Terry Norman
President – November 2011 to May 2024

On the retirement of Terry as President of the Australian Jazz Museum it is appropriate to acknowledge and honour the wonderful contribution he made to make AJM the organisation it is today.

• Terry joined the Victorian Jazz Archive (VJA) in 2008 following discussions with Marina Pollard and Ray Sutton about joining the “over 25s” Jazz Improvisation workshops.
• He was elected to the Committee of Management in November 2008.
• He became Vice President in November 2009 following on from Barry Mitchell.
• He was elected as President in November 2011 following on from Bill Ford.
• He was re-elected President and assumed the additional role of General Manager in November 2014, following on from Ray Sutton as General Manager.
• He recruited David Canterford to take over the GM role early in 2017.
• Terry has been re-elected annually as President to the present time. An outstanding period of service of more than 12 years as President. This included the COVID 19 pandemic years.
• The Mission Statement was changed in 2010 to “Proactively Collecting, Archiving and Disseminating Australian Jazz” from “Saving our Australian Jazz for the Future”. This was following a series of volunteer workshops facilitated by Terry to discuss future direction.
• Victorian Jazz Archive name was changed to Australian Jazz Museum (AJM) around mid-2014 to better reflect donations of jazz-related material received from throughout Australia.
• Terry successfully led the team which negotiated with The Potter Foundation for extensive philanthropic grants to fund a new museum database and other capital works.
• He led extensive negotiations with our landlord Parks Victoria to extend the footprint of AJM. Unfortunately, these have not been successful to date, although we were able to extend the footprint to cover the two Kennedy green containers and the newest container, which is joined to the original building.
• He successfully negotiated the purchase and installation of 3 x 40 foot shipping containers with compactus units and air conditioning to extend the urgently needed additional storage space to accommodate ever increasing material donations.
• He successfully negotiated with Axiell for the implementation of their Collection Management System database and FileMaker Pro.
• He oversaw the appointment of Robert Ayres as IT manager and the creation of a new role of Digital Manager currently held by Ian Rutherford. AJM is now embracing the digital age with expertise and talent.
• Terry negotiated a 21-year lease of the existing property with Parks Victoria in 2014.
• In 2016, he successfully negotiated with Australian Jazz musician James Morrison AM to become AJM’s official Patron.
• 2016 saw Terry commence planning for a virtual museum to have AJM’s complete collection available on-line 24/7.
• He also started a request for gallery space in new arts precinct planned for Central Melbourne city.

The Committee of Management, together with the volunteers and members, join together in thanking Terry for his tireless work as President that has left AJM a vibrant and forward looking organisation ready to face the challenges ahead. We also acknowledge the huge help and support of Faye Norman who supported Terry in his role