Both SLSA and the State Centres are particularly excited about this as we know many of you joined Surf Life Saving to save lives and perform a community service, and this new IT system will free up time currently spent on time-consuming administrative tasks, by making existing data entry and your member communication processes more automated and user-friendly.
The IT change project will benefit everyone - our members, our employees, our clubs, our organisation and importantly, all Australian beachgoers.
This project will be rolled out over three phases and is due for completion in 2012. Work is already underway. This first phase of the project, completed at the end of July, involved developing the infrastructure to enable the rest of the project to succeed, as well as enhancing our reporting capability.
The second phase will run from August 2010 until the third quarter of 2011 and will deliver an online portal, a bit like a 'one stop shop', designed to better manage our information and improve access to SLS services for administrators and members alike.
The third phase will run from late 2011 to 2012 and will involve reviewing our old systems and processes to see what can be improved or potentially integrated into the new IT system.
I know change can be a challenge - even when it's changing a process we find difficult in the first place. Adopting new ways of doing things is not a nice-to-have for SLS, it's a must have in order to move forward. So I ask you to be patient while we learn how to make our fantastic new systems work for us all.
To support this initiative, we have launched a new website dedicated exclusively to the IT change project. You will be able to find all the information that you need about these changes: what the IT change will deliver, the stages of the project, how and when it will impact you and where to go to ask questions and submit your feedback.
So click here to read more about the IT change project and I look forward to keeping you updated as we make progress throughout this journey.

 

Brett Williamson, OAM
CEO, Surf Life Saving Australia