ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

The Annual General Meeting of the RNZN Communicators Assn will be held on 1 October 2016 commencing at 1100.  The venue is the Birkenhead RSA.  All remits and agenda items are to be forwarded to the Secretary of the Assn by 9 September 2016.

A number of remits  for amendment of the Constitution have been developed by your committee and are detailed below for your consideration. at the 2016 AGM

1. Delete exisiting para 6.1 in toto

Insert new Para 6.1

6.1 A review of the Assocation’s financial accounts is to be carried out annually by a suitably qualified person, independent of the committee. Where there has been little or no financial activity in a current financial year those committee members entitled to vote may pass unanimouosly the following resolution “that no Reviewer be appointed for the current year”.

Rationale:

The RNZN Communicators Association is not a registered Association or Charity. As such, the Association is not obligated under any Act or Legislation to undertake a formal financial audit. However under the existing Constitution Section 6.1, it is clearly stated an ‘auditor’ must be appointed.

As advised by the Association’s 2014/15 auditor Barry King, FATAINZ, the issue within our Constitution is with the word ‘auditor’. Under new financial regulations, auditors are now a separate specialist body whose charges would far outweigh any benefits to our Association.

It is recommended by Mr King that the word ‘audit’ was removed from 6.1 and replaced with the word ‘review’ and the word ‘auditor’ be removed and replaced by the words ‘suitably qualified person, independent of the committee’.

Mr King also suggested that the existing words ‘’be appointed for the coming year’ be replaced by the words ‘be appointed for the current year’. This recommendation is based on the precise that any committee would have no way of knowing with certainty the future ‘financial activity’.

 

Insert new Para 6.5

6.5 The Association’s fiscal year shall be 1 July to 30 June each year.

Rationale:

A fiscal year is described as an accounting period afterwhich account books are closed, profit or loss computed and financial reports prepared for presentation. It may or may not match a calendar year.

The suggested fiscal year period is in line with the RNZN and all publically funded organisations. This fiscal period would also provide the Association a workable timeframe to prepare the Associations financial accounts should a financial review be required before an Annual General Meeting.