Thorne Harbour Health wants you on the board — if you've lived what they serve

The HIV and LGBTQ+ health organisation is calling for nominations, and explicitly asking for people living with HIV, women and gender-diverse people to step up.

Told by Claire Lawson · 4 September 2026

Thorne Harbour Health is looking for two new board members, and if you think that sounds like dry governance news, you've never sat through a meeting where the people making decisions about your healthcare have never lived anything like your life.

The organisation — which trades as Thorne Harbour Health but is legally VAC/GMHC Ltd — put the call out this week. Nominations close 2.00pm Friday 2 October 2026. The election happens before the AGM on 15 November.

Here is what the board actually governs, straight from the constitution: prevention and control of HIV; collaboration with organisations and the public to support, develop and deliver innovative programs and initiatives to promote community awareness of HIV/AIDS; health promotion for people living or affected by HIV/AIDS; health promotion for LGBTIQ+ persons; promotion and defence of rights and liberties of the LGBTIQ+ community and persons living with or affected by HIV.

That is the receipt. Now here is what it means: the board decides how the organisation responds to the epidemic, how it allocates resources, who it partners with, what programs it funds, and how it serves the health needs of LGBTQ+ communities. It decides whether someone walking into a clinic or calling a helpline on a Tuesday afternoon gets the care they need, delivered by people who understand what they are living with.

Thorne Harbour Health has been doing this work since 1983 — the height of the AIDS crisis, when nobody else would — and it has spent four decades evolving in response to the epidemic. The board shapes that evolution. It is not ceremonial.

The organisation knows this. That is why the call-out explicitly encourages people living with HIV, women, and sexually and gender diverse people to apply. The line in the announcement is direct: to ensure the Board reflects the community it serves.

Reflection is not tokenism. It is structural necessity. A board that does not include the people whose health and rights it exists to protect will make decisions in a vacuum, however well-intentioned. Representation is not about fairness as an abstract principle — it is about whether the people in the room understand what is actually happening on the ground, what the barriers are, what the risks are, and what dignity looks like when you are sitting across from a doctor or a case worker.

The process is formal but not complicated. Nominations must be in writing, signed by two members of VAC/GMHC Ltd, and accompanied by the written consent of the candidate. A nomination form is available from the Secretary at secretary@thorneharbour.org or 03 9865 6700. The Returning Officer has no discretion to accept late or incomplete nominations — the 2.00pm deadline on 2 October is hard.

If more people nominate than there are vacancies, a postal ballot will be held. If you are not already a member of VAC/GMHC Ltd, you will need to sort that out before you can nominate or be nominated.

This is not a call for warm bodies. The announcement asks for visionary and capable people who work well with others. Translation: you need to be able to read a budget, ask hard questions, work through conflict, and make decisions that affect thousands of people. You need to turn up. You need to care about the work more than the title.

And if you are someone who has lived with HIV, or lived through the parts of the health system that still do not know what to do with queer bodies, or fought for the right to exist in a society that would rather you didn't — the organisation is saying clearly: this seat is for you.