President’s Column - April 2012
Tue, Apr 17 2012

Our membership has remained fairly stable over the last decade, at about 500. A priority for AMOS in the current year is to try to increase our membership, and a sub-committee led by Michael Hewson of the Brisbane Centre will be looking at ways to make that happen. In particular, our membership is currently very weak amongst operational meteorologists.

We also hope to strengthen the new category of Professional Member, and to increase the role of the category of Fellow in recognising the most distinguished members of the profession in Australia. Strengthening the organisation in Tasmania, where we have a reasonable membership but no currently active Regional Centre, will also be important.

As the first Bureau of Meteorology-based President in a couple of decades, addressing the shortfall of membership in operational areas will be a major focus. We would welcome any suggestions from those of you who are in, or have been in, operational areas as to how we can make AMOS more relevant to people in that field (most of whom work fixed shifts and can’t easily get to our regular meetings and conferences). There are a number of areas in which there has long been a close partnership between the Bureau and AMOS – not least that the Bureau provides us with office space, as well as our involvement in the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Journal, and the Weather Calendar. There may well be further partnership opportunities coming up this year – watch this space…

I plan to get to most of the Regional Centres this year, and hope to catch up with as many of you as possible; I have already had the pleasure of meeting with the Brisbane Centre this week. We have a strong community in the atmospheric and oceanographic sciences in Australia covering a very diverse range of interests, and we hope that AMOS as a professional society will be able to encompass that range.

Blair Trewin
April 2012