Directors’ / Admin Update

Website Magic: In case you haven’t noticed, we’ve jazzed up our website with a fresh new header, footer, and sidebar navigation! Plus, we've included a promotional section for events like Comedy for a Cause, and our upcoming Second Birthday Party in Melbourne. Josh has also provided a ‘report page’ for Directors to access member details and other stats. Check out the updated site here !

AGM: Our AGM was held on October 5th at 4 pm, via Zoom. Emma drafted the Annual Report. Thank you, Emma, that’s the hard work done! Josh’s new online report provided the member numbers. Michael reviewed the Report and sent it to the auditor who gave their approval. After the AGM, Michael lodged the report with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profit Commission. In addition to the year’s activities, the report highlighted growth across all our engagement metrics.

Member Metrics:

Number of Ordinary Members	9	34	+277.8
Number of Affiliate Members	0	11	+1100%
Number of Supporters	7	23	+228.6%
Facebook Followers	852	947	+11.2%
Instagram Followers	476	639	+34.2%
YouTube Followers	0	33	+3300%

We are starting from a small base but are hopeful that this next year will bring continued growth.

Political / Public Outreach / Networking Updates

Daniel’s Basic Income Walk - Canberra: Daniel Hart, with his 123k subscribers, is raising awareness about UBI. We’ve been following Daniel’s adventures, as we hope you have. Though being swept out to sea just south of Sydney was likely more of an adventure than he had bargained on! He’s now just reached Cairns on his way from Wilsons Promontory in the South to Cape York in the North. Congratulations, Daniel!

Newcastle Event: Emma attended a UBI event in Newcastle which was attended mostly by academics interested in a UBI. Caitlin from Newcastle is looking to set up a UBI course based on BIA’s policy proposal. Michael has reached out to her to talk specifics. Ben Mathews is exploring a collaborative venture for artists in Newcastle. Now she has returned from her overseas jaunt (including attending BIEN in Bath, UK), Emma will be exploring the artists venture to gather support for a UBI.

Comedy Event in Randwick: This event, held on 20 September, was planned to help raise awareness of a UBI in the local community, while providing some light entertainment. Emma, and especially Jess who put in a herculean effort to market the event and get donations for the raffle, and Armando who prepared an illuminating poster showing a UBI History Timeline. It was a great night with 4 comedians giving the crowd plenty of belly laughs. It also gave Emma and Jess the opportunity to chat about UBI to attendees.

UBI Regulars Table (Supporting UBI4All Global Initiative): UBI4All is a global organization who has offered $160 to local organizations around the world to host a ‘table’ of people in support of a UBI. It was held on 20th September 2024. The night was aimed at raising awareness… while having a bit of fun. We held our night at the Clyde Hotel, in Carlton, VIC. While our table was only small (11 people), it proved to be a great night with most of the guests new to a UBI. After a few drinks, and animated discussion the group was solidly behind the idea!

Work for the Dole FOI Request and Remote Working Application: We’ve being trying (without success) to have the Federal Government support employment of a part-time worker, under the Work-for-Dole Scheme. Emma has been persistent! After being ignored initially, she received a response that seemed to open the door. However, after preparing and lodging a risk assessment, we were then told that there was no provision under the scheme for remote work! Emma is continuing to question why this is so when so much more work is now done remotely… and we could really do with some extra admin and marketing support. Of course, you a free to volunteer too!

Investigating Opportunities for a Pilot: Michael has been pursuing a Ramsay Foundation Grant. However, they are focused on ‘means tested’ benefits. He has also been exploring a pilot in Bendigo with Bendigo City and Latrobe Uni. He has also identified Urana (a small town, pop 200, in Western NSW) as the site for a potential pilot, with another nearby town of similar size as the control. More recently he has been discussing options with the City of Banyule and The Local Community Bank, as well as with the City of Melbourne. Disappointingly, the Federal Government has declined to support a Pilot based on a submission we made in February. We are still hopeful that this decision can be reversed if we can get local government and philanthropic support for the project. We’re learning from international trials, though comparisons are tough due to different support baselines. We’ve reached out to several organizations in the US and elsewhere and it’s clear that the successful UBI pilots have been achieved by charities with an existing organization and funding base… something we don’t yet have. But we’re only just getting started!

ABI lab will be holding a round table on basic income trials in Australia on 6 Dec 2024. Jess will be doing a presentation, and Michael will be attending via Zoom. Others welcome. Let s know and we’ll send you a link.

Universal Basic Guys: This is a new series due to be released in 2025. It is a collaboration between Bentobox Entertainment and Fox and follows the exploits of people who are made redundant, but who have access to a UBI. We will have more to say about once we’ve had a look at the first series. We’re hoping it shows a UBI in a positive light!

Deep Discussions: A lively discussion of Work Ethic, Anti-work movement, and UBI pilots was held via Zoom on July 18th, 7 pm AEST [Zoom], with another held on 3 October discussing: AI, Trust and the ethics of Artificial Intelligence. This topic is particularly relevant given the concern that AI may lead to large job losses in the not too distant future.

Basic Income Coin: Josh has tossed out the idea of minting out own ‘promotional’ Basic Income Coin. Intriguing, right? Let us know what you think.

Upcoming Events:

Event update (Zoom: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82527159640)

Event	Date and time
Comms Meeting	16 November 4pm Zoom
Book Club	21 November 7pm Zoom
Strategy	30 November 4pm Zoom
2 nd Birthday Bash	This will be held at the Clyde Hotel in Carlton, VIC. Everyone welcome
December Meetings	These have all been cancelled to give the team a year-end break
	Be selective about which meetings you're a regular participant of

Christmas and New Year Greetings

We wish you and your family a Merry Christmas and a Happy new Year!

Thank you to everyone who have been supporting us. Let’s hope we can shift the UBI dial up a few notches in 2025.