Annual Report 2020
Don Sinnott, Chair for IEEE Life Members AG South Australia
The IEEE South Australia LMAG holds its meeting in cooperation with the IET Retired Engineers Group, and this year this cooperation has again allowed us to deliver a valuable program of six presentations. The February 2020 meeting was face to face but Covid-19 came to Australia in March. A week before our 1st April meeting, it was decided that it was too risky to have a face to face meeting and we decided to have our meeting via Zoom instead. All subsequent meetings have been held in this way. We are very thankful to be able to use the Zoom facilities of the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Adelaide. As a result, the School staff are given a Zoom invitation to the talks as well. Despite or because of Covid19 we have had an increase in attendance at our technical talks.
Program
Our 2020 program was as follows.
- 5 Feb “BlockChain Technology”, Presenter: Mark Ferraretto, Lecturer in Law at Flinders University (Total attendance 50, including 8 IEEE)
- 1 Apr “Planning your home solar and battery system” Presenter: Dr. Keith Kikkert, Adjunct A/Professor Adelaide University and James Cook University (Total logged on 65, including 11 IEEE)
- 3 Jun “Virtual Voices.” Presenter: Marty Gauvin and Prof Andrew Downing (Total logged on 27, including 3 IEEE)
- 5 Aug “How do machines learn.” Presenter: Dr Zygmunt Szpak, The University of Adelaide (Total logged on 51, including 4 IEEE)
- 14 Oct “Australian Space Initiatives.” Presenter: A/Professor John Culton, Director, Centre for Sustainable Planetary and Space Resources, University of Adelaide (Total logged on 35, including 4 IEEE)
- 4 Nov “Zero carbon long haul aviation: Renewable hydrogen for onboard services and propulsion.” Presenter: Dr. Robert Dickinson, Director Hydricity. The AGM was held in conjunction with this meeting. (Total logged on 37, including 4 IEEE)
Financial
We are grateful for the Section’s annual rebate that allows us to cover speaker presentation gifts and any costs associated with holding meetings (such as travel or facility costs – none were incurred this year). IEEE does not require LMAGs to provide financial reports. Suffice to say that we have a healthy bank balance that will allow ongoing operation of the Retired Engineers Group/LMAG in 2021 and beyond.
Office Bearers
In 2019 the following were the office bearers.
- Chair: Don Sinnott
- Vice Chair: Cornelis (Keith) Kikkert
At the 4th November 2020 AGM, both of these individuals were re-elected for a further one-year term.