St John Ambulance SA Inc. Annual Report 2018-2019

St John Ambulance Australia SA Inc Annual Report 2018/19 11

CHAIR OF THE BOARD’S REPORT

In the last twelve months we have continued to progress a number of key areas of the strategic plan, highlighting some exciting developments in the areas of volunteer recruitment and retention, our metropolitan property strategy, Community Care, and the Cadet and Youth Development program. Additionally, a number of outdated fleet vehicles were replaced, better equipping divisions to serve the community and a key strategic investment was made towards an entirely new IT platform to underpin our commercial business and support these operational initiatives over the coming years. Once again our volunteers were kept busy year-round, covering an astounding 2,103 events, throughout which they treated 20,936 patients during their 83,316 duty hours – that’s 3,471 days’ worth of service to the community achieved within just 365 days. On behalf of the Board of Directors, I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to each and every one of our volunteers on this monumental effort and sacrifice in support of the South Australian community. Beyond community events, St John SA has continued to work tirelessly towards our vision of making first aid part of everyone’s life through training 51,089 public first aid course participants, delivering free first aid training to 9,875 primary school children, and facilitating countless community CPR and AED education sessions throughout metropolitan and regional South Australia with our CPR Lab. Within just one year we have seen tens of thousands more people become equipped with the skills and confidence to save a life through first aid, which is a fantastic outcome for not just St John SA but the whole community. St John has long been known for “saving lives through first aid”. This principle was exemplified on two occasions in the last year; once by St John volunteers and the other by a member of the public who attended a St John first aid course – just two weeks before having those first aid skills called upon. In both cases, the patient suffered a cardiac arrest and thanks to the quick action of our volunteers and the skills learnt from the first aid course, both patients received immediate treatment, sustaining their life until an ambulance arrived and ultimately allowing them to make a full recovery. What greater gift can you give than the gift of life? These are just two remarkable stories of first aid truly saving a life.

Further contributing to saving lives, the ‘Every Heartbeat Matters’ campaign remained on-track, with the second 104 of 312 public access defibrillators being deployed to regional and remote areas of South Australia thanks to the Australian Hotels Association SA and Clubs SA. Our partnership with OTR also saw more of their regional sites equipped with public access defibrillators, the completion of which will represent 32 units in total installed by the end of 2019. It has been encouraging to witness such a positive response to these initiatives, with community awareness around cardiac arrest and the importance of CPR and public access defibrillators noticeably increasing. Another important contribution towards our purpose of caring for the wellbeing of the community is our Community Care program, which continues to benefit elderly members of society and those who may be at risk of social isolation. A caring and dedicated group of 402 volunteers have been matched on a one-to-one basis with 435 clients to provide companionship and support that provides a wellness and reablement focused approach to our clients’ lives. The enrichment the program brings to both clients’ and volunteers’ lives is extremely heart-warming to see. People of all ages and from all walks of life are represented in St John SA, including our younger members through the Cadet and Youth Development program. In 2018/19 we had 554 cadets and juniors engaged in the program, learning not only first aid, but also a wide range of transferrable life skills that set them up to make meaningful contributions to the community. Our young people also got hands-on first aid experience by attending a range of events, accompanied by adult members. We were also extremely proud to hear of two of our youth members being recognised with high profile awards; Nick Hughes received the Norma Bell National Youth Leader Award and Alecia Sheedy was a finalist in the 7NEWS Young Achiever Awards for the Regional Service Award. I am also pleased to report yet another year of strong financial performance for the organisation, resulting in a budget surplus. This trajectory of financial gain highlights the strength of our commercial activities to fund much of our charitable work, as well as the generous donations, bequests and sponsorships received from members of the public and our corporate partners. Without the hard work and commitment of our volunteers and staff, these

achievements simply would not be possible, and we would not be able to have the positive impact on the community that we do.

I would also like to thank and acknowledge our Board of Directors who freely give of their time to help guide and shape the organisation to ensure it continues to evolve and serve the South Australian community to the greatest extent possible for generations to come. Particularly, I would like to thank the following outgoing Directors for their significant contributions; Darren Chandler, Lachlan Cibich, Maggie Dowling (Chair of Community Care), and Gloria Curtis. Furthermore, on behalf of the whole organisation, I convey my thanks to outgoing Chief Executive Officer, Michael Cornish. During his time with St John, Michael made significant contributions to the implementation and rollout of our strategic plan, making substantial headway on a number of key goals across the organisation. We wish you all the best in your future endeavours. Finally, I would like to extend the sincere thanks of the whole St John SA community to the lifeblood of our organisation; our volunteers. It takes a special type of person to so willingly and selflessly dedicate their time to serving others, and that is just what we see from our volunteers who make our community work possible. You should all be incredibly proud of yourselves and know that you each played a significant role in advancing the mission and vision of St John SA, ultimately accounting for the success we witnessed in the 2018/19 financial year.

Pro Fide, Pro Utilitate Hominum.

It gives me great pleasure to report another successful year for St John SA, both in the organisation’s contribution to the community and its financial performance. The 2018/19 financial year saw us remain at the forefront of the first aid industry through providing first aid at events, training, products and related services. Our growth in financial performance allowed us to continue to provide these vital community services at the highest level while maintaining the quality of service that is synonymous with St John SA.

Karen Limb

Chair of the Board