Please comment written reports below for members who cannot attend the AGM.
IT Officer’s Report
There isn’t a whole lot to report this year. The website’s server had some much needed maintenance done, and it seems to have resolved the issues we were having with the website crashing. Mailgun decided we had some suspect activity in our accounts, and paused our committee email forwarding until we reset some security info on our accounts and made it clear we weren’t spamming ourselves. It might be worth thinking about archiving some of the older sites we’re hosting, as they are all due for a code update, but aren’t likely to be used again.
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President's Report
Tena koutou katoa.NZLarps has been very much in a holding pattern over the last few years, due to the general state of the world and the country. Ongoing pandemic, lockdowns, and uncertainty over numbers continues to make holding larps difficult.
However we have still had some successes for the hobby as a whole, supported by the Society where we have been asked to and are able to. This includes new campaigns starting or soon to start, one off games, and even a “game” run specifically to showcase LARP in a documentary.
The community as a whole still supports one another through a number of media, including our Larp Hall Discord, various other social media, and regular combat practice held by society members. These have helped maintain interest and even attract new hobby members.
You’ll note that I speak of hobby members as well as society members. This is deliberate as we do have folks participating in larp who aren’t NZLarps members, and we also need to consider these folks when making decisions. As a society that supports larping in New Zealand, we need to remember to do right by both members and others. That said, we would benefit from more active members in the society, so that NZLarps can better achieve its mission.
It’s my hope any incoming committee members can help support those NZLarps members both existing, new, and prospective.
Thanks for having me on as President during this tough time.
-Rob
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Secretary Report
2022 has not been a very active year for NZlarps once again but only recently things have really started pick up again, thanks to the relaxing of Covid19 precautions, Larpers are feeling more confident and even more excited to get back to escaping reality once again.
With this, memberships are again rather low but more recently with the sudden activity of larps in the past couple months ,We are seeing a rise in returning member and renewals.
We can expect a slow but steady climb again in memberships.
I would like to thank the efforts of Idiot for keeping us updated with all the events taking place through the country, from the day games, theater forms, anything taking place Idiot has been able to keep us updated on this information.
Of the verified NZLARPS members the stats are currently as follows.
There are 53 total verified members spread out through the different regions.
(This is as of Wednesday the 26th of October 2022, This has changed slightly since then )
Auckland 21
Waikato 3
Wellington 25
South Island 2
Christchurch 1
Dunedin 1
The Memberships of larpers transitioning to the south island are increasing
With the relaxing of Covid regulations, event organizers are feeling more confident to host events which NZlarps could use to their advantage to drive for future memberships.
There has been a rise in interest for training sessions to take place in Wellington and Auckland which could influence or remind others to renew their memberships or to apply for their memberships for the first time
Overall, we have a promising pathway ahead and while 2022 is much the same as the previous year, but with a much better prospect for 2023.
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Marketing Officer’s Report
As stated elsewhere, we very much have been on hold in many areas due to the pandemic and the uncertainty of events going ahead.
Despite this, we have had bright spots where some games have been able to run, and I am thrilled to see things warming up again.
On my end, there were a few inquiries over the course of the year, though ultimately many of the media requests were not able to be fulfilled given the lack of events and logistical issues posed by the pandemic. I want to take the time to thank the organisers who have either managed to run LARP safely, as well as those who had to make the hard decision to flag or postpone events they worked hard to prepare for. I also want to thank attendees who had to make the hard choice of not attending a game due to illness.
It seems that things are trending towards us re-entering the hobby (as safely as possible). I look forward to seeing what the next officer brings in this position, and can’t wait to see you all at more LARP soon.
-Courtney
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