AES Wrapped 2025: Celebrating a year of impact, growth and community

‍Dear Visitor ‍ ‍

As 2025 wraps up, we’re taking a moment to celebrate what we've achieved together.

This year marked a significant leadership transition at AES. We warmly welcomed: Kim Grey as President, Andrew Hawkins as Vice President and Lee-Anne Molony as Treasurer.

At the same time, we farewelled three outstanding Board members: Kiri Parata, Anne Stephens, and Tony Kiessler.

We extended our deepest thanks to Anne and Tony for their wisdom and service. A special tribute goes to Kiri Parata, who concluded her remarkable five-year term as President. Kiri’s leadership has left a lasting legacy of integrity, cultural strength and strategic clarity for our community.

In 2025 the AES continued to provide a rich and responsive professional learning program. We ran 43 online workshops with over 950 people taking part in them. From foundational skills to cutting-edge approaches, these offerings helped evaluators build confidence, adapt to change and connect meaningfully with peers. Our Regional Networks and Special Interest Groups (SIGs) once again played a vital role in nurturing community and conversation. 34 online seminars and 23 in-person events brought people together across the country for meaningful dialogue and local networking. A special shoutout to the Tasmanian Community of Practice, which officially launched this year, adding to our growing network of engaged and passionate regional groups.

 The 2025 Mentoring Program, is now nearing completion. It brought together twelve mentors and assistant mentors to guide 36 emerging and mid-career evaluators through their professional journey. Across the year, small group online discussions were convened to explore wide-ranging ideas as well as problems encountered in their work. Many of the program participants enjoyed the opportunity of catching up face-to-face at aes25.

Held in Canberra, the aes25 Conference was a true highlight of the year, featuring our largest exhibition to date and a vibrant atmosphere of learning, sharing, and connection inspiring us to step beyond the bubble.

aes25 also featured our most popular pre-conference workshop program to date, with over 350 participants attending 13 workshops across two days. The high attendance showed a strong appetite for applied learning and kicked off the conference with high energy.

We also gathered at Parliament House, to celebrate the AES Awards for Excellence and we proudly welcomed two new AES Fellows.

A significant moment at aes25 was the inaugural gathering of the First Nations CSG Alumni Group, bringing together past and present recipients of the AES Conference Support Grants for the first time. This milestone reflects our ongoing commitment to strengthening First Nations leadership and connection within the AES.

In September 2024, we proudly launched our Strategic Priorities for 2024–2028, developed through extensive consultation with AES members, which led to the formation of four new project teams in 2025. With more than 115 members volunteering through the EOI process, these teams are now driving key initiatives in professionalisation, strengthening quality evaluation that makes a difference, updating the AES Ethical Guidelines, and embedding a Diversity and Inclusion lens across the organisation, laying the groundwork for meaningful, long-term impact. Early in 2025, AES also marked a milestone with the appointment of our first Policy Officer, Carina Calzoni, whose work is helping guide and support the progress of these project teams as they advance our strategic priorities.

Thank you for showing up on LinkedIn, amplifying each other’s work, sparking conversation and helping AES grow its voice. In 2025, LinkedIn proved to be a powerful hub for connection, with more than 1,630 new followers and over 210,000 impressions across our content. Engagement hit a high point in September, generating more than 52,000 impressions in that month alone.

To our members, new and renewing! Your ongoing support makes everything possible. Your financial contributions ensure AES can not only exist, but grows, adapts, and thrives.

To our volunteers across SIGs, regional networks, committees, project teams and the Board, thank you. Your time, care and commitment breathes life into our programs.

To everyone who attended a workshop, joined a discussion, gave feedback, or simply offered a thumbs up you are what makes this community so special.

We're looking ahead to 2026 with renewed energy and purpose and we're especially excited to welcome everyone to aes26 in Darwin - our first conference in the Top End in 12 years. Next year, you’ll see a stronger focus on enhancing the member experience, with new services and exclusive opportunities designed to make AES membership even more valuable, while still welcoming friends and colleagues across our broader events program.

We can’t wait to see what we’ll achieve together next year.

Wishing you a joyful, safe, and restorative holiday season.

The AES office will be closed from 19 December 2025 to 5 January 2026.

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