NZLARPS National Committee quarterly summary January 2018

NZLARPS National Committee quarterly summary January 2018

The NZLARPS National Committee doesn’t formally meet, and instead conducts business through its Diatribe forum. As a result, we don’t publish formal minutes. Instead, we have decided to provide a quarterly summary of business.

Matters discussed
Since October the National Committee has:

  • Worked through post-AGM housekeeping tasks.
  • The President posted a to-do list and sought input from the national and regional committees on priorities for 2018. This has spawned significant discussion, as well as a public poll (please vote!).
  • Discussed NZLARPS’ position under the Health And Safety At Work Act 2015. The president sought legal advice on this to clarify our position and that of independent larps. As a result, we’ve produced some guidance, including a FAQ on basic health and safety compliance for larps. This has been provided to GMs, and added to the resources section of the NZLARPS website.
  • Discussed GST registration. At present we are predicted to be just over the threshold, but our revenue is sufficiently variable that we do not believe it to be worth pre-emptively registering. We will continue to watch this.
  • Discussed the possible implications of the government’s plans to legalise medicinal cannabis for larp. At the time it was unclear whether the regime would effectively permit widespread use of cannabis, and if it did, there would be potential implications for safety and problems with venue anti-drug policies. Any policy to address these issues would need to comply with the Human Rights Act prohibition against discriminating on the grounds of illness. In the end, the government bill would primarily create a pharmaceutical regime, and is unlikely to have any implications for us.
  • Discussed FindMyLarp and other alternative ticketing systems to EventBrite. There are plenty of options out there for event organisers to choose from. New Zealand-based providers may avoid the hassles with US law we’ve had with EventBrite.
  • The president proposed taking advantage of KapCon and Hydra to have a multi-committee huddle just so people from our diverse committees can meet each other.
  • Received an update from the President about what she’s been doing. This will be posted publicly in due course.
  • Received a report from the secretary on membership numbers.