Another successful industry dinner for ARCIA

Around 550 radio professionals attended this year’s annual ARCIA Industry Gala Dinner, held for the first time at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.

Graeme Bowman, Australian comedian and keynote speaker, MC’d the night and also acted as a UK guest speaker and impersonated David Attenborough.

Christian Kelly and Ian Miller spoke about the association’s plans to reinvigorate the Sir Angus Tait Memorial Scholarship program, allowing state finalists to attend the annual RadioComms Connect event and speak at their state’s industry dinners. The national winner will be announced at the gala dinner and will have a chance to travel to an international event and report on their experiences at next year’s RadioComms Connect event.

To promote the association’s history project, radio communication products from the early days (50s, 70s and 80s) were on display.

Worthy award winners were announced for their industry excellence, with Fritz van Enk receiving the highly coveted Jonathan Livingston Award.

Other award winners included:

• Apprentice/Trainee Award: Nathan Leonard from RFI
• Professional Sales Award: Matt Burleigh from Communications Australia
• Customer Service Award: Geoff Syms from Simoco
• New Talent Award: Jay Pinder from Sepura
• Technical Excellence Award: Shaun Campbell from Zetron
• Engineering Elegance Award: Matt Botherway from Pacific Wireless Communications and Daniel Chivell from Telstra
• Community Service Award: Phil Proctor from Victoria Police

For more information about the dinner, scholarship program and history project, visit the ARCIA website.