In Adelaide, ATSA (Adventist Tertiary Students Association) kicked off 2012 with their annual ATSA retreat at Ankara on the Murray River, held over the weekend of February 10 to 12. This has been a tradition for the past 4 years now, and like previous years, it was a great opportunity to learn more about God, chill out with friends and catch up before the Uni year started up again. Around 30 people attended over the weekend. Definite highlights were a games night in the hall on Saturday night, water sports on (and in) the Murray on Sunday, and of course the amazing cooking.

In Newcastle, NASA (Newcastle Adventist Students Association) also started the year strong, with a booth at Orientation Week, followed by social events over the weekend. NASA had seven student volunteers manning the booth over two days, and in that time 20 students signed up to NASA, not including a lot of Adventist students in the area. The NASA chaplain, Rick Hergenhan says, “People were interested in what we’re doing, developing friendships with other Christians and connecting with other societies.” On the Friday night, 19 people attended a NASA scavenger hunt around Newcastle, finishing with dinner and opening Sabbath at Bar Beach. Then, on Sunday, there was a water sports day at Lake Macquarie, with water skiing, wake boarding and loads of other fun activities.

In Sydney, ASOC (Adventist Students on Campus) also had a successful booth at Orientation Day (O-Day) at the University of Technology, Sydney. Volunteers from ASOC were able to register approximately 60 students up to their club on O-Day with another 30 people who were interested but not yet willing to pay the $5 fee. These students will be given the opportunity to receive Bible studies and participate in quality social occasions with other SDA students.

If you are interested then in tertiary ministry in Australia then please consider attending this meeting to show your interest in being involved with supporting and facilitating tertiary ministry across Australia. Being on the ASA Executive is an excellent way to build and refine leadership skills that translate into many other areas of life.

As required by the constitution we have announced the agenda below:

Opening remarks and devotional

Reports
Local Communities/Regions
President’s
Treasurer’s

Election of new officers

President
Vice-president
Treasurer
Secretary

One of the things that needs to be done is electing Executive officers for 2011.  If you are interested in being involved with supporting and facilitating tertiary ministry across Australia, get in contact with us.  Being on the ASA Executive is an excellent way to build and refine leadership skills that translate into many other areas of life.

We are required to announce the agenda for our AGM in advance:

• Opening remarks and devotional
• Reports
  • Local Communities/Regions
  • President’s
  • Treasurer’s
• Constitutional amendments
• Proposal to develop Advisory Board
• Election of new officers
  • President
  • Vice-president
  • Treasurer
  • Secretary

The proposed Constitutional amendments are intended to make this document more relevant, and have been developed from the discussions of the Sustain ASA Retreat. Apart from a few cosmetic fixes, and some deletions of articles that have not been practised for many years, the updates reflect the following main ideas:

1. We are proposing to change the language from “Societies” to “Communities” throughout the document.  This reflects the language in our well-written Mission Statement, and also opens the way for ASA to engage with a wide variety of Tertiary Student Ministries that are happening around Australia.  These activities and experiments (such as on-campus church plants, tertiary-focussed local churches, semi-formal student societies, etc) are changing the face of tertiary ministry, and ASA needs to recognise them and remain relevant to them.  Traditional Local Societies are still a good thing, but will probably only ever thrive in the few largest cities.  By changing our constitutional language to “Communities”, ASA is positioning itself to remain at the pinnacle and cutting edge of Tertiary Ministry in Australia.
2. We are proposing to relax the requirement that ASA Executive members be current students.  The amendment expands the acceptable status to “within 5 years of being a student”.  This change grows out of the recognition that ASA struggles to maintain consistency with the traditionally high rate of leadership turnover.
3. We are proposing to remove a number of Executive positions from the Constitutional list.  Such portfolios can still be held when the Executive chooses to function in that way, but recent experience has indicated that it is often just as easy to “contract” certain jobs (like web-design or even Yr 12 packs) to people who may not want or need to sit on regular Executive meetings.  We also recognise that it is often more valuable to have students involved in leading Local Societies or Chapters or other on-the-ground ministries.
4. We are proposing to add a list of general functions that the Executive exists for.  These grow out of a list of reasons for having ASA at all.  This list was created by on-the-ground local tertiary ministry representatives at our Sustain ASA weekend, and is included in the St Albans Declaration.  Including this in the Constitution helps provide direction and affirm the functions of ASA.

A copy of the ASA Constitution outlining all of the proposed amendments is can be downloaded and read in detail.

A major purpose of the weekend was to facilitate dialogue between the various communities and ministries, and a lot of ideas were shared.  These conversations continued over shared meals and in the minibus, strengthening valuable social networks.

The other primary job of the Sustain ASA Retreat was to identify ways that we can improve the function and continuity of ASA.  It was obvious that we need to expand beyond the traditional Local Society model, and strive to be relevant to the full spectrum of tertiary ministry initiatives happening around the country.  Happily, delegates were agreed that a national association is worthwhile.

All of the participants agreed on the following as a summary of the weekend’s discussion, and we can now use this document to help guide ASA into the future.  Continual conversation will be required to ensure that the national association of tertiary student communities remains relevant and beneficial.

St Albans Declaration

October 17, 2010

We, representatives of tertiary ministry initiatives across Australia:

1. Have recognised the urgent need for tertiary ministry activities across Australia.
2. Affirm the initiative of the AUC executive committee to commit to university chaplains in each conference. We encourage conference areas who are unable to commit paid university chaplaincy resources to actively seek lay members who can operate in such a capacity until paid chaplaincy is arranged.
3. Resolve to strengthen the operations of ASA to enable it to:
   1. Allocate money to support tertiary ministry operations in regions lacking local financial support
   2. Facilitate a national tertiary student event
   3. Provide leadership training, networking, visioning, and planning
   4. Facilitate idea and resource sharing including a contact point for connecting people to tertiary ministry resources and expertise
   5. Provide advocacy for the interests of the Seventh-day Adventist church on university campuses and to provide advocacy for the interests of Seventh-day Adventist students to the general church.
   6. Maintain a database of tertiary students to facilitate communication and support of students moving between regions.
4. Recommend the appointment of a national-level paid secretary to support the administrative functions of the ASA leadership team. The administrative tasks are detailed in part point 3.
5. Recommend incorporating into the national-tertiary level administration a support level made up of graduates and other interested people to provide advice, resources and stability.
6. Encourage conferences to develop committees to provide the same role described in point 6.
7. Resolve to support a process of re-evaluation of the ASA executive with a view to streamlining the membership of the executive and renewal of the ASA constitution.