Minutes of last AGM
Minutes of the Annual General Meeting
Held at The Red Theatre, Unitec NZ, Carrington Rd, Auckland
on 28 September 2009
Meeting open: 5:40pm
Attendees
Julian Fitter (Chair), Paula Warren, Cathy Linton, John Pybus, Jessica Pybus, Warwick Reed, Carole Lambert, Ron MacDonald, Jayne Ivimey, Tui De Roy, Brenda Levinsohn, Carolyn Hyde, Phil Rennie, Kathryn Reed
Apologies
Duncan Scott, Margaret Jones, Sheryl Frew, Don Merton, Basil & Ann Graeme, Mike Britton, Brian & Sue Bell, Alan Saunders, Sue & Simon Morris
1. Welcome
Attendees were welcomed to the 3rd Annual General Meeting of Friends of Galapagos New Zealand.
2. Minutes of 2007 AGM
Julian Fitter tabled the minutes of the 2008 AGM held at Auckland Zoo.
It was proposed to accept the minutes as a true record of the 2008 AGM.
| Motion: Paula Warren | Second: Warwick Reed |
Passed |
3. Chairman’s Report (attached)
We now have 243 members. The increase over last year and the 60% renewal rate is very encouraging. We are still working on making it easier for Australian members to pay. During the year, we have made a contribution of $2000 to the Floreana Mockingbird Appeal and have sent a volunteer database professional to work with the Charles Darwin Foundation. His original 3 month volunteer stay was extended by a contract from CDRS. Julian has made several presentations about the Galapagos in NZ. These have been well attended and in future he will be asking these sorts of groups to make a contribution to FOGNZ. We have sent out three issues of Nannopterum and two of Galapagos News and have developed the website further, to include information on our committee and our statutes. Our plan is to use the website and email more in future to reduce mailing & paper costs.
We now have a press contact list and are trying to establish ourselves as the contact in NZ for Galapagos news. We are also involved in a project with Auckland Zoo to create Education Packs for school groups.
4. Approval of the Accounts (attached)
Julian Fitter tabled the current balance of the accounts. We have slightly less in the bank compared with last year, mostly due to sending our GIS volunteer to the Galapagos and the contribution we made to the Floreana Mockingbird project. Office expenditure is also up due to the cost of an administrator.
It was proposed to accept the accounts.
| Motion: Carole Lambert | Second: Ron MacDonald |
Passed |
5. Appointment of Auditor
The Auditor of the accounts, Allan Todd, has very kindly given his time free of charge and is prepared to stand again this year. It was proposed that the Committee re-appoint the auditor.
A letter of thanks will be sent to Allan Todd.
Action: Colin Ryder to send letter of thanks.
| Motion: Paula Warren | Second: Warwick Reed |
Passed |
6. Election of the Executive Committee
Julian noted that the Executive Committee have been elected for a period of three years and there was no need to elect new members at this meeting. However, we are able to co-opt new members if desired and if anyone would like to be considered for the committee, contact Julian.
7. Other Business
It was noted that our website doesn’t include our logo. Cathy will contact our website person to rectify this.
There was discussion about our targets for next year, specifically are we intending to carry on supporting the Fire Ant/Floreana Mockingbird project. It was noted that this has been a good fit in the past as NZ is so well respected in alien species eradication. Paula commented that it would be good to do another volunteer support project. Tui pointed out that no one is focussing on land snails populations on Floreana which have been shown to improve as a result of rat control programs. It was decided that as Julian and Tui would be in the Galapagos in November, they would discuss the issues with their contacts.
Thanks were given to our Corporate members Dive Fish Snow Travel, Southern Exposure Tours, and Wild Earth Travel for their financial help with the AGM, to Auckland Zoo for providing prizes for the raffle and auction and to Unitec for the complementary provision of the Unitec facilities for the meeting. Thanks were also given to Cathy Linton for the smooth running of the meeting and to the members for attending.
Meeting closed: 6.05pm