» Geography Teachers' Association of SA Inc.

                   GTASA Annual General Meeting Friday 27th May 2010

President’s Report

 The GTASA continues to be amongst the most active subject associations in South Australia and it is heartening to see all of you here at our annual conference here today. Our primary purpose is to service the needs of our members and I believe that aim has been met in the past year. This is due in the large part to our Executive, whose members are all volunteers many of whom are fulltime teachers themselves, but who have been tireless in working for the Geography education community in the past twelve months.

The Executive

The Executive has been stable for the last 12 months. However we are delighted that Carolyne Ryan has agreed to be our Conference Convenor for 2010. She has worked with enthusiasm and energy with the Conference Committee and I am sure you will agree that she has done a terrific job.

The 2009 Executive members are Rita Shepherd (Immediate past President and Vice President), Alexandra Piggott (President), Peter Melnyk (Treasurer), Mellony Tassell (Secretary until October 2009) Lisa Pope (Secretary since October 2009), Andrew Coleman (Journal Editor),Chris Senior (Life Members), Simon Miller, Malcolm Mc Inerney, Mark Manuel (AGTA Conference Convenor), Carolyn Ryan (GTASA Conference Convenor), John Butler (RGSSA Liaison) Sandy Stuart, Andrew Penny, Clive West, John Coop, Kate Johnson, Julian Cousins, Deb Lasscock, Fran Slater, Ross Johnson, Shaun Oakey, Greg Way, Paul Ridge, Adam Burford,. This committee is a vibrant and talented group who have given many hours of their personal time, outside of the formal committee meetings to work on sub-committee projects. Their contribution has been enormous to organising professional development activities, developing resources, managing our competitions and awards, interviewing for scholarships, organising meetings, managing the finances, representing our association on bodies such as CEASA and AGTA and promoting our association and its work. I would like to acknowledge their valuable contrition and to pay tribute to them all for the work they have done in promoting excellence in the teaching of geography in South Australia.

Professional Development Activities

A GIS workshop was held over two days at PembrokeSchool and run by Mick Law of Contour Education. He offered two levels of training and a variety of teachers from across the state took advantage of this opportunity.

Another successful Year 12 Night was hosted by AdelaideUniversity where a range of academics presented to students from across the state.

 

The presenters were:

Dr John Tibby-Water Resource Issues in the LowerMurrayDarlingBasin

Dr Douglas Bardsley-Geographers Responding to Climate Change

Professor Graeme Hugo -New Global Migration: Some Implications for Australia

 

GIS Training was again offered through Centra and run by Ross Johnson assisted by Deb Lasscock and proved popular. It gives country and remote members a chance to connect with other professionals and learn some new skills.

 

Awards and scholarships.

In 2009 the Wilkins Prize was again a popular competition. The winners were: from UnleyHigh School and special participation awards went to JamestownCommunitySchool and Australian Science and MathsSchool. This competition is running again this year and we ask teachers to nominate their students so their efforts can be recognised.

The DD Harris Teaching Scholarships for 2009 were awarded to Aarnand Rajandren, Marie Feliciotto and Jenni Emblem. We congratulate the recipients and look forward to their contribution to geography teaching in South Australia. I would like thank Mellony Tassell, Shaun Oakey and Simon Miller for their work on this program.

The GTASA once again coordinated the Eden and the winning entry was Prize Josh Drake from the Australian Science and MathsSchool. This is a terrific competition that is open to all DECS school students in Year 10. The topic for 2010 is how can we make our cities and towns better places to live?

Website

The GTASA website is an important conduit of communication with members. Thanks to Malcolm McInerney, information is updated regularly. Those who join the email list receive information on useful teaching resources, websites and upcoming events. I encourage those of you who have not yet done so, to register at the website for this service.

Products

The second map kit has just been released for sale. It focuses on the Rural Urban fringe areas in the northern edge of Adelaide and each kit provides a class set of maps and editable question of different levels. I would like to thanks Shaun Oakey and Simon Miller for taking this project on and providing our members with such a high quality resource.

The annual Geography Study Guide has been largely rewritten and revised thanks to the efforts of Sandy Stuart, Andrew Penny and John Coop. All the web links have been checked and new sections have been added with different suggested topics to help students get started. Again practice exercises have been included for student revision purposes and I gratefully acknowledge all the teachers who have so willingly donated their intellectual property.

 

We are always keen to develop new products so please feel free to let us know your ideas.

 

 

The Status of Geography 

GTASA is affiliated with The Australian Geography Teachers Association which is the peak body for geography teaching in Australia. We have been well represented on this body as Malcolm McInerney is the current President and Rita Shepherd and I have regularly attended Board Meetings. AGTA continues to be a strong advocate for geography on the national scene and the President is a very visible presence at ll related meetings.. It is largely due to the work of AGTA and the RGSQ that geography is in such a strong position in the Australian National Curriculum. AGTA has been communicating closely with ACARA and we are benefitting from the close affiliation that we have with this peak body.

The GTASA has also been lobbying the SACE Board of SA concerning the teaching of geography, and we have been relaying the concerns of our members regarding the implementation of the new SACE for the discipline of geography. We have also invited the SACE Board to present workshops at this conference which we are delighted they have accepted.

I would especially like to acknowledge the contribution made in the past 10 years by Rita Shepherd. Indeed it was she who sidled up to me at the GTASA conference in 2001 and suggested I might be interested in joining the GTASA Executive. She has held many positions on the executive including Secretary, Vice-president and President. This year she generously stayed on as Vice-president for another year ensure stability for the Executive in a time of far reaching change. She has an enormously busy job in her own school but is incredibly generous with her time and has put in enormous amounts of effort and time into the GTASA. For me personally she has been a great support and is a very wise person, plus she is great fun and we always spend a lot of time laughing. Thank you Rita for all you have done for the GTASA and although you are stepping down as Vice-president I know you are planning on staying on the Executive which is great news.

I hope all of us here today are as excited about the future for Geography as I think we have great reason to be. Our Association exists to service the needs of our member and to promote excellence in the teaching of geography and I believe we have succeeded in that mission in the past 12 months.

Alex Piggott

May 27th 2010