Nominations for positions on The Royal Society of Tasmania Council are now open for election at the Annual General Meeting.

The following positions are open for nomination:

• Three Council members (for 1 & 3 year terms to be determined by ballot at the first Council meeting after the AGM)
• Honorary Secretary (1 year; may be re-elected)
• Honorary Treasurer (1 year; may be re-elected)
• President (1 year; may be re-elected for 2 years maximum)
• Vice President (1 year; may be re-elected for 2 years maximum)
• Student Councillor (3 years)

Nominations must be received by the Returning Officer, Mrs Mary Koolhof by Sunday 26 February, 2023.

The nomination form can be printed/downloaded from here. Copies may also be obtained from the RST Office open Thursdays 9.00 am to 12 noon.

The completed and signed form may be returned by mail to:

The Returning Officer
C/- The Royal Society of Tasmania
GPO Box 1166
Hobart TAS 7001

OR delivered to the RST office at 19 Davey Street

OR a signed and scanned copy may be emailed to admin@rst.org.au

For further information, please contact the Honorary Secretary at secretary@rst.org.au

Any change to the Rules of the RST requires approval at an Annual General Meeting.

A small change is recommended for the second paragraph of Rule 64 ACCOUNTS AND AUDIT. This change will be presented for approval at the AGM. The change is intended to ensure that the Society will remain compliant through future changes in the relevant government bodies and the legislation.

The current version of the second paragraph of Rule 64 is:

ACCOUNTS AND AUDIT
64. …..
The Society will register with the Australian Charities and Not for Profit Commission (ACNC) or its successors in law, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), the Australian Business Registry (ABR), the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), any similar Tasmanian Government body where that registration will benefit the Society, or is required by law. All material issued by the Society will comply with all rules and regulations created under the legislation created by each of the above bodies.

Changes to this paragraph have been proposed, as follows:

ACCOUNTS AND AUDIT
64. …
The Society will register with the Australian Charities and Not for Profit Commission (ACNC) or its successors in law, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), the Australian Business Registry (ABR), and any similar Tasmanian or Federal Government body where that registration is required by law or will benefit the Society. All material issued by the Society will comply with all rules and regulations created under the legislation created by each of the above bodies.

Jocelyn McPhie
President

Congratulations to Royal Society of Tasmania member, Mrs Joyce Mackey, on being awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in the 2023 Australia Day Awards, for service to community history preservation.

Joyce is an Honorary Costume Curator for TMAG at Narryna, an 1830s merchant’s house and collection that tells the story of early colonial life in Hobart. In 2016 Narryna received a National Library of Australia Community Heritage Grant to undertake a significance and preservation-needs assessment of its nationally-significant costume collection. Over the Winter of 2018, Joyce led volunteers in upgrading the cataloguing and photographic documentation of the collection as it was rehoused, using archival materials provided for by a second successful grant application.

Joyce now curates both the textiles and costumes collections at Narryna, arranging their exhibition at events such as the “Ashes to Ashes” exhibition held as Narryna’s contribution to the Dark MOFO program of 2015.

Joyce is also a highly accomplished lace maker. In 2017, Joyce designed and made a mixed bobbin lace pattern placemat of Tasmania’s floral emblem of blue-gum leaves and flowers against a lattice fence, which was presented as part of an Australian official anniversary gift to celebrate the 50th wedding anniversary of Queen Margrethe II and Crown Prince Henrik of Denmark.

A beautiful lace bonnet, created in 2016 by Joyce to commemorate the memory of 1790’s convict Mary Reibey, is now on permanent exhibition at Entally House in Hadspen.

Congratulations to the Royal Society of Tasmania’s Honorary Editor, Council member, and renowned Wildlife Scientist and Conservationist Dr Sally Bryant, on being made a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2023 Australia Day Awards, for “significant service to wildlife and land conservation in Tasmania”.

Sally has worked in many of Australia and New Zealand’s wildest places focusing on threatened fauna mainly birds. Her conservation assessments of Tasmania’s shorebirds, eastern ground parrot and forty-spotted pardalote have been foundational for three decades. In Tasmania she has surveyed many of the remote offshore islands including Macquarie Island and was instrumental in establishing the Hamish Saunders Memorial Island Survey Program. At the Tasmanian Land Conservancy Sally was instrumental in protecting 11 permanent nature reserves and establishing long term monitoring across 15,000 hectares. Two reserves had World Heritage Status and one reserve in the heart of Kingborough protected a critical colony of forty-spotted pardalotes.

In 1991, Sally authored the Forty-Spotted Pardalote National Recovery Plan for the Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries and Water, which aimed to secure major colonies of the forty-spotted pardalote on private land, maintain or increase the amount of potential habitat available to the species and maintain or increase the populations at or above those recorded in 1991.

Sally has authored and co-authored numerous books, chapters, journal papers, technical reports and popular articles on conservation issues, including those for the Royal Society of Tasmania. She is an Adjunct Lecturer at UTas, on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Ecological Management & Restoration, and has recently lectured for the Society of the plight of the Forty-Spotted Pardalote.

Sally is probably best known for her popular ABC Radio wildlife talkback programs, which have been running since 1999.

The RST Doctoral Award is intended to recognise recent PhD graduates who have made significant advances in the course of their doctoral research. The value of the award is $1,000 (AUD).

Dr Zhen Zhou has been selected as the winner of the 2022 RST Doctoral Award. Dr Zhou is a medical scientist and completed her PhD at the Menzies Institute of Medical Research, University of Tasmania in 2021. The focus of her PhD research was primary prevention of cardiovascular disease and the use of lipid-lowering medications (known as statins) for elderly people.

Cardiovascular disease is the top killer at the state, national and global levels. Tasmania has scored poorly in heart health, and the risk factors for developing heart problems are among the highest in Australia.

Dr Zhou’s PhD results supported widespread use of statins for the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease in older adults, given that this treatment is relatively safe and widely tolerated. However, statin use does not have a mortality benefit and many questions remain. Large, randomised trials over several years are required to fully understand the role of statins. In the meantime, Dr Zhou’s research will inform clinicians making judgments on the appropriateness of prescribing statins to their older patients.

Since graduating, Dr Zhou has taken up a National Heart Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the Menzies Institute of Medical Research.