Lindy Allen

Director, Regional Arts Victoria

Lindy is the Director of Regional Arts Victoria (since 2004) and is on the Board of Regional Arts Australia. She has spent most of her working life in the creative industries in both a regional and metropolitan context. From a stage career in music and comedy in the late 70s and early 80s, she moved to roles in business and administration in the health and environment sectors and relocated to Mallacoota in Far-East Gippsland in the early 1990s. Here she took up various roles as part of the Mallacoota Festival including Director and General Manager, and directed the Mildura Arts Festival in 2001 before moving back to Melbourne in 2002 to take up the role of Sponsorship Manager at Melbourne Theatre Company. Lindy is a great believer in maintaining cultural diversity through dialogue and in the positive benefits of respectful cross-cultural collaboration for communities large and small. At a local level, she believes communities function best when they are supported, through skills development and access to information and other resources, to make their own decisions.

Patrick Donovan

CEO, Music Victoria

Patrick Donovan was The Age newspaper’s chief music writer and deputy editor of EG for 12 years, where he covered music industry issues in the news pages and his column, Sticky Carpet, and picked the brains of such music legends as Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Patti Smith, PJ Harvey, Iggy Pop and the Rolling Stones. Last year he left the paper to become the inaugural CEO of Music Victoria, the peak body for contemporary music in the state. He is a director of the Australian Music Industry Network and sits on the Liquor Control Advisory Council. He sang in a band, tour managed Iggy Pop, ran the Ju Ju Gumbo Parlour in Richmond and speaks regularly on ABC and Triple R radio. He ran the Age EG Awards for five years, which attracted 30,000 votes each year and raised $60,000 for musician’s charity Support Act Limited.

Roderick Poole

Director, Writers Victoria

Roderick is the Director of the Writers Victoria and comes to the position from an extensive performing arts background. Having written and performed plays in the mid to late 80s (including Dream of an Unknown Drinker, A Long Way Home and Goat), he turned to street theatre. He co-founded the company Primary Source, which created major outdoor works that toured Australia. He later founded his own company Strange Fruit, and was its Artistic Director for 12 years. Strange Fruit quickly became an international success, performing in 35 countries for over 300 international arts festivals over this period. Roderick left the company in 2005 and has since managed the Northcote Town Hall and the Regional Arts Victoria performing arts touring program. Roderick is a founding Board member of Writing Australia.

Nicole Beyer (AICV Deputy Chair)

Director, Theatre Network Victoria

Nicole Beyer has been Director of TNV since it was established in May 2009. Her past roles include General Manager, Back To Back Theatre; Executive Officer, Young People and the Arts Australia and Executive Director, Arts Access Victoria. She has worked as a consultant, worked for government, and chaired many arts boards, including Arts Access Australia, Geelong Arts Alliance, Snuff Puppets and was Chair of AIC(V) from 2000 to 2002, overseeing the Making It Real policy consultation project. She is currently Chair of the Australian Theatre Forum 2011.

Veronica Pardo (AICV Secretary)

Executive Director, Arts Access Victoria

As Executive Director at Access Arts Victoria, Veronica spearheads debate on key policy issues affecting people with disabilities and access to artistic opportunities. In her previous role as Deputy CEO of Deaf Children Australia and Deaf Services Queensland, she had a major focus on raising awareness both within the deafness sector and in the community of the needs of deaf and hard of hearing people.

In a previous role as lecturer with the National Institute for Deaf Studies and Sign Language Research, Veronica has specialised in Auslan linguistics, languages education and bilingual education and Languages Other than English (LOTE). She has played a lead role in curriculum development for Auslan and has been Study Specialist for the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority developing curriculum and assessment materials for Auslan, advising schools on the implementation of Auslan LOTE and Bilingual programs and conducting professional development for educators and school administration on Auslan as a LOTE and Bilingual Education. She is also writer of the linguistics modules in the Diploma of Auslan. She holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours), a Master of Arts and a Diploma in Education.

Laura Miles (AICV Treasurer)

Executive Director Museums Australia (Victoria)

Laura Miles is the Executive Director of Museums Australia (Victorian branch), the peak body for museums and galleries, which supports over 700 museums in the state. Originally from the UK, Laura is a former science journalist with experience in media relations, media training, event management and not-for-profit associations and boards. Laura sits on a variety of committees and boards including the Australian Science Communicators and Heritage Council of Victoria.

Laura co-founded www.alphagalileo.org, the multilingual European arts and science news service, voted one of the “100 most useful websites” by The Guardian in 2006. Laura holds a BSc in Psychology (biological sciences) and a MSc in science and arts’ communication, completed in 2005 with a dissertation on museum websites. She became a Chartered Director (C Dir) in 2008 and a Cranlana alumna (www.cranlana.org.au), in 2010.

Laura has contributed to publications including The Hands-On Guide to Science Communication (2007) and Museums In Australia (in press) and is committed to the societal benefits of knowledge-sharing both within the arts sector and the wider community.