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Seren McKenzie is the first female President of IPWEAQ in its 47 year history. She is currently the Manager, Infrastructure Planning and Design at Lockyer Valley Regional Council. Seren’s focus is on improving her department’s efficiencies including the development of strategies, policies and procedures that result in higher levels of customer service. She ensures all members of her team are offered the opportunity to achieve their best. 

Seren’s diverse experience in infrastructure services includes managing pre-construction services of design, survey, and associated roads and drainage technical services, as well as waste services, water and sewerage operations and soils testing. She is also experienced in operational works, asset management and strategy development. 

Seren has a Bachelor of Engineering (Civil), a Masters in Engineering Technology (Environmental) and a Bachelor of Applied Science (Environmental).  She is a qualified Registered Professional Engineer (RPEQ) and a Fellow of IPWEAQ. Seren was awarded the IPWEAQ Woman in Engineering (2012).

Thank you again to everyone who joined us for the 2019 President’s Breakfast on Friday 8 March. More than 90 delegates were at the Captain’s Room, Allan Border Field - our biggest Breakfast to date with many more colleagues joining us via satellite.

Thank you also to Goondiwindi Regional Council and City of Gold Coast for hosting our inaugural satellite breakfasts. We missed our colleagues in Townsville who were busy attending to more critical issues but thank you to GHD for agreeing to host the Townsville Breakfast. We’d like to see more of you involved next year as this event continues to expand each year.

Once again, we were blessed with high quality presentations which are now available in our globally recognised Knowledge Centre. Thanks again to Col Chandler, Alton Twine and Chris Pipe-Martin.

By now you would be aware that the 2019 IPWEAQ Excellence Awards are open for submissions. Please nominate your people and projects so we can celebrate your successes at the awards dinner and ceremony in October.

Coming up next we have the SWQ Branch conference which kicks off our program of regional conferences and forums. Please join us in Gatton, 7-8 March for another comprehensive program including a Keynote presentation on Waste to Energy - the future of water management by LGAQ.

I am particularly looking forward to this year’s panel session to see how our representing engineer takes on a councillor and a consultant in the discussion on the financial sustainability of local government. Be sure to be there to support your colleague!

We are expecting representation in Gatton from all 14 councils in the SWQ region including mayors and councillors. Our regional conferences offer an excellent opportunity for our elected officials to better understand the issues we deal with when delivering our community’s public works program and we look forward to their participation.

As you would know, we do enjoy our conference social gatherings but to prove that we at IPWEAQ are also concerned for the well-being of our delegates, we have scheduled two sporting events for the SWQ Branch conference. Join us firstly for barefoot bowls, Thursday 7 March and then for the inaugural Team IPWEAQ bike ride, Saturday 9 March! 

A huge thank you to our joint host councils, Lockyer Valley Regional Council and Somerset Regional Council.

The Call for Papers is now open for the CQ Branch conference to be held in Rockhampton, 22-24 May 2019. Unfortunately I will be on my honeymoon and will miss the conference but I look forward to listening to the audio recordings of all the presentations, belatedly, in our Knowledge Centre after the event.

The proposed General Meeting to adopt the new constitution and company structure will now be held in Brisbane, 6 June 2019. There is a form on the website for you to submit your comments and feedback. Otherwise, if you are happy with the new constitution which was designed to serve us well into the future during periods of growth and turbulent times, then please complete the Proxy Form, also on the website. Please take this opportunity to record your vote in what is an important moment in our history.

Since I last reported on the Street Design & Planning Manual (SPDM) in the December issue of EPW, we have finalised a cooperative agreement with the Department of State Development, Manufacturing, Infrastructure & Planning. The work continues on this seminal publication which we are still hoping to launch at the annual conference in Brisbane in October.

And on a personal note, I am very pleased to announce that I am returning to ‘water’ to take up a position at the Southern Downs Regional Council as Manager Water and Wastewater. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank my colleagues at Lockyer Valley Regional Council for their support over the past four years and I look forward to joining the team at SDRC.

I look forward to seeing you and your engineering and technical teams in Gatton!

Seren McKenzie

President