PRIA confirms more vacant positions, new board meeting date to meet next week
The Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA) has confirmed it has found more replacements for vacant national board positions in QLD, NSW and Victoria, after the national board resigned en masse last week.
A national board meeting scheduled for Tuesday for the public relations industry body had to be cancelled as it could not form a quorum, but Mumbrella understands a new meeting is now scheduled for next Tuesday afternoon despite board vacancies still in Tasmania and the ACT.
This week has seen the election of Nicole Webb from Impact Communications as the NSW president while Andrew Collett from Edelman is the state representative on the national board. In Victoria, RMIT academic Alain Grossbard was elected both Victorian state president and a PRIA national board member, while Marie Howarth was elected president and to a position on the national board.
At this stage, there are still vacancies in Tasmania for the state president and national board representative, the ACT where the board position is still vacant and the Northern Territory where the national board position is also still to be filled. Earlier this week PRIA announced new representatives for South Australia with the division electing Leila Henderson as its new state president and Cait Tynan as its board representative.
Two weeks ago former PRIA national president Terri-Helen Gaynor was ousted by Swinburne PR academic Mike Watson. The move saw almost all members of the PR industry trade body’s national board resign.
New national president Watson last week told Mumbrella the scheduled February 18 board meeting had to be delayed, after certain states had been “dumped” by their state presidents.
“I have to give state and territory divisions time to transition their membership,” said Watson. “I mean some of them have been dumped without a state president. They now have to find a new state president and a new state representative for the national board and that takes a little bit of time.”
Nic Christensen
