From the Chapter President

The end of the year is always a great time to pause, reflect, and celebrate what we’ve achieved together. As 2025 draws to a close, our SA/NT Chapter has so much to be proud of!

Our AGM and end-of-year celebration in November was the ideal occasion to come together, share successes and look ahead – with strong attendance, a welcoming atmosphere and a real sense of momentum.

For those who couldn’t join us, here are a few highlights from 2025:

• Membership grew by over 25% to 250 members, including several new schools. We also saw greater involvement from People & Culture professionals and school leaders, creating valuable opportunities for collaboration and learning. 
• We hosted eight events across the year, including four PD Sessions on branding, Admissions technology, communication skills and public relations, plus a virtual coffee catch-up for regional members
• Our Victor Harbor Summit set a new record for attendance and engagement – thank you to Rebecca Healy for her outstanding leadership as Summit Chair.
• A financial surplus to invest in member initiatives.

The evening was also a special occasion to acknowledge the retirement of John Kramer from Scotch College and celebrate his 30 years of service to educational Advancement. John is a Fellow of Educate Plus and a Trevor Wigney Award recipient. You can read more in the March 2025 eNewsletter. 

I’m pleased to share that all current Committee members nominated for re-election and we welcomed two new members: Anna Garcia (Cabra Dominican College) and Sophia Saracino (St Andrew’s School). I will be stepping down from the role of Chapter President, but will remain on the Committee as the Immediate Past President and educate+ Board Member. And in light of this, I am excited to extend my congratulations to Rebecca Healy who has been elected as your new 2026 SA/NT Chapter President! We will be formally welcoming Rebecca and the new Committee early 2026, together with some of the professional development initiatives that the Committee is already working on behind the scenes. We’re excited to build on the 2025 momentum next year under Rebecca’s leadership. Look out for a communication early next year with key dates and opportunities to connect – we’d love you to join us! 

And finally, a heartfelt thank you to our Chapter Sponsors – AdvancedLife & EnrolHQ – for your ongoing support. Thanks also to our Chapter PD Sponsors – communikate et al and McCrindle.  Your contribution makes our work possible and strengthens our community. 

Wishing you and your loved ones a joyful Christmas and a happy New Year. Here’s to an exciting year ahead! 

Helen Karapandzic

Outgoing SA/NT Chapter President

Thank You to the 2025 SA/NT Chapter Committee Volunteers

To our incredible educate+ SA/NT Chapter Committee Members, thank you for the passion, professionalism and generosity you bring to our community. In 2025, your energy has driven record engagement, strengthened our Advancement networks, and helped deliver meaningful experiences. We are deeply grateful for your time, wisdom and commitment. 

Helen Karapandzic F.EdPlus Chapter President Director of Philanthropy Prince Alfred College	Beck Healy Chapter Vice President Director of Philanthropy Scotch College Adelaide	Joanna Arvanitis Chapter Treasurer Project and Systems Manager King’s Baptist Grammar School	Julie Dow Chapter Secretary Director of Admissions Torrens Valley Christian School
Paul Bailey Committee Member Development Enterprise and Foundation Manager St Philip’s College	David Botha Committee Member Director of Marketing and Communications Westminster School	Sue Cvijanovic Committee Member Marketing and Community Engagement Coordinator St Mary’s College	Vanessa Grave Committee Member
Jo Gray Committee Member   Enrolments Manager St Peter’s Woodlands Grammar School	Belinda Mears Committee Member Director of Marketing, Communications and Advancement St Peter’s Girls’ School	Victoria Richardson Committee Member Director of Communications Nazareth Catholic Community	LISA TAPLIN Committee Member Head of Advancement WIlderness School

Welcome to our New SA/NT Members

We can’t wait to meet you!

We extend a very warm welcome to our latest Members, who have recently joined us since the last SA/NT eNewsletter. We are thrilled to have you as part of our SA?NT Chapter community!

Welcome to the following SA/NT Chapter Members:

It’s Going to be EPIC!

Step into a world alive with possibility at the Educate Plus Building Futures International Conference, Brisbane 2026!

Learn More / Register Here

Bathed in Queensland’s sunshine and framed by the winding Brisbane River, this premier event offers six dynamic streams—each crafted to inspire Advancement professionals, institutional leaders, and operations staff across Australia, New Zealand and Asia. With the Olympic city’s vibrancy, warmth and inspirational spirit as our backdrop, it’s the perfect place to look ahead and build what’s next.

We invite you to immerse yourself in bold ideas, fresh strategies, and practical solutions that are shaping the future of Advancement. Connect with experts, innovators and peers, and return home with new perspectives and powerful connections to drive impact in your own community.

This is more than a Conference—it’s a celebration of collaboration, learning, and shared ambition. Together, we’ll ignite new thinking, nurture professional growth, and set a course for brighter futures.

	Member Rates – Full Registration: Early Bird (to 31 March): AUD $1,480 +gst Pre-Conference Workshops: AUD $400 + gst 10% Group Discount Available (3 or more)
	Non-Member Rates – Full Registration: Early Bird (to 31 March: AUD $1,920 +gst Pre-Conference Workshops: AUD $500 +gst 10% Group Discount Available (3 or more)

CLICK HERE to Apply for a Bursary	CLICK HERE to Apply for a Newcomer Scholarship	CLICK HERE to Apply for a New Leader Scholarship

We can’t wait to welcome you to Brisbane in September 2026 — let’s make this the best Educate Plus Conference ever!

Learn More / Register Here

Thank You to our International Conference Sponsors:

Platinum Sponsor	Excellence Awards Sponsor	Gold Sponsor
Gold Sponsor	Welcome Event Sponsor	Celebration Event Sponsor
Silver Sponsor	Silver Sponsor	City Sponsor

Advance Your Career with Advancement Practitioner Training

Looking to Enhance Your Skills and Develop Your Career?

Are you interested in learning more about other areas of Advancement or do you want to learn about best practice from experienced practitioners and consultants?

If so … the Educate Plus Advancement Practitioner Training is exactly what you need!

Join us for the 2026 Advancement Practitioner Training (APT) Program — an immersive hands-on program designed to empower and inspire those newer to the Advancement industry.

DATES: Monday 16-Tuesday 17 March 2026
VENUE: Cliftons Melbourne

Register Here / Find Out More

Course Outlines (Click Icon to Access the Course Outline for the Stream)

This Program is the perfect foundation if you’re looking to build your confidence and expertise, as it provides the essential tools and knowledge for you to make a real impact at your institution, while advancing your career.

The Advancement Practitioner Training Program is also suitable for intermediate-level practitioners looking to refine their skills. The training offers invaluable insights and strategies to help you to keep up to date with industry trends and insights and will assist you to successfully navigate the rapidly evolving Advancement landscape. The training is also particularly useful to broaden your Advancement knowledge if your role is expanding to more of a leadership level, incorporating multiple streams.

This is your opportunity to invest in yourself, connect with like-minded professionals, and take your career to the next level.

We look forward to seeing you in Melbourne for a rewarding and energising experience!

Course Costs:

Register Here / Find Out More

Are You Ready to Communicate if a Crisis Hits?

Article supplied by our valued SA/NT Chapter PD Partner, Communikate et al

There’s never a good time for something to go wrong.

You might spend all day in the office, but it always seems a crisis hits at the least convenient of time. Are you prepared if it does?

Failing to prepare means preparing to fail in an environment where community expectations have never been higher for prompt and compassionate communications.

A lack of preparation can result in significant reputational damage if you don’t have the systems, tools and processes in place to respond quickly when crises hit.

Here’s our top 5 communications tips to prepare for a crisis

1. Nominate your spokesperson – if someone needs to speak to media, or in front of parents and stakeholders, will it be your school’s Principal? We recommend schools have at least two approved spokespeople, should one be on leave, unwell or unavailable when needed.
2. Identify your ‘most likely’ risk scenarios – think of what could go wrong at your school. A good starting point is what’s been reported in the media previously at other schools. Situations such as students behaving badly, large increases in school fees, claims of staff misconduct – they are all issues that have had significant media coverage. By pre-empting what could happen, you’ll be less likely to be caught off guard if it does happen.
3. Develop draft materials – pick the top three risks your school’s most likely to face and develop draft communications materials to respond to them. That way, you’re one step ahead rather than needing to workshop what the school will and won’t say when you’re in the thick of a crisis. Also consider whether you will need a media statement, FAQs, and letters to staff, parents or a governing body like CESA.
4. Know what you can and can’t say – media training will help ensure your spokespeople can confidently communicate your key messages under pressure and in the heightened stressful and emotional environment of a crisis.
5. Practice makes perfect – develop your issues management framework and be comfortable and confident with the systems and processes you’ll use to support a crisis response. Do staff know when to escalate an issue, what to do if the media calls, and who should be involved in developing the crisis response – Principal, legal, marketing and communications, year level coordinators?

By embedding a risk approach into your day-to-day activity, you’ll move from reactive firefighting to crisis readiness. And your reputation will thank you for it.

To arrange an obligation-free discussion about your school’s readiness to communicate in a crisis, email us at hello@communikate.net.au or call 8331 1444.

Creating Step-Change: How Psychological Safety Fuels Innovation and Impact

With the 2025 edition of Face-2-Face Magazine just dropping, we are thrilled to share an article from your very own SA/NT Chapter colleague, Melissa Ciplys

(Hopefully you saw the F2F Magazine launch EDM! We are thrilled with this year’s edition, and there are a couple more fabulous articles from fellow SA/NT Members … plus over 20 contributions from across Australia, New Zealand and Asia!)

Melissa Ciplys
Director of People & Culture
Scotch College Adelaide (SA)

Innovation isn’t a solo endeavour—it emerges from the messy, dynamic process of human collaboration. When teams come together to tackle challenges, share ideas, and debate solutions, they create what Psychological Safety researcher Timothy Clarke calls “intellectual friction”—the constructive collisions that spark breakthrough thinking.

Yet many professionals, particularly those leading small teams or working across multiple functions, struggle to harness this powerful force. Why? Because intellectual friction inevitably creates social friction—and most of us instinctively avoid it.

Here’s the challenge: innovation requires intellectual friction. It happens when we put forward ideas that don’t align, provide candid feedback, engage in hard-hitting dialogue, and challenge each other’s assumptions. These behaviours create inevitable collisions between people—moments where different perspectives, experiences, and solutions clash.

This collision is the raw material of innovation. Without it, teams fall into groupthink, ideas go unchallenged, and opportunities for step-change impact are missed.

The problem arises when intellectual friction triggers social friction—the fear, defensiveness, and relationship damage that occur when people interpret challenging conversations as personal threats. When team members worry about being embarrassed, excluded, or retaliated against, they self-censor. Innovation suffers.

The Leadership role is to simultaneously increase intellectual friction while decreasing social friction. This delicate balance creates psychological safety—an environment where people feel secure enough to engage in the robust debate essential for breakthrough solutions.

Practical Strategies for Leaders

Increase Intellectual Friction:

• Assign dissent by designating a “devil’s advocate” role in meetings.
• Ask, “If something could go wrong with this plan, what would it be?” to surface concerns.
• Explicitly request opposing viewpoints – Who sees this differently?””- and respond with curiosity.
• Reward attempts at challenging the status quo, not just successful ideas.

 Decrease Social Friction:

• Model vulnerability by sharing your own mistakes, uncertainties, and learning curve.
• Critique concepts, not contributors: “Let’s stress-test this approach” vs “This won’t work.”
• State expectations upfront—that you’re looking for good ideas, silly ideas, ‘if there were no barriers’
• Frame dissent as partnership: “Help me understand how we might address…” rather than defensive responses.
• Master non-verbal communication—maintain curiosity in facial expressions and body language.
• Thank people for dissenting views: “I appreciate you pushing back on this.”

Innovation isn’t about having the smartest people in the room—it’s about creating conditions where smart people feel safe enough to collide intellectually while remaining connected socially.

Where could your team achieve breakthrough impact if healthy conflict became your advantage?

3 Key Tips

• Innovation happens where thoughts and ideas collide —not in comfortable consensus
• Talent without the courage to contribute is expensive silence
• Intellectual friction balanced with strong social connection is key to unlocking potential in individuals and teams

Melissa Ciplys
Director of People & Culture
Scotch College Adelaide (SA)

How to Make School Photography Easy

Thank you to advancedlife for their support of the SA/NT Chapter!

For more than 40 years, photographed Primary Schools and High Schools with enrolments ranging from four to 4000 students nationally. As the largest family-owned school photography company in Australia, we bring unparalleled expertise to coordinating, photographing, and delivering your school photos. At advancedlife, we are dedicated to making images and data useful and accessible, so you can focus on more important things.

We use the highest quality Canon cameras and industry leading printers to ensure every photo is crisp, clear, and professionally finished. Our advanced systems and products are designed to be easy to use, instantly available, and responsive to your evolving needs, ensuring a seamless and efficient photography process that delivers high-quality images schools and families can rely on. We capture, print, and archive stunning school photos that your community will love.

We have been a proud Chapter sponsor for Educate Plus in South Australia and the Northern Territory for eight years, supporting the professional development of those working in school administration, Admissions, Marketing, and Fundraising. As a Chapter Sponsor, we are committed to strengthening our connection with the education sector and contributing to the success of professionals who help schools thrive.

Our free online school photography services streamline the entire process, making it easier for schools to manage student records and access high quality images. Our offerings include:

• advancedaccess, a secure image archive for schools
• advancedcapture, which allows schools to take images of newly enrolled students using a mobile device
• create & print, which enables schools to customise artwork using their own images and data
• advancedyou, a personal image archive for every student, ensuring memories are preserved and accessible

We make school photography easy so you don’t have to worry.

Want to know more? Let’s talk.
📧 contactus@advancedlife.com.au
📞 1300 728 972
🌐 www.advancedlife.com.au

Thank You to our 2025 SA/NT Chapter Sponsors

Thank You …

We’d like to extend a huge ‘Thank You’ to our valuable Strategic and Chapter Partners, who support Educate Plus and the SA/NT Chapter in our activities and enable us to provide wonderful opportunities to our members and non-members. We ask that you please consider supporting them, so that in turn, they can continue to support us. 

Thank You to our SA/NT Chapter Sponsors

Thank You to our SA/NT Chapter Professional Development Sponsors

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Thank You to our Educate Plus Strategic Partners

Connect with Colleagues

Stay Connected…

Keep in contact with your fellow Advancement professionals to keep abreast of best practice, discover new approaches and technologies and gain valuable industry insights.

To keep you to up to date with what’s happening at Educate Plus and within your sector, please connect with us on our Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn pages.