The Australian Rafting Federation (ARF) held their Annual General Meeting on 17th June, at which they elected a new Committee for the 2021/22 year. In a resounding effort for reaching equality, more than 50% of the committee are women!
The new committee comprises of familiar faces to many on the racing circuit including recent Order of Australia Inductee, Graham “Fredi” Maifredi as President. Vice President is Nicola Miller who is now more familiar with race rules and schedules than most parents should ever be, having coached and mentored the Australian U19 Men team to gold medals at the 2019 World Rafting Championship. Returning to Secretary is Linda Davis who anyone who attended IRF WRC 2019 will remember as being team liaision (amongst many other hats) and gold medallist in the Masters Women’s category.
Racers over the years, Kris Kingston, Rheece Springer and Rebecca Rogerson remain on the committee in roles they held in previous years. Joining the committee this year is EJ Mathieson as Treasurer. EJ has raced in UAE and Australia and is a member of the IRF’s Diversity Committee.
The IRF welcomes the new ARF Committee for 2021/22:
President: Graham Maifredi
Vice President: Nicola Miller
Secretary: Linda Davis
Treasurer: EJ Mathieson
Coaching Officer: Kris Kingston
Equipment Officer: Rheece Springer
Media: Rebecca Rogerson
Reaching equality in UN Sustainable Development Goals
In electing a Committee consisting of over 50% women, the ARF have taken a giant step in reaching equality in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5: Gender Equality. The IRF strongly encourages all rafting federations to aim for reaching equality in their committees.
The AGM and following general meeting reviewed the successes and lessons learnt from WRC 2019 and started making plans for future events. These included how to engage more people in rafting events as Australia emerges slowly from the global pandemic.
Initial plans were also discussed to look into developing the site of WRC 2019 on the Tully river for some Australian national competitions and potential for Pan-Asian/Oceanic competitions; in addition to developing the area for possible GTE training facilities.
Find out more about the IRF’s commitment to the United Nations Sustainable Development goals here.
#women #womenofwhitewater #leadership #thisisrafting #raftersareawesome #strongertogether
