SU NSW Treasurer, speaker notes Presentation to Extraordinary General Meeting, Thursday 10 th November 2020, Rydalmere Purpose of EGM : To share with members the prime reasons for why the SU NSW Board unanimously decided to not merge with other States and Territories in formation of SUA. Brief from chair: Two Powerpoint slides, ten-minute maximum My contribution : Stewardship Other speakers : Legal (10 minutes), Strategic (10 minutes) Interpretation of brief: Focus on two prime stewardship aspects that led to decision to not participate in merger. Slide 1: highest level financial concern S peak to: - An unresolved matter as to COVID19 funding which potentially overstates the FY21 surplus by approximately $3.8M. SU NSW could not analytically support the value of Jobkeeper receipts and no response to an expressed concern was forthcoming from National. - Such that the accumulated 4 year surplus amounts to breakeven – an uncomfortable result given all t
In my time I've encountered some risky spreadsheets. Spreadsheets have much user-friendly functionality; a feature that is both a blessing and a curse. Spreadsheets are a blessing that they can be customised rapidly, and spreadsheets are a curse in that they are often used to provide a solution when a better system solution is available. As a curse, spreadsheets are often built, and utilised, to a breaking-point. A point where functionality is hindered by size or distance. At the breaking-point you need someone to wisely recognises that it is time to retire the spreadsheet. You need that person to identify a way of data transfer to a customised solution. And, you need them to act quickly. The riskiest spreadsheet I've witnessed was a multi-user contract database. It was a contract database that had eight different functional user groups, numbering a total of 110 people, across multiple locations. On analysis of the spreadsheet's deployment there was neither a central