Summary of the First Meeting (11 April 2016) of the United Seafood Industries Task Force
Written by Chair of the USI Task Force, Martin Exel of Austral
The Task Force held its first meeting via phone on Monday 11th April, and agreed on a number of approaches to help develop proposal(s) for a Peak National Body.
The first role was to be clear on the role of the various groups, which were agreed as:
- The National Seafood Industry Alliance (NSIA) are responsible for the contract with the Minister and Department, to coordinate an approach to create a National Peak Seafood Industry Body;
- The United Seafood Industry (USI) Forum was set up by NSIA to help guide development of proposals, and consultation with the broader seafood industry on any recommendations; and
- The Seafood Industry Task Force was created from the first USI Forum (March), to provide advice and input to the second USI Forum (July), in line with its Terms of Reference.
- Inovact Consulting are responsible for providing advice, input and administrative support for each of the industry groups and the overall project.
Given the short time available (3 months) to report back to the second USI Forum, it was agreed that members of the Task Force would work to develop different aspects of the Terms of Reference provided, with two members working together on each of:
- Mission and Vision – Katherine Winchester and Clive Perryman
- Structure – Anthony Ciconte and Dallas Donovan
- Funding – Barbara Konstas and Mark Porter
- Communications – Veronica Papacosta and Jonas Woolford
All of the Task Force members are volunteering their time and efforts, and all have agreed to work to help assist the USI Forum with its deliberations towards forming a Peak National Body.
There will be new methods of communication developed to help get the messages out from the Task Force to the USI Forum members to begin with, and later, a broader industry strategy will be developed for the USI Forum to consider, if the USI Forum agrees on a particular approach to set up a Peak National Body.
If industry members have suggestions, inputs or questions about the Task Force, or would like to know more about the members of the Task Force and where they come from, there is more information on the rest of this website.
The next meeting of the Task Force will be in the first week of May, following distribution of more concrete proposals for each of the above aspects of its Terms of Reference.
After that, the Task Force is planning to hold a brief face-to-face meeting in the first week of June, followed by a final telephone meeting in late June. Recommendations will then be provided to the co-chairs of the Industry Forum by the end of June, for consideration at the next USI Forum meeting in July.
Martin Exel
Chair
12 April 2016