Congratulations go to Chris Bland, managing director of Great Southern Press, for all the work he and his team have put in for our 7th National Conference and Exhibition. This is the first time that the ASTT has permitted the independent running of such an event, thus considerably reducing the amount of voluntary work that has traditionally been undertaken by the local ASTT Councillor and committee. While on this point, a special thanks goes out to the NSW Councillor, John Monro, for being responsible for the difficult task of reviewing all the wonderful abstracts submitted. This work is appreciated by the ASTT.

Under Chris’s leadership, we now have an exciting program that I am sure will measure up to our traditionally high standards. The program will be one of excellence and balance with key people including James Thomson, Andrew Lukas, Ian Moore and several others all presenting at the conference.

These events are dependent upon the participation of delegates and exhibitors, but one should not forget the generosity of our sponsors. To this end, a special ‘Thank You’ is directed towards these companies and in particular Vermeer, our major Platinum Sponsor.

I would also like to thank the other key sponsors, namely Interflow and Vinidex, our Gold Sponsors, Kembla Watertech our Silver Sponsor, Parsons Brinckerhoff our Bronze Sponsor and finally Digital Control Australia. Your support is important and the ASTT appreciates this commitment towards assisting us with the promotion of Trenchless Technology throughout Australasia.

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New members On behalf of the ASTT, I extend a warm welcome to the following new members:

Corporate Members

Mr Trace Temcoff

from ISCO Industries

Mr David Fehl

from PipeWorks (New Zealand)

Mrs Catherine Pooley

from PB (Parsons Brinckerhoff)

Individual Members

Mr Gerald Fender

from Priority Sewerage Program Alliance

Mr Tino Ferrero

from Priority Sewerage Program Alliance

Mr Leon DeLuis

from Bullseye Boring

Mr Colin Sandford

from Deniliquin Council

Mr Rod Neilse

from Tamworth Directional Boring Pty Ltd

Mr Tom Poropat

from Tamworth Directional Boring Pty Ltd

Mr Garry Strudwick

from Tamworth Directional Boring Pty Ltd

Mr Steven Apeldoorn

from ProjectMax Ltd (New Zealand)

Mr Americo Dos Santos

from Hynds Pipe Systems (New Zealand)

Mr Ricky Wang

from Baulkham Hills

Membership

It is extremely pleasing once again to be able to report that at the time of writing this report, a large percentage of members have paid their membership fees which were due on January 1, 2008. It is also pleasing to mention that approximately 50 per cent of the payments received to date have been made directly to the ASTT bank account.

For those members that have still not paid your membership dues, you are reminded that you can arrange your payment to be made through direct debit to the ASTT bank account:

If there are any amendments to your mailing addresses or contact names etc, then please let me know so that the ISTT and ASTT databases and website can be kept up to date.

Jeff Pace

ASTT Secretary