The Trustees of the Australian Wool Educaton Trust are appointed by AWTA Ltd (3), AWI (3) and FAW0 (2).

Recent events have required FAWO to appoint two replacement Trustees and AWI to appoint one.

Brian van Royen: appointed by AWI (19th July,2012) consequent to Professor Kevin Bell's resignation.

John Lewis: appointed by FAWO (15th August, 2012) consequent to John Michell's resignation.

Geoff Fisken: appointed by FAWO (8th October, 2012) consequent to the death of Rod Thirkell-Johnston.

John Lewis

John is management and technical professional with over 40 years' experience in the wool processing and textile industry within Australia and abroad. He hasa proven record of developing new businesses and motivating a team to exceed targets. This is backed up by a solid financial and technical grounding in all aspects from fibre production and harvesting to retail product.

John was formerly Divisional Manager AWTA Product Testing The largest NATA accredited Public test house in Australasia, operating in the independent testing of textiles, fibre, leather, plastics, flammability, accelerated exposure, carpets, automotive and building product areas. Prior to this he was Managing Director of Macguarie Textiles Group, the largest woollen and worsted weaving , spinning and dyeing group in Australasia.

Brian van Rooyen

Brian also has a lifetime experience in the management and operation of downstream wool processing. He is the Chairman of Australian Country Spinners and currently is also a Director of AWI.

Geoff Fisken

Geoff is the Manager and Owner of "Lal Lal", a Victorian mixed farming enterprise of 2200 hectares, running 12000 fine wool merinos, 400 Angus breeding cows and 500 hectares of broad-acre cropping.

Geoff has also been an active member of VFF, WoolProducers (President 2001-2011 and currently Senior Vice-President) and has been involved in a number of NFF and AWI Committees. He is currently and Executive Committee Member of FAWO.

AWET VET Scholarship winners for 2012, attending Tocal College, NSW. From left to right: Jacinta Lynch, Dominique Power, Dr Cameron Archer PSM (AWET Trustee) and Charlotte Townsley.

Each VET scholarship is for a period on one year and is valued at $3000.

This article describes the activities of four students awarded Undergraduate Project Scholarships by AWET for 2012. The four young women involved, Cloe Bairstow, Courtney Fewster, Jasmin Koric and Cara Allan are all students at the University of Western Australia.

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They are being supervised by Dr Andrew Thompson and Dr Mark Ferguson.

The Trust supports 15 Undergraduate Project Scholarships per year (available to suitable applicants from any University), each of which is valued at $6,000 - with $3000 being allocated to the student and the balance to the University to fund its support for the student. These scholarships are available to Honours or other appropriate undergraduate students undertaking a one year research project relevant to sheep and wool.

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The Trust produces a summary report of its activities each year. These reports are intended to advise the organisations responsible for the appointment of Trustees about the Trust's activities during the calendar year. Copies of these can be downloaded using the links below.

2003 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

Australian Wool Innovation (AWI) has produced a simple but effective on-line resource for training retail staff about the benefits and advantages of wool.

Links to this and other AWI resources have also been added to the Educational Resources section of trhis website

The Australian Wool Education Trust has extended its investments to encourage education in Wool to include Australia's Fashion Schools.

The Trust from its inception has developed a detailed program of investments to encourge young people to enter a career in wool and sheep production.

Over the last three years the Trustees have fostered the involvement of staff from Australia's Fashion Schools in developing appropriate programs where the Trust could assist young designers to understand an utilise wool fabrics in their designs.

As a first stage, co-ordinated by Melbourne's RMIT, the Trust has funded the creation of a swatches of innovative wool fabrics for distribution to Fashion Schools. AWI has provided considerable assistance in this project.

Swatches have been distributed to about 35 school. The Trust has now committed funds for the continuing expansion and maintenance of the

The Cooperative Research Centres Program (CRC Program) is an initiative of the Australian Commonwealth Government , and was established in 1990.

The CRCs bring together researchers from universities, CSIRO and other government laboratories, and private industry or public sector agencies, in long-term collaborative arrangements, which support research and development and education activities that achieve real outcomes of national economic and social significance.

The program emphasises the importance of developing collaborative arrangements between researchers and between researchers and research users in the private and public sector in order to maximise the capture of the benefits of publicly funded research through an enhanced process of commercialisation or utilisation by the users of that research.

The Australian Government awards between $20-40 million in funding to each CRC over a seven year period. This funding must be matched by cash and/or in-kind contributions (such as expertise and research facilities) from CRC participants.

The established CRCs cover many areas of natural science and engineering: manufacturing technology, information and communications technology, mining and energy, agriculture and rural based manufacturing, environment and medical science and technology.

The Australian Wool Education Trust was established in 1998 by the Australian Wool Testing Authority Ltd.

The Trust is administered by 8 Trustees, 3 appointed by AWTA Ltd, 3 appointed by Australian Wool Innovation (AWI) and 2 by the Federation of Australian Wool Organisations (FAWO).

The Trust is an independent body, with policy being fully determined by the Trustees, without influence from AWTA Ltd, FAWO and/or AWI.

This website provides access to resource material developed since 2005 using funding provided by the Australian Wool Education trust. It is also a repository for educational material developed by the Premium Quality Wool Co-operative Research Centre (CRC), which commenced in 1993 and wound up its activities in 2000, and for the Wool and Sheep Industry CRC, which commenced in 2001 and wound up in 2008.

Woolwise was originally developed, using funding provided by the then AWTA Ltd Wool Education Trust, to provide an online presence for the Premium Quality Wool CRC while it was operating, but also to provide access to the educational material produced by the CRC.

When the CRC terminated the site ownership reverted to the Australian Wool Education Trust

The original website developed by the CRC for Premium Quality Wool has been retained within the current site in order to preserve the history of Woolwise and to acknowledge the people responsible for its creation.

The core parties of the Sheep CRC transferred ownership of the educational IP produced by the CRC to AWET in 2008. These materials are now available from AWET via Woolwise subject to specific conditions of use. As a result of this transfer the educational material provided on Woolwise extends beyond wool production, processing and marketing to include other aspects of the sheep industry. such as sheep meat production, genetics and sustainable land management.

The Trust has licenced this educational IP to the University of New England (UNE). It is the basis of a number of wool and sheep units delivered by UNE. This arrangement is unique for agricultural education in Australia. The courses are offered in external mode to students enrolled in UNE and other Universities within Australia. This "hub and spoke" model for education about wool and sheep recognises that it is difficult for any one University to maintain sufficient student numbers to justify such specialised courses within their Agricultural Science Degrees.

To facilitate the delivery of these units the Trust provides funds to:

• Support a Wool Lectureship at UNE
• Provide scholarships at the undergraduate and 4th year level
• Subsidise the cost of travel incurred by external students attending workshops at UNE
• Compensate external Universities for any loss of revenue as a consequence of their students enrolling in the wool courses delivered by UNE

Other Activities of the Australian Wool Education Trust

In addition to managing the resources developed by both CRC's the Trust provides funding for a range of activities such as:

• Education programs for wool industry participants;
• Development of education programs about the Australian Wool Industry within primary and secondary schools; and
• Scholarships for students undergoing wool education within the VET sector.