Eighteen Years, and It’s All Thanks to You

The eAssessment Association was formed in 2008, and eighteen years on, I’m still slightly amazed by how far it’s come. I was there near the beginning, one of the founding board members, and having just stepped down from the board in September after sixteen years I really understand how important volunteers have been to building a successful eAA community.

I’ve worn a few volunteer ‘hats’ along the way, including nine years as chair and a long stretch as an ordinary board member. What I learnt along the way is that volunteering for the eAA enables you to ‘give back’ to the wider assessment community, something I see as critically important as this same community has supported my professional journey for the last 35 years.

That’s why volunteering matters so much to us. Volunteers bring knowledge and expertise from across the assessment community, keeping us honest about what members actually need. They also bring a kind of commitment you can’t buy. A belief in the benefits of developing the eAA into the strong community of assessment professionals that it is today.

Looking back, the moments I treasure aren’t always the big milestones, for example, seeing how our awards programme has made a real difference to growing awareness of the ‘art of the possible’ and seeing how innovations in assessment technology has had a tangible impact on learner achievements. The people I’ve met along the way as fellow volunteers have also been hugely important to me – Cliff Beevers, the eAA’s first chair, showed me what steady, thoughtful leadership looks like, and Karen Pernyes, John Winkley, Gavin Busuttil-Reynaud, Tim Burnett and Graham Hudson proved that good ideas only go so far without people willing to roll up their sleeves and make them happen. I’ve learned so much from being a volunteer, working as a team to make ideas happen that benefit the whole assessment community.

So, thank you to all our wonderful volunteers, past and present. To the founding members who took a chance and formed the eAA in 2008, to every board member, committee member and member, to the many people who stepped up for “just one thing” and stayed for years: you have helped build the eAA into what it is today.

Although I’ve now stepped down from the main board, I remain actively involved, volunteering as chair of the AO Network and as Chair of the Judges for the International eAssessment Awards, and I can’t wait to see how the organisation continues to grow and develop, supported by its ever-important volunteers.