CSPWA Council

Catholic School Parents WA held the first council meeting following the 2024 AGM on Wednesday 7th August. Newly elected President of council, Alan Buckley did a wonderful job chairing and it was great to have him attend in person as his place of residence is the lovely metropolis of Bunbury in the South West.

The meeting provided a great opportunity to welcome our new councillors, and acknowledge our existing councillors who have renominated for another year. We also welcomed back Annette Morey, Deputy Executive Director, CEWA and who is the CEWA nominee on council. The CSPWA Council plays a pivotal role in our organisation, as they are responsible for the governance of the organisation and ensuring that its objectives are met. They do this in a voluntary capacity, for which we are most grateful and of course all are involved in the parent groups at their own children's school whether that be the P&F or the School Advisory Council. This is very important to CSPWA as it ensures that we are always connected to the 'grass roots' parents in our school. The proverb 'when you need something done, ask a busy person' certainly applies to the volunteers at CPSWA and on behalf of all parents in Catholic schools in WA, we thank all of our council members for their support and dedication.

We would also like to take this opportunity to introduce you to our newest members of council; Clare Grosser and Simon Keemink. Clare has two children at one of our metro Catholic primary schools and Simon is part of the Nagle Catholic College community in Geraldton. We look forward to working with our newest members and importantly having representation from the Geraldton Diocese. It is very important to CSPWA as a state body that we have diversity on our council, which includes hearing the parent voice from all corners of our state. We would love to hear from someone from the Kimberley diocese who may have time to join us.

We would also like to recognise our existing council members for their ongoing support and representation of parents in Catholic Schools. Thank you to Alan Buckley, Catherine Howarth, Georgie Elle, Richard Bone, Orla Burrows and Renee Bennett.

In addition to Alan being elected as President, we also congratulate Catherine Howarth who was elected Vice President and Georgie Elle who was re-elected as Secretary.

We look forward to sharing more information about all our councillors and staff members in our next newsletter. Everyone is busy getting their bios up to date and sourcing photos.......... so watch this space.