ACHPER Victoria now providing services and resources nationally

ACHPER Victoria now providing services and resources nationally

ACHPER Victoria’s board formally advised ACHPER Incorporated that we were resigning effective immediately from ACHPER Incorporated on 7 October 2024. Resignation from ACHPER Incorporated means ACHPER Victoria remains a not-for-profit peak body, except it is now operating nationally, and independently of the federation of ACHPER entities.

The ACHPER Victoria board has prepared the following FAQs for its valued members, partners and stakeholders to help communicate this change.

What is ACHPER Victoria’s key priority?

ACHPER Victoria’s purpose is to enable all people to lead active and healthy lives. Our highest priority is to create an organisation that supports and services the HPE, HHD and sport and recreation communities around Australia.

ACHPER Victoria recognises we are part of an environment which includes 4 million students, in more than 9,600 schools supported by more than 300,000 teachers. In addition, there are more than 95 sports nationwide, which in turn have aligned state sporting associations. Our role is to connect these stakeholders, and our priority is to provide the capability, staff and structures to benefit these end users.

Why take this step now?

The foundation of ACHPER Victoria’s rationale and decision-making is prioritising the best interests of ACHPER Victoria, ensuring the organisation’s long-term sustainability, and supporting the end-users and members of the HPE, HHD, and sports and recreation communities across Australia.

Since late 2020, ACHPER entities nationwide have been discussing unification. In mid-2024, ACHPER Victoria considered the prospectus to unify and assessed it was not in our best interests to support the proposal. The foundational concern was that acceptance of the prospectus would require significant compromise on best practice governance and regionalised operational priorities. Ultimately, we recognised the significant time and effort spent discussing unification without meaningful progress was coming at an opportunity cost. With significant and exciting prospects ahead for our community, we deemed it was no longer feasible to continue this path.

As an alternative to unification, ACHPER Victoria’s Board acknowledged the successful governance and operational framework already present within ACHPER Victoria (which comprised 75% of the revenue and staffing of the combined ACHPER entities). This framework is readily scalable nationwide. We subsequently offered all ACHPER entities the opportunity to integrate into this framework, however, all entities declined.

Recognising the differing perspectives of other ACHPER entities and following significant due diligence, including seeking external advice (operational and legal), the Board of ACHPER Victoria made the decision to resign from ACHPER Incorporated and commence operating nationally. We have the capability and capacity to create a structure that will benefit end users nationally to optimise learning outcomes in education, sport, health, recreation and physical activity.

Where is ACHPER Victoria based and how can it operate nationally?

We are incorporated in Victoria and are physically based in Victoria. However, we have an Australian Registered Business Number (ARBN), which allows us to operate throughout Australia.

We recognise the need to ensure our governance and operations are national in focus and allow us to address regional variations. We are excited to put in place our nationally-focused operational plans including the establishment of a National Advisory Council. The ACHPER Victoria board has also commenced its board director succession plans with the aim of broadening both regional knowledge and the board’s skills and expertise through this transition phase.

Will we keep the name ACHPER Victoria?

We are proud of our name and our history, and we continue to use the ACHPER Victoria name. However, we have commenced the exciting process of re-branding to a name that expresses our purpose more clearly and limits confusion for our end users around Australia – stay tuned!

Service and resource – what is the impact?

The same great service continues, and better still, we can now increase the service available to you around Australia.

ACHPER Victoria offers a range of services and resources including:

• Professional services and resources from F – 12 including senior Secondary resources, face to face learning, webinars, resources, eLearn, teaching tools and contributions to key textbooks.
• Events which enable face to face learning – from in-school workshops to major conferences.
• Consulting services including the Expert Support Service to the Victorian Governments $88 million Active Schools Initiative as well for multiple clients seeking engagement with National and State Sporting Associations and a range of organisations seeking closer engagement with education.
• Partnership through structured deliverables with a broad range of organisations of all sizes and reach.
• We connect multiple key stakeholders both throughout education, health, physical activity, sport and recreation to find ways to benefit and grow our sector
• We achieve this through a growing database of over 8,000 contacts and the ability to curate quality content to end user need.

We are open and excited to talk about how we can assist you further.

Further questions?

If the information above hasn’t answered all your questions, please feel free to contact ACHPER CEO, Gillian Manson via email gillian.manson@achper.vic.edu.au.