A grubby display of political expediency soured the good news announced at its Extraordinary General Meeting that the Student Travel Bureau ended up with a profit of over $17,000 for the 1978 financial year. The chairman of the Bureau's board of directors, John Judge, said in his report that this profit had been achieved despite spending of over $15,000 in scaling down the company's operations and represented "an excellent result"'. He added that the full effects of the board's actions would continue to be felt throughout the current year.

Mr Judge expressed concern, though, at the board's vulnerability because its membership is subject to continual change. He said this was a particular problem this year as "with my impending departure overseas, no 'non-executive' board member has more than one year's experience". The election of a replacement board member was to come up later in the meeting (the springboard for the grubbiness mentioned, but more of that later) and Mr Judge said that the board believed caution should be exercised in that election.

"It is my personal belief that to elect a recent 'student politician' with little or no business experience would be a disastrous mistake and that it is better to elect nobody if there is no candidate with suitable experience," he said. "To help overcome this problem the board is approaching a senior member of the travel industry to serve on the board in addition to the three 'student' elected members. This will provide the board with a level of continuity and expertise not presently available and will help the company to consolidate from our present base."