NATIONAL EXECUTIVE MEETING
Last Saturday we had an excellent meeting in Wellington unfortunately inside while the City bathed in sunshine. Further progress was reported on the extremely worthwhile Sichuan earthquake projects that we all raised money for. I am delighted to report that the results are as good as forecast and we can be very proud of what we and our Chinese partners have achieved. This is due to much hard work by our projects team and to them we are very grateful. Other items discussed you may be interested in are covered below.
ANNUAL CONFERENCE HAMILTON IN MAY
Hamilton presented their well thought and interesting conference programme – do not miss this event that includes notable speakers and aspects of Chinese culture. Commences Friday 21 May and finishes midday Sunday 23 May. The venue is the City Council Chambers, Garden Place. Registration forms will be available soon.
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING SUNDAY 23 MAY
Of course our Society’s Annual General Meeting is to be held during the Annual Conference and this year is scheduled to be run completely on the Sunday morning Sunday 23th May. Our National Secretary has given notice of the AGM and reminded branches of various deadline dates involving the conference.
NOMINATIONS AND REMITS
We have a number of long serving National Executive members retiring this year and if you are an experienced branch officer we would like you to consider offering your services at a national level. Do approach your branch committee or president to arrange your nomination. Portfolios in recent years have been allocated to National Executive Members in line with their preferences and interests.
If you wish to have an issue raised at our Annual General Meeting, there are two ways of doing this. The first is by your branch raising a remit and forwarding through our National Secretary for putting on the AGM agenda. The second way is by your Branch President ( or any other member of National Executive) moving a motion at the Executive meeting of Friday to have the item placed on the AGM agenda as an item of special business. This would require a majority of Executive meeting to agree to that for it to succeed.
National Executive is promoting a remit to alter our constitution to incorporate changes recommended by the Charities Commission to ensure branches fit the charitable definition. Your President has the details.
2010 PROJECTS TOUR
Once again our very active projects team is taking a small group of members to visit selected projects and rural communities during October this year. Make contact with Dave Bromwich if you wish to join this for a very memorable experience.
YOUXIE VISITORS
Thankyou to those branches who have offered to host this important delegation after our annual conference. Their draft itinerary looks like Hamilton, Tauranga, Wellington, Timaru, Christchurch and Auckland. The delegation members are Mr Wang Hongqiang, and Mr Xu Fenghua both who have visited NZ before.
NATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS
Shortly your branch will receive entry forms for our annual national achievement award which will be judged for presentation at our national conference. This award was presented by the Chinese Embassy and past winners include Christchurch, Hawkes Bay, Hibiscus Coast, Hamilton and the Projects Team.
SHANGHAI EXPO DELEGATION JULY 2010
Our Nomination Committee have selected Trevor Linyard, Bernie Richmond, Eric Dittmer, Margaret Pierson and myself to go as the Shanghai Youxie sponsored delegation. Other members can join this delegation and so far we expect two wives to join this five day visit to the Shanghai World Expo. If you wish to join on a paying basis please urgently contact me.
Best wishes
Eric Livingstone, National President
