Presented at the Annual General Meeting in Tamworth, Wednesday, January 20, 1999

Welcome to the Annual General Meeting of the Country Music Association of Australia.

Today we celebrate our seventh birthday and I'm pleased to report that our organisation is still demonstrating it is a vigorous and active body with a real relevance to our industry.

However growth and maturity have also brought about the need for some changes which we must address soon.

Structure, organisation, responsibilities and long term aims are all matters that require constant revision as the CMAA develops its role within our industry. Your Board has already foreshadowed a meeting early this year to consider these important matters.

MEMBERSHIP

The CMAA continues to grow. Our current financial membership is 461 Professionals and 220 Associates. We must continue to make an effort to enlist new members because only with a stronger membership can our Association be more effective.

Several modifications to membership categories have been made and we were proud to announce at the Industry Awards that Rick and Thel Carey had been made our first Honorary Members.

We are working to increase benefits to members. AON Risk Services has prepared an attractive new insurance package while Australia Star is offering members substantial savings on phone call costs.

THE AWARDS

This January marks the beginning of a new era for the Awards. We move into our 9th and hopefully final venue. For the first time since their inception in the early 1970s, our event will be presented in a venue which gives us the potential to stage a world class show in front of an audience of 5,000.

TREC proved itself at the launch concert in September and we are confident that we will now be able to vastly improve the presentations in many different ways.

Already one significant benefit is that because of our confidence in TREC, we have been able to negotiate with the Seven Network to carry the Awards telecast through their network in prime time.. 8.30pm on Saturday 30th January.

Prime Television continues to produce and telecast the Awards. This year it will be shown on Prime New Zealand. The Toyota Country Music Awards will have a potential audience of over 18 million people.

While the venue has improved, our costs of production have increased dramatically too. We are very conscious that the Awards are our major annual fund raising opportunity and we are fortunate we have been able to offset some of these increases with a rise in sponsorship and by lifting ticket prices.

We are also very conscious of the artists who make the show possible and we'd like to thank them all for their generous contribution over the years. We also thank the many others who have also made significant contributions.

Toyota have been our sponsor for five years and we are very pleased to report that the sponsorship has been renewed for a further three years. We would like to thank Toyota for the tremendous support they have given the CMAA and Australian country music over these formative years.

We would also like to mention a couple of other companies who support the Awards, our official freight carriers, TNT Express and Eastern Australia Airlines.

I would also like acknowledge the work done by Producer John Spence, the staff of Prime Television in Tamworth and the staff of Max Ellis Marketing, in putting this major event together.

In 1999 we introduced a Judges Top Ten in an effort to acknowledge more entrants for their achievements in the Awards. This has proved very successful with around 45% of the Top Ten being "independents".

THE WINNERS

The Awards finalist series The Winners continues to sell well with total sales of about 147,000 units for the seven releases to date.

This year, in addition to our Awards video, we also released through EMI and Roadshow a video of the TREC Concert and Rise Above, a compilation written, performed and recorded by students of the College of Country Music in 1997-98.

We renewed our agreement with EMI for The Winners series and we would like to acknowledge Leon Concannon and the folk at EMI as well as all the record companies and artists who give their support to this project which generates important revenue for the CMAA.

TAMWORTH REGIONAL ENTERTAINMENT CENTRE

TREC was launched on September 19th by the CMAA Toyota Concert of the Century. It was a major project for the CMAA as, in effect, we were commissioning the new venue as well as organising a major concert and event. The Toyota Concert was a huge success and it was telecast through the Prime Network with excellent ratings.

As you know, the CMAA has had an important role in initiating and funding TREC. After the concert we made a substantial additional cash contribution to Tamworth City Council over and above funds already raised and committed.

Finally... congratulations to Tamworth City Council and everyone involved in making this important project a reality at last.

RESEARCH

Our third wave of national research has been completed and you will all have seen the excellent results. Sub committee chairman Rob Potts has driven this research and there are already moves in train to utilise it further in discussions with the radio industry.

LOBBYING

The CMAA has been active in many areas of the industry particularly with the parallel imports issue. Like so many others, we campaigned hard and long to prevent this retrograde step occurring but, in the end, we were defeated at the very last moment by one vote in the Senate. We have continued to work with government and other industry bodies on the issue.

In December, Executive Director Jeff Chandler attended the annual conference of the Community Broadcasters Association of Australia (CBAA). With Community radio historically playing a vital role in providing exposure for our artists and music, the CMAA has made a commitment to the sector to further strengthen and develop all facets of the relationship. Already in the planning stages and to be included in the 1999 agenda, is a "hand book" for announcers, special CMAA programming and dedicated information seminars.

THE COLLEGE

Once again we can say that the College is one of our finest achievements.

Graduates leave the College with TAFE and CMAA certificates but, more importantly, they leave as fully fledged members of the industry, with new confidence and skills and an entré into the country music family.

Last Sunday, a graduate of 1998, Brendon Walmsley, won the Toyota Star Maker quest, the second to do so after Lyn Bowtell achieved the honour in 1997. There were nine College graduates in the top 10 and we congratulate them all for a wonderful effort.

In fact we'd like to salute all of this year's graduates for their tremendous achievements. We thank Peter Winkler, the course music director, Rod Coe, deputy director, Roger Corbett, Deniese Morrison and Dobe Newton and all the guest and master class tutors, the New England Institute of TAFE, and our special supporters including the Country Music Association of Australia.