We gathered recently at the Arrow offices in Chippendale NSW for our Annual General Meeting. The Arrow AGM 2023 was an enjoyable evening spent with our members, supporters, directors and team and — judging by the level of noise with our post- meeting conversations — I think everyone would agree.

We reflected on and celebrated the 2023 financial year that has been. Chair Chris Murray summarised Arrow’s achievements over the past financial year, and spoke of our plans for the year ahead, and Chair of the Finance and Governance Committee, David Maywald, gave us an overview of the organisation’s fiscal position.

Highlights included our support of 208 bone marrow transplant patients and their families, the award of nine nursing scholarships, and $81k in funding of medical research projects this financial year.

We also heard from two guest presenters who have been supported by Arrow this year: PhD Candidate Ritika Saxena about her research into growing haematopoietic stem cells on demand in the lab, and Nurse Practitioner Yvonne Panek-Hudson who shared with us the story behind the very successful Straight & Marrow podcast.

We also took the opportunity to thank our volunteer board of directors for their dedication and guidance as well as our staffing team for their hard work this year.

We were pleased to be able to meet with so many of Arrow’s supporters and partners at our AGM: Philip Hartog, who supports nurses through the Sylvia Hartog Nursing Award, Kent Heazlett from the Hawkesbury Canoe Classic who provide funding for PhD scholarships, Mrs Driscoll who provides the Professor Geoffrey Driscoll Nursing Scholarship in memory of her late husband, Cameron Hayes & Deanne Chapman representing The Leukathon, and Joscelyn & Dee from Tour de Cure Australia who have supported the wig library for many years and who have more recently awarded us a grant for a pilot webinar series (coming soon!)

Associate Professor Nada Hamad came along to represent our partners ANZTCT, and we were also joined by Josh Polon with his fiance Rachel, and Lisa Cuthbertson, and Nikiya Love, who are supporters of Arrow as well as being bone marrow transplant recipients themselves. Their input helps us keep the patient perspective front and centre of everything that we do.

Also announced at this year’s AGM was the retirement from our board of longstanding member Leonie Wilcox. Leonie joined the Arrow board in 2007 and has been an invaluable support to us over the past 16 years. And we were pleased to announce the appointment of Yvonne Panek-Hudson who is joining us as a director from mid November 2023.

Thank you to everyone for their contribution and involvement with Arrow this financial year. Your support is greatly appreciated and has made this year the success it has been in supporting bone marrow and stem cell transplant patients and their carers.