of workplace and Professor Mohammed Fard reached the end of his term but was up for renomination.

Professor Fard renominated and was warmly welcomed back to the board while a new board member was elected to replace Mr Taube – Angela Krepcik.

Ms Krepcik is well-known in the industry and was a past CEO of SAE-A, and the person who introduced Formula SAE-A to Australia. After working with the SAE-A, Ms Krepcik worked as CEO of similar industry associations and has spent a significant time in government working with industry and manufacturing. In her most recent role in government, she was building an investment pipeline, helping businesses grow.

The board now consists of: Adrian Feeney (CEO), Gary White (President), Paul Nation (Treasurer), Greg Shoemark (Vice President), Angela Krepcik (Board Director), Mohammed Fard (Conference Director), Martha Oplopiadis (Director Membership), Noi Vera (Director Events & Training), Bernie Rolfe (FISITA & SAE-A Liaison), James Soo (Autonomous/EV), Michael Waghorne (Director Truck & Bus).