I can’t find anywhere that lists the current Exec positions and who holds them. Can we have a sticky with this info?
That’s current for national committee, Auckland committee, and the Hamilton and Dunedin reps.
I’m not sure whether the Wellington committee is current in practical terms. I was hoping that would get clarified at your next regional AGM, but you could do it earlier.
[quote=“Ryan Paddy”]That’s current for national committee, Auckland committee, and the Hamilton and Dunedin reps.
I’m not sure whether the Wellington committee is current in practical terms. I was hoping that would get clarified at your next regional AGM, but you could do it earlier.[/quote]
Well, I haven’t been on the Wellington committee since… last year some time? I have very little idea who is even on it. I think it was much the same? Pretty sure Scott is still there, and Bryn. And I think Ellen is now director?
I think I asked for a list of the Wellington committee after the AGM in 2009, and the list on the Contacts page reflects the answer I got. It is:
Director: Jackie Brasfield
Secretary: Naomi Guyer
Treasurer: Anthony Doornesbosch
Gear: Scott Kelly
Marketing: Bryn Jones
I asked for an updated list after the 2010 AGM, but I don’t think I ever got one. There’s some lack of clarity there over whether the vote was ever completed and results returned.
I’ve heard that some positions have changed hands since the 2010 AGM, but I’m not clear on whether there’s actually been a vote of all the Wellington NZLARPS members, so I’m not sure that thse positions have been filled in accordance with the Constitution of the society. I’m hoping that there will be a vote of all Wellington NZLARPS members at the 2011 Wellington regional Annual General Meeting in September and we’ll get some clarity. It’s not like people can just be declared to hold a position - they have to get the most votes from the regional membership at an AGM or Special General Meeting. If September is too long to wait, the Wellington branch could hold an SGM sooner.
EDIT: corrected years - I think the current list is from the 2009 AGM, and an updated list has never been provided.
Having an SGM to clarify the Wellington committee might sound onerous, but it’s really little more than giving the required notice of the meeting & points of business here on Diatribe and via email, and then having a pub meet where you vote in any committee positions that need filling.
Right now there are 19 Wellington members. If you wanted to hold an SGM, you’d need at least 20% of membership present to have a quorum: i.e. 4 people. Of course, more folks may want to go.
An SGM can be initiated by a request for an SGM from 20% of the regional members, or by a majority vote of the regional committee… whoever that is. 
The Wellington branch is up to some cool stuff, by the way. There’s the mailing list, Bryn’s updates on upcoming games, Scott’s working on the gear library, lots of games running, proceeds are building up in the branch account to help pay for up-front costs of large events that are being planned, etc. So I’m not criticising at all, it would just be nice to get the committee all official and cohesive.
Here’s some background on Welly.
There hasn’t been an “official” handover of my role as much as me finding a volunteer who was keen (plus an offer from Scott, who already has a lot on his plate, who seemed willing to step in if no one else did - but we did get a volunteer).
Historically when we’ve put out a call for members of the exec team we’ve had very few people step up. There’s been enough people to fill the requisite roles, and never any double-ups.
We’ve been slightly less formal in Wellington due to the culture down there. Our primary interest was putting the focus on getting LARPing going more frequently (which we’ve done) rather than focusing on running NZLARPS:Wellington as tightly as Auckland has been running. The membership base was just too small and there wasn’t a great deal of interest from people in the admin side of things.
Our comms and processes around who is serving on the exec team, when there’s no opposition/need to vote is to send out an email stating who has volunteered and doing a last call for any other volunteers or state their concerns/objections. If anyone else had volunteered we’d run an election. But it seemed a bit overly-pedantic to run an election if there’s only one person volunteering for a role. I presumed the safeguard of allowing people a second chance to raise their hands, or voice any strong objection was just as good of an exercise in being fair to all.
Where I dropped the ball is when I got too swept up in the move to effectively make the handover happen. I have emailed Ellen a few times with suggestions on comms as I felt I’d done enough “this is my last email,” type emails, but I should have followed up on that sooner. I sent her another email a few days ago but am awaiting her reply.
As Ryan notes, Wellington IS doing lots of cool things. And I guess what I’d like to impress, from an insider’s/Wellingtonian’s view, is that it has been far more important to us to get people LARPing down there again and remove the stigma around LARPing that had been plaguing the city for a while. I worry that if we focus too hard on quorum, and schedule A and article B that this will be a turn-off to people, hence the ‘softly-softly’ approach.
If this grossly violates our obligations/arrangement with NZLARPS than I am truly 100% sorry for that. Not my intentions in the least. In my mind, step 1 was to get the LARPs going and see the LARP culture thriving - the step 2 of making the exec side of things more “official” wasn’t as high a priority. And thanks to hard-working GMs (Idiot, Scott, Donna, Steph, Sophie, Jenni, to name a few) and the willingness of players to give LARPing another go, I think we’re well on our way to achieving goal #1.
So now, we can focus on goal #2.
… Which, clearly needs to happen as we have 50 members on the NZLARPS : Wellington Google group, so either some people’s subs have lapsed and we haven’t let them know that, or we haven’t been as proactive about encouraging people to sign up to membership as we should.
So, here are the hurdles that I know of re: getting the Wellington exec team in order:
- Compliance with our NZLARPS obligations:
- Do we need to hold an official election for the exec board? If so, who should manage that, me by proxy, given I’m still listed as “official”?
- Mentoring/synching up between the Welly exec team and the Regional exec team:
- would be great to feel like I wasn’t throwing someone in the deep end of the regional director role, and perhaps the other exec team members would like guidance as well.
- Cultural differences between Welly and Auckland:
- there doesn’t seem to be as strong of an interest in committees, meetings, etc… and historically it’s been harder to draw people together for meetings (even when held in the comforting surrounds of a pub with hot chips…mmmm)
- Banking stuff:
- I still think we’re awaiting pins or some other access to banking.
My apologies for not being as proactive as this as I ought to have been. It’s an understatement to say that as of late I haven’t had the headspace for this, though I should have put my hand up sooner.
Keen to do what I can in order to be of help in this time of transition. Just let me know what you think the next steps forward are and what my role (if any) should be.
Thanks.
Jackie
[quote=“Ryan Paddy”]
EDIT: corrected years - I think the current list is from the 2009 AGM, and an updated list has never been provided.[/quote]
This is true. It still lists me as secretary, which I most definitely am not.
I think this point is not necessarily true. People are busy, yes. But every other Wellington committee I’ve been on were, if anything, zealots about regular meetings. The trick seems to be to hold them every month/second month/or whatever, on the same day, at the same time, and preferably at the same place. The tricky part is that a bunch of people on the committee have other commitments. With a bit of warning and structure though, that can usually be worked around.
amphigori - I think those are all good points, and like I said I wasn’t intending to criticise. As you say, the most important thing is getting great games running, and Wellington is really successful with that.
However, money is now building up in the Wellington regional bank account from events, and the national committee has passed a motion to invest more funds from memberships on top of that. I think people would be more comfortable with that money (which is really their money), and any physical assets and game budgets that could cause losses, being managed by a committee that has jumped through the hoops of being democratically elected by the regional members and is having votes to pass motions for activities involving those funds. It’s quite common in Auckland for some positions to only have one candidate - we still vote for them, because there’s a possibility of “no confidence” winning and the position being left vacant.
Jackie - I’ll try to answer some of your specific questions, based on the constitution and the society’s normal practice:
Yes. It could either be done at an AGM in September, or an SGM sooner.
Anyone on the Wellington committee could create a poll in the private Wellington committee forum asking the committee whether they want to hold an SGM to fill positions of resigning members. Technically, I think the current committee is the 2009 Wellington committee members minus anyone who has officially resigned, because there hasn’t been a vote since 2009.
If the committee doesn’t get a majority in favour of holding a regional SGM, then voting for the new committee could just happen at the regional AGM in September, which really does need to happen anyway.
Alternatively if 20% of the regional members ask for an SGM you have to hold one. That might be the easiest way to make an SGM happen, it would only take 4 NZLARPS members based in Wellington to ask for an SGM on this thread and it would have to be arranged.
Only the AGM in September is actually required by the constitution. Whether you hold an SGM sooner is up to the Wellington committee/members.
I wouldn’t worry about this too much. You, and all the members of the national and Auckland committees, are still around online to offer advice to new Wellington committee members if they need it. Plus, everyone is new once.
I’m not sure what the status of regional bank access is. Anna or Liz would be better placed to comment.
Is there much point? It’s July. Reasonable notice means we meet in late July / early August. Or we could just wait till September and do it then.
(But hey, if the committee or 5 people want to do it, then I’ll try and turn up to vote)
Absolutely, that’s an option.
In that case though, until September it may be nice to have clarity on who the Wellington committee is officially, so that they can make votes to spend branch funds and so that we all know who the committee is. From what I can tell right now it’s the 2009 electees I listed above, minus anyone who has officially quit. So who has officially quit?
Director: Jackie Brasfield (quit)
Secretary: Naomi Guyer (quit)
Treasurer: Anthony Doornesbosch
Gear: Scott Kelly
Marketing: Bryn Jones
Is that right? If so then Anthony, Scott and Bryn could remain listed as committee and have voting rights, and we could make Jackie and Ellen (and Naomi?) advisors so they have access to the Wellington committee private forum to advise if they want. I don’t see any problem with the voting committee being three people until September, and it wouldn’t prevent anyone else helping the committee in a non-voting capacity.
I wouldn’t say I’ve “quit”, I’m attempting to hand-over.
Um… how about “resigned”? Stepped down? Left?
Basically, if you haven’t stepped down, then you’re still the Wellington director. Which is fine. But if you want to hand over, you need to step down and there would have to be a vote for a replacement, or the position can be officially vacant until the AGM in September when it can be filled.
Could an acting RD be put in place between now and Sept to handle the organisation of the SGM, get a call for volunteers and manage the voting? Or should that be managed by one of the remaining exec teams.
If the remaining exec want one, they could organise an SGM without having a director.
Ok, I’m trying to be able to step down and feel like there’s a clear plan for who is going to be managing the next election. If the answer to that is “the remaining execs are all responsible for making that happen, whenever they choose,” then I’ll ensure they’re aware of this, point them toward this thread, provide a general refresh of our obligations and feel like I’m leaving thing in a good state to progress forward.
I’ll also speak with Ellen to let her know the situation and advise if she’s still keen for the RD role that she’ll need to put her name in the hat come the SGM.
Cool?
[quote=“Ryan Paddy”] From what I can tell right now it’s the 2009 electees I listed above, minus anyone who has officially quit. So who has officially quit?
Director: Jackie Brasfield (quit)
Secretary: Naomi Guyer (quit)
Treasurer: Anthony Doornesbosch
Gear: Scott Kelly
Marketing: Bryn Jones
Is that right? If so then Anthony, Scott and Bryn could remain listed as committee and have voting rights, and we could make Jackie and Ellen (and Naomi?) advisors so they have access to the Wellington committee private forum to advise if they want. I don’t see any problem with the voting committee being three people until September, and it wouldn’t prevent anyone else helping the committee in a non-voting capacity.[/quote]
I didn’t so much quit. There was some sort of AGM last year that clashed with ultimate commitments that meant I couldn’t attend. I just assumed that we’d elected a new committee at that meeting. I didn’t feel like I was doing a whole lot (or anything?) on the committee, so I didn’t put my name forward for re-election.
I thought Ellen Couch volunteered for Secretary at the last AGM?
Did a Wellington AGM actually happen in 2010 where positions were elected? I didn’t get that impression, but that would make things a lot easier.