Events

Ross Pritchard Principal of Auburn High School. Ross arrived at the school in 2020 as Assistant Principal of the Senior School and has been Principal since July 2023.

He will talk about how education has changed, the programs at AHS and how Thinking Beyond the status quo is key to engaging students, and retaining teachers.

M.C.: Doug McLean

Photo Credit: element5-digital

Mike Rikard-Bell - Director TeamSports4All

Mike comes from an engineering background.  He co-founded a Melbourne tech startup that became a global leader in managing environmental impact.  It was acquired by a London listed conglomerate so then his focus moved to mentoring early-stage businesses and community service work focussed on youth disadvantage.  

Mike joined the TS4A team in 2017 to help drive its scale up, from supporting around 50 kids then to over 1,000 today.  

M.C.: Noel Halford

Photo Credit: Pavel Danilyuk

Des Tobin has crammed more lives into his 86 years than your average cat.  He has variously been a failed student, a discontented apprentice panel beater, a youth worker, a springboard diver, a junior pole-vaulter, a VFL and Olympic Australian Rules footballer, a 10-Pin bowling instructor, a successful business executive within the funeral industry, a golfing tragic, a university lecturer and a prolific writer.

His most recent book ‘It’s in the Genes – Australian Football Families tells the stories of some of the many families who have produced multiple generations of VFA/VFL/AFL/AFLW footballers stretching back to the late 19th century.

M.C.: David Rush

Quentin Beresford is an award winning author. 

'Author of more than a dozen books, Quentin is a multi-award winning non-fiction writer. Adopting a narrative style, he tells compelling stories about contentious, contemporary issues setting them in their historical, political and social context. He has written about environmental disasters, environmental campaigns, political corruption, Indigenous rights, corporate failures and biographies of notable public figures'. 

His latest book is 'Rogue Corporations: Inside Australia's Biggest Business Scandals'

M.C.: Katrina Flinn 

Photo Credit: Quentin Beresford website

'Dr Cameron Roberts is a world-class pianist and teacher. He is also a practising medical doctor. Further, he holds a PhD on the physical and perceptual aspects of touch. He is based in London and teaches advanced principles of piano performance and technique optimisation to talented and professional pianists. Passionate about piano playing and the magic that it can create, he is equally passionate about helping pianists achieve their potential and not suffer from the pitfalls of misguided practice time and injury.

He is frequently engaged to present at schools, universities, conservatories and conferences on the topic of Optimizing Pianism. He works with both talented students and professional pianists who strive for the highest levels of pianistic excellence, whilst offering specialist consultant services to pianists who suffer from technical problems, performance-related problems and injuries. He welcomes enquiries from pianists who strive for excellence in pianism, or who seek help with the diagnosis and management of pain or injury'.

M.C. Anne Scott

Photo Credit: Dr Cameron Roberts  site 

Photo: Jeff Griffith via Unsplash

An admired Victorian all-rounder Shaun Graf delivers a wealth of cricketing knowledge and stories from his lifetime of playing the game. 

You won’t want to miss this lively and engaging talk by one of cricket’s respected figures.

Some of his many achievements include:

• Commenced 1976 at Premier Club St Kilda Cricket Club -Played over 300 1st xi Grade/District/Premier matches with St Kilda, Frankston Peninsula and South Perth CC winning five (5) Senior Premierships, (Captain/Coached two (2) of those).
• Coached Hampshire in 1993 as a replacement for Malcolm Marshall
• Pro with Wiltshire & Cornwall in the Minor Counties; Knowle in the Bristol & District League & Great Harwood in the Ribblesdale League.
• Played 55 1st class matches for Victoria, WA & Hampshire (1979 - 1984) winning two winning Sheffield Shields, one with Vic (79-80) & WA (83-84) and two one day cup State wins
• Joint winner with Greg Shipperd of the WA Cricketer of the Year in 1983-84
• Represented Australia in 11 one day internationals (India, NZ, WI & Pakistan) and was 12th man in two Tests (India, NZ)
• 1983-84 Played for Western Australia
• State Selector/Chair of Selectors for eight (8) years, successfully managed Victoria’s Salary Cap within the CA Player Payment Pool and State Male/Female lists -this was Victoria’s most successful era in Australian 1st class competition.
• Administered Victorian HP cricket (GM Cricket Performance) for 28 years (took over from Bill Lawry), overseeing eleven (11) Shield finals for seven (7) wins, nine (9) one day finals for four (4) wins, two (2) Women’s State titles and four (4) T20 State Big Bash titles
• Responsible for the Redevelopment of the CitiPower Centre, Junction Oval.
• Overseeing the MCG drop in wickets.
• Project managed 2000 and 2002 Super Challenge Series (India and Pakistan).
• Still very active in Cricket circles at St Kilda, his son is now Coaching St Kilda.

M.C.: David McNamara

Photo Credit: Rodger Wang via Unsplash

Photo: Tim Cooper via Unsplash 

Roger Hunt has had a lifelong interest in history.

After a business career, most recently in executive search, he has researched the remarkable story of the Scottish Benedictine monk, James Robertson. Vindicta is a novel closely based on events in 1808.

A Scottish monk takes revenge on Napoleon. It is 1808. Napoleon is nearing the zenith of his power. Desperate to dent his supremacy, the British government sends James Robertson, a middle-aged, overweight monk on a secret mission to persuade a Spanish general to betray Napoleon.

M.C.: Noel Halford 

Source and photo: https://rogerhuntwriter.com/

'Charlie is a facilitation, resilience, leadership, and peacebuilding professional with over 30 years’ experience. His early experience is grounded in the security sector, and over the past decade he has expanded his experience to include working in South, South East, and Eastern Asia, Western and Eastern Africa, MENA region and Oceania. His areas of specialty include process facilitation, training design and delivery, resilience practice, leadership development, organisational and community systems change.

His experience expands through operational and strategic facilitation. Creating safe spaces and establishing connection between participants are key components to Charles’ approach. His personal education includes Leadership and Organisational Change, Peace and Conflict Prevention, Good Governance and Human Rights. Maintaining fitness, creating great and healthy food, trekking and music are the outlets that maintain Charles’ resilience and these outlets spill over into his facilitation practice'.

(Source: Space Melbourne) 

M.C. Dennis Shore 

Photo: Gary Spears via Pexels

M.C. Doug McLean

Trudy Poole, Past President of Rotary Peninsula 2.0 will talk about Play it Forward a joint venture between, Heartprint (based in Siem Reap), Rotary Overseas Recycled Playgrounds &  Rotary Peninsula 2.0 to deliver playgrounds from Australian communities to disadvantaged areas in Siem Reap, Cambodia. The initiative aims to give underprivileged children access to safe and imaginative spaces for play.

M.C. Katrina Flinn

Photo Courtesy: Trudy Poole