NEWS FOR MEMBERS
At last we are back to ELECTED members. The Latest elected members of BHA Inc‘s Board are listed below. Please scroll down to see the list, and hear their progress and plans.
THE NATIONAL BOARD
Here are the duly elected members on your National Board. These elections continue the new direction without the bullying and improper and illegal behaviours of the previous years. We can now all decide properly how to best move BHA forward with energy and cooperation. Feel free to make your suggestions for our future… we are listening, and wish to support all Australians on their hearing loss journey. This is a significant disability and one affecting inclreasing numbers. Please join us iin this journey.
| Mr Peter Kerley | President of BHA National, & National Chair |
| Mr Peter Alcock | National VP Administration |
| Mr Larry Davenport | National VP Finance |
| Mr William Leane | National VP Promotions |
| Dr Barnard Clarkson | National VP Marketing & Development |
| Mr John Harvey | National VP Policy & Planning |
Looking Forward, Looking Back .…
Better Hearing Australia is a federation of branches around Australia. Since the first branch was established after Word War I to help returned servicemen and women with ‘industrial deafness issues’, we have been a self-help group. BHA has consulted, advocated for members and run lipreading classes and many other things besides. But never-ending changes over time, including technological support, government approaches and an ageing population have meant that our roles have changed. More recently a realisation that VERY serious changes were becoming needed. Today features like Bluetooth in phones, digital hearing aids, apps that can auto-caption meetings in real time, changing attitudes to deafness, and even lipreading activities via the internet; these are a few of the many changes that we need to address. Yes, hearing aids help. But they are only a start… until we aim more broadly, we are contributing to our own decline in memberships. Some individual branches have responded to these challenges. Some have closed. A previous National Board contributor, Jeannine Asciak, reported that around thirty years ago (1994 to be exact) there were 17 branches with 2,973 members registered with the BHA National body. Recently some branches have begun their own rejuvenation process, while some continue unabated.
Is it true there now MORE older adults with hearing loss? And isn’t the medical evidence showing that we need to keep our social, physical and mental activities up?therwise, we are told, our brains close down and we succumb to events like depression, more falls and even various dementias. What better system than groups with a long-term focus (compared with hearing aid manufacturers who care for short term payments) and a supportive atmosphere?
Attracting new members is a big question, and some branches have solutions for this and all the related issues. Some have argued – and we would argue foolishly – that the decline is proof of our irrelevance, and refused to consider that the increasing number of adult Australian with hearing loss was proof we could become members of a rejuvenated group — perhaps called Better Hearing Australia, and perhaps not. And of course since there are branches still functioning and willing to adapt, this will happen.
WHY CLOSE DOWN NOW? IS IT UNSCRUPULOUS LEADERS, PERHAPS?
Perhaps our demise was CAUSED by unscrupulous members trying to cause chaos, for reasons we don’t know? It is easy to interpret the negative decisions made in recent times as evidence of bad intent – especially as many of those decisions came from a very small group over a long time – but we would like to focus on positive future.
One big question is: Does a National body confers advantages for the individual branches? And maybe a role for sharing leadership ideas, or a place where we can resources we have developed and so on. For example WA Branch have a free Lipreading Webapp for Australian speakers, first uploaded nearly a decade ago. and currently going thru a rejuvenation too. Version Two should be available in 2025 or maybe 2026; other active branches have other useful activities for members and often freely available to all of those on their ‘Hearing Loss Journey’.
So where should BHA head?
Can we expect some leaders to suggest new directions and help us reform? Do you have any suggestions?
There was an attempt back in 2021 when a Sydney member, Mr Peter Kerley, proposed that BHA should attempt to restructure and offered himself as the only nomination to the election that year. No-one else was interested. He began the long process of restarting, reforming and rejuvenating BHA. He talked to lots of people and gradually it looked like things were getting better for BHA at a national level. An interim committee was formed, but during multiple meeting in 2020 and 2021 in became clear that a small number of the committee were trying to undermine the rest. Things started to falter. These three people began calling it the ISC – Interim Sub Committee – and the ISC began inviting fewer and fewer people to its meetings. Their behaviours caused multiple disruptions, and led to their dismissal at a specially called Special General Meeting. The details are less important but the truth is not. There have been poor, illegal and also improper behaviours and we now have lawyers attempting to solve these issues so that BHA can rebuild its branches and even itself as a national body.
PREVIOUS COMPLAINTS
The Interim Sub Committee (ISC), which had been running since 2021, has been terminated by a recent Special General Meeting (SGM) and the three members remaining were expelled from the National Body.
Since 27 April ‘23, a properly constituted and duly assembled National Council is now operational. In accordance with the constitution, the National Council — comprising the National Board and Councillors appointed by each Branch — held office until the elections at the latest AGM in July. Members may be aware the AGM is long overdue despite repeated calls to the ISC to establish one.
The upheld complaints included
•bullying other members;
•attempting to take over the BHA Bank account with improper Minutes, spotted by an our bank manager (who chooses to remain anonymous) and apparently reported afterwards, “this is the worst case I have seen in my career”, and
•entering illegal data on our ACNC record.
The ACNC is our National Charity and Non-Profits Commission, which attempts to manage charitable groups like BHA, and we cannot afford to act illegally. These behaviours are bringing BHA into disrepute and undermining our reputation.
“All this uncharitable palaver has eroded time we should spend looking to our real future…”
End of the History lesson, some of it recent. If you have any comments or suggestions, please send a message to us. AND if you have any comments, suggestions, brickbats or bouquets, please start the conversation…