News

Today we held our 2023 Annual General Meeting with 36 members in attendance.

At the meeting we:

• Adopted the new Constitution.
• Elected the following 5 new Board Directors from the nominees that received most number of votes.
  • Tom Champion, Felons Brewing Co. (QLD)
  • Annelies Nijskens, Madoke Beer Brewing Co. (QLD)
  • Glen Brasington, Hawkes Brewing Co. (NSW)
  • Helen Black, The Coastal Brewing Co. (NSW)
  • Paul Maley, Shelter Brewing Co. (WA).

As we said from the beginning of the process the purpose of a new Constitution was to ensure that our guiding document is fit for purpose for the next 10 years. Importantly, the adoption of the new Constitution means that our total Board composition grew from 7 – 9 directors with 7 elected from our Full Brewery members and 2 from the broader membership.

One of the goals of increasing the Board size was to achieve even greater representation from our diverse membership. We are excited to add to the Board new Directors from Queensland, New South Wales and Western Australia as well as representatives from large and small, regional and metro breweries and those with a strong hospitality focus and notably two women.

At the AGM it was also announced that Richard Watkins was stepping down from the role of Chair of the Board. Richard has dedicated an immense amount of personal time, heart and soul to the IBA and we thank him for his service to industry.

We also would like to send our sincere thanks to the other Board Directors who have concluded their terms on the Board including; Chris Calefa, Matthew Shortall and Richard Adamson. Your commitment, leadership, support and knowledge has been invaluable.

Our new Board Directors join Callum Reeves (Kaiju! Beer) and Evin Craney (Bright Brewing) who are continuing on the Board.

With this diversity comes the strength to make the best decisions possible for the whole of the independent brewing industry and we are SUPER excited!

Next Steps

The new Board will meet next week to elect a Chair and in the coming weeks you will see an Expressions of Interest open for our two skills based Board Director positions. Thank you to everyone who participated in this process – we had a record number with over 100 members voting and/or attend the AGM.