Why Does Te Whanau Hou Grovetown Lagoon Exist?
Te Whanau Hou Grovetown Lagoon will, within the next 3 years, need to update its rules under the new Incorporated Societies Act 2022. I recently attended an excellent presentation on the new Act. The speaker - Peter Orpin - explained that all existing incorporated societies will need to re-register under the new Act. This will mean writing a new set of rules for the running of Te Whanau Hou Grovetown Lagoon Incorporated Society. In doing so, Mr Orpin suggested that societies should firstly think about its members, what the society is trying to achieve and why does the Society exist?
Thinking about membership raises some interesting questions. Who is a member of Te Whanau Hou Grovetown Lagoon? Initially, the society’s member list was the mailing list. However, technology has changed - the mailing list was once less than 100 people who were mailed a paper copy of the newsletter. Today, there are nearly 300 people on the mailing list who receive this electronic newsletter. Lovely readers, are you all members?
The question of membership presented itself at the recent Annual General Meeting. For the first time in my experience there were more people who wanted to be on the executive than there were places available - a positive occurrence. The current rules say that the society’s members can vote on who they wish to represent them. However, in the end no vote was needed.
The current rules also require that members pay an annual subscription. However, this has never been implemented. Mr Orpin did suggest that a small membership fee could be a good way of ensuring buy-in and maintaining at least annual contact with members. Another option could be that the members are the volunteers, sponsors and supporters of the society.
Te Whanau Hou Grovetown Lagoon will need to re-register under the Incorporated Societies Act 2022. This process may take some time, but must be completed by April 2026. From the presentation the key points to consider prior to writing the new rules for the society were: Why does the society exist, is it still relevant today and what is the society trying to achieve? The answer to the key question, why does Te Whanau Hou Grovetown Lagoon exist, is that it exists for its members, Grovetown Lagoon’s whanau.
