As you may know, March means not only the end of the fiscal year, but also the end of the school year in Japan. Since many students who graduate schools or universities in March start working in April, many Japanese public/private organisations set the end of March and the beginning of April as the time when staff rotations are to take place (in Japan, staff are regularly rotated into new positions and even branches depending on their company and role). Because of this, March also means farewell season of staff for many Japanese organisations.
As our CLAIR Sydney office currently has eight staff from the Japanese central and local governments, and similarly to other Japanese organisations, March is the month of the standard personnel transfers. As shown in the farewell messages in this newsletter, four staff are leaving CLAIR Sydney and going back to Japan in this March.
I would like to express my sincere appreciation to everyone who has any contact with the four leaving staff. I believe that all of these four staff members and their families received a lot of support from you and your organisations. Every one of you has made a valuable contribution to their fruitful professional and private lives in Australia and New Zealand. I am sure that the four will miss the people they met and experiences they had in Australian and New Zealand. I would be grateful if you would keep in touch with them and visit them if you have the opportunity to go to Japan.
All the other staff staying in CLAIR Sydney after March are taking over the four leaving staff members’ works and their professional relationships with you and your organisations. CLAIR Sydney will stay committed to its mission of developing the friendly relationships between local governments in Australia/New Zealand and Japan, promoting sister city relationships and supporting economic ties between Japan and Australia/New Zealand, and supporting all the former and future Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme participants, based on the achievements of the leaving staff.
From the 3rd to the 13th of December, eight selected swimmers from the Fukuoka Swimming Association visited NSW, where they participated in joint training sessions with a local school and competed in the 2024-25 Speedo NSW Senior State Age Championships.
