Report of Governance & Constitutional Committee 24/06/05
Meeting at INZ Offices Saturday 14 May 2005
Present:
David Farrar, Michael Wallmannsberger (Deputy Chair), Chris Streatfield (Chair), Keith Davidson (President, ex-officio), Jordan Carter - Committee staff support.
Apologies:
Dave Moskovitz
Agenda:
1. Constitution and Bylaw Changes
2. Councillor payments- Re-wording
3. Job Descriptions. -Councillor, Officers
4. Model terms of reference
5. Remuneration for Committee Chairs
6. Examination of sub-structures
7. Procurement policy.
8. Administrative matters for the first new Council
9. Voting software
10. Policy manual - research to date.
Meeting opened at 2:30
The agenda was re-ordered to take account of Keith's presence at the meeting.
Numbers match agenda points.
5. Remuneration for Committee Chairs:
We briefly looked at the history of honoraria paid to Committee Chairs noting that up to roughly end of 2001 Chairs received an annual honorarium of $3,000. This was changed at the time it was agreed by Council to
a) reduce the level of honoraria for Chairs and
b) all Councillors would receive a nominal annual fee.
This was again replaced by the current structure some three years ago of limited honoraria paid only to Officers.
We have passed the matter to Keith as Chair of the current Remuneration Committee for consideration.
8. List of administrative matters for the first new Council:
We discussed the matter, including the possibility of a briefing for the incoming President. Keith pointed out that he would be doing this as part of the hand-over from him. We have agreed to compile a list of requirements and ensure that they are included in the first Council meeting following the AGM.
Keith left the meeting at 3:00 PM
Returning to the agenda
1. Constitution and Bylaw changes:
There has been only a small amount of feedback from the Committee on the circulated wording so with minor adjustments the wording will go forward to the appropriate bodies.
2. Councillor payments :
There has been no feedback on the paper so this revised version will be included in the Council Papers for June.
3. Job descriptions for the upcoming vacancies:
These have been looked at and some modifications will be made and the updated versions will be circulated for comment and approval prior to the opening of nominations for the upcoming elections.
4. Model terms of reference:
We have agreed to rework the model terms of reference approved by Council (although only sparsely implemented) from June 2003 to include clearer governance parameters. We will have these complete before the August Council meeting.
6. This led onto discussion around sub-groups, their formation etc and look at precedence set by both AGM resolutions and papers adopted by Council over the last ~4 years. We hope to have this work finalised by the AGM.
7. Procurement policy:
Michael Wallmannsberger has agreed to start the process of putting together a procurement policy.
9. Voting software:
As noted at the last Council work is on-going but whether the software will be ready for this election is still not confirmed.
10. Policy manual research:
The Committee was apprised of the work implemented by the Office on the research into the various policies, Council decisions and AGM resolutions. At this time the office has limited investigation to the most recent 5 years and the Committee has stressed that the research must go back to the formation of the Society in 1995. There is also some difficulty for the researcher in that a quantity of Council minutes are still locked with passwords particularly 2000/2001 and some documents of 2002. Despite research into the various passwords floating around there has only been limited success in unlocking some papers. We have stressed that we look forward to all the research having been completed in time for a thorough report to the June Council.
Meeting closed at 5:30 PM.
Chris Streatfield
Chair
Governance & Constitutional Committee
Notification of:
Bylaw addition
Electing the Council Member to Executive Committee
A Councillor who is not an elected Officer may be elected by Council to sit on the Executive Committee. The Councillor will hold the seat for a term of office of one year. The procedure for election to a vacant position will be by secret ballot at the first meeting of the Council following the AGM. All Councillors and Officers present at the meeting may participate in the vote. In the event of a tie between two candidates a second secret ballot will be held. In the event of deadlock after two rounds of voting the President will be requested to nominate one or other of the candidates to be affirmed by a normal Council vote.
Recommendations:
That Council note this report.
