About VIC Branch
The Victorian Branch of the Statistical Society of Australia Inc. (SSAI) is an umbrella group for all statisticians practising in Victoria, and for all non-statisticians with an interest in the field of statistics. It is run by the Branch Council, consisting of the President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer, Newsletter Correspondent, Webmaster and several other councillors (up to 10 in total, including the executive positions). Members have the opportunity to participate in branch activities, and receive the Society’s journal, the SSAI Newsletter and the Branch Newsletter.
Join the Victorian Branch
Major branch activities include:
- Monthly meetings
- Sponsorship of statistical events
- Workshops
- Support for the Victorian Young Statisticians
Monthly meetings
The monthly meetings are held from March to November each year, usually on the fourth Tuesday of the month. A local, interstate or international speaker addresses the meeting on a topic of general interest to statisticians. The Annual General Meeting is held in March. The premier meeting is the Belz Lecture in October or November each year. It features a prominent statistician discussing a statistical issue of broad interest, and is followed by the annual Belz Dinner. The Belz Lecture also doubles as a University of Melbourne Public Lecture.
Statistical Events
The Branch Council supports worthy statistical events, particularly those with high potential impact and for which a local statistician is a key member of the Organising Committee. In recent years the Branch Council has provided some financial assistance for:
- Support for young statisticians to attend the Young Statisticians Conference in Brisbane in July 2011 (also Canberra, April 2007)
- The ISI/IASE Satellite Meeting associated with the International Statistical Institute meeting in Sydney in April 2005
- The Sixth International Conference on Teaching Statistics (ICOTS6), Capetown, South Africa, July 2002
- The Sliced Inverse Regression Workshop, La Trobe University, October 2002
- The Great Australian Science Show, Melbourne, 2001
Workshops
The Branch Council organises workshops on topics of interest to local statisticians. Details of current workshops can be found under Events.
Recent workshops were:
- Februrary 2011. Vector generalised additive modelling. Presenter: Thomas Yee, University of Auckland.
- November 2009. Introduction to R. Presenters: Andrew Robinson, Owen Jones, Robert Maillardet, Professor Richard Huggins, University of Melbourne..
- November 2006. Bayesian methods workshop. Presenter: Professor Kerrie Mengersen, Queensland University of Technology
- November 2005. A Workshop on the R System. Presenter: John Maindonald, ANU
- October 2004. Improving Survey Data Quality. Presenter: Professor Denise Lievesley, Director of Statistics, UNESCO
Young Statisticians
The Branch Council supports the Victorian Young Statisticians Group, both financially and professionally. For example, in 2011 a number of scholarships were given to support attendance at the Young Statisticians conference. The Branch Council also provided scholarships (the Denise Lievesley Awards) for four Young Statisticians to attend the International Statistical Institute meeting in Sydney in April 2005. The Branch pays for a substantial portion of the cost of refreshments at the Young Statisticians’ monthly meetings and the annual cocktail party.
Constitution (1976, Amended 1994, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2010)
The Branch Constitution can be found here.
A copy of Branch Regulations can be found here.