Nominations for Friends Council, 2018 AGM

President

Max Bourke

Max Bourke AM has been a 'plants person ' all his life. He grew up in a household involved in gardens and studied an agriculture degree at UNSW. He became a research pasture agronomist after graduating with NSW Department of Agriculture and was seconded to CSIRO Division of Plant Industry "discovering" the nascent ANBG in 1965 via a gate in the fence! He has been involved with gardens and management of organizations, public, private and not-for-profit for many decades, fund-raising for conservation works and practical hands-on work in the ANBG, National Arboretum, Southern Tablelands Ecosystem Park (STEPS) and a private native arboretum on the south coast. He has academic qualification in science, fine arts and conservation management. He has chaired and been a Board member of public companies, statutory authorities and not-for-profit bodies for over 30 years.

Treasurer

Helen Elliot

For nearly 30 years I ran my own business, mainly in the service of strategic flnancial advice. After retiring in December 2015 I responded to a Friends' email seeking a new Treasurer, a position I have held since 29 January 2016. This position has complemented other volunteer activities, as I have been the Treasurer of the ACT branch of the Australian Garden History Society for many years.

My role as Treasurer of the Friends and the Public Fund involves me in many and varied activities from membership renewals, event meetings, summer sounds concerts, policy, IT requirements and liaising with the ANBG staff. The past two and a half years have been extremely busy and I have enjoyed the challenge of being Treasurer and meeting so many new people.

General members

Lynden Ayliffe

I have been a member of the ANBG Friends for over 10 years. I am a keen gardener and have a large native garden heavily influenced by ANBG. I have volunteered at the Visitors Centre and helped with an Acacia research project as well as the Friends' treehouse committee. I helped develop a policy on the selection of public art for the Gardens that led to my help in selecting the botanic paintings presented to the ANBG each year. I am the Friends' representative on the ANBG Art Advisory Committee and for over 5 years, I volunteered with Painting with Parkinsons held each Friday in the Gardens. I also assist with editing the AAFBG magazine. This work is a natural progression from my working life in heritage and environmental protection.

Alan G Henderson PSM AM

In retirement I am a tennis player, bike rider, family historian, Red Cross volunteer, Trustee of the ANBG Public Fund and enthusiastic but not well-informed visitor to the ANBG. Earlier I was an economist, mainly in Treasury and Prime Minister and Cabinet, eventually the level of Deputy Secretary in PM&C and Defence; finally, chairman of the Commonwealth Grants Commission which allocates the GST revenue among the states and territories.

David More

Since Jill and I moved to Canberra from Sydney eleven years ago, the ANBG has been central to our life here. Jill is active as a Guide; I have helped with the Friends' website, GuidesWeb and similar projects.

Working as a Council member over the last two years, I've been involved in reviewing the Friends use of IT; helping to establish requirements for a new membership and administrative database; introducing new shared file storage and email facilities for subcommittees and special-interest groups, through Google G-Suite; setting up an online point-of-sale system for the Botanic Art Groups and Photographic Group exhibitions; dealing with issues such as the hacking of our website; and ongoing support for the website and our email bulletins.
I'm a designer. I began with physical products, moved on to publications and websites, and then to organisational services and capabilities -- in short, working with people rather than technology. My approach is facilitative, focused on the needs and experiences of everyone affected by design decisions.