RNZ Annual General Meeting Round up

Sunday 16 May 2010 11:35pm

Saturday morning commenced at 9:30am with the usual workshop session ahead of the meeting to try and get some general agreement on remits ahead of the afternoon meeting. There were alot of remits to consider this year, many of them somewhat controversial. There was heated and passionate discussion around some of the issues. A number of remits did not proceed to the Annual Meeting as Chairman of the Board considered that they would not be resolved in a satisfactory manner or that there would be little or no support for them. The Rowing Waikato remits created a complete shift in thinking and whilst they had a lot of support, the general feeling of the delegates was that they needed a lot more consultation and time to be considered than available at the meeting. It was somewhat unfortunate that some delegates who wear multiple hats as both selecters and delegates could not differentiate there roles on the day when it came to judging these remits, and could not see how these remits would assist the selection process. The Waikato remits will now form the basis of one of the future 'Whole of Sport Forums' that RNZ run three times a year for Local Rowing Associations. The Waikato remits will probably form the basis of the April 2011 Forum. A similar approach was taken toward the Rules of Racing and the remits from the RNZRROA.

The Annual Meeting commenced at 2pm after delegates had broken for lunch. The meeting opened with the traditional welcome by the President of the New Zealand Rowing Association Mr Mike Hartley. Mr Bill Falconer spoke to the Annual report,and advised the meeting of some substantial sponsorships and that the High Performance Centre had now been paid for.

The election of officers saw all the existin officers returned from last year. The officers of the association are:

  1. Patron: The Governor General
  2. Vice Patron: Don Rowlands
  3. President: Mike Hartley
  4. Vice Presidents: Bruce Fraser & Colin Shields

The meeting then moved to elect the commissioners. As there was only one nomination for Youth commissioner, John O'Conner was returned to this position. The election for the position of Domestic Commissioner had three nominees. The first round of voting did not produce a result with any candidate attaining more than 50% of the vote, so the lowest polling member was dropped, and another vote was taken with the surviving candidates being James Sheehan and Glenn Sinclair. Glenn Sinclair was declared the successful candidate and took up the poistion of the Domestic Rowing Commissioner.

The board then sought the approval to appoint Mr Bill Falconer for a further term of six months until the conclusion of the World Champs and also the endorsement of two appointed directors. Appointments of Chris Doig until 2011 and Joanna Perry until 2012 were endorsed.

The Board then moved that the meeting adopt the constitutional changes that it has proposed regarding the restructuring of the board by the removal of the commissions and the positions of Commissioners and replaced them with Committees. These changes were adopted.

The meeting then proceeded to discuss levies and the Board proposed that the Association levy remain at $250/annum + GST and that the annual Competition Licence Fee remain at $65 + GST, the day Competition License remain at $20 + GST and the Seat Levy remain at $1 + GST for Lake Karapiro and Lake Ruataniwha regattas.

South Island Rowing requested a change of date for the 2011 National Club Champs and were unsuccessful with the dates remaining as 15 - 19 February with the 20th being the spare day. SIR also announced the fees for the regatta would be as follows:

  1. Eights: $64.00 + GST
  2. Fours/Quads: $48.00 + GST
  3. Pairs/Doubles: $32.00 + GST
  4. Singles: $24.00 + GST
  6. Amenity Fee: $24.00 + GST (rower & coxswain)

Karapiro Rowing Incorporated tabled their application to host the New Zealand Club Championships for 2012 to be held 28 Feb to 3 March 2012. This was not granted for these dates but for 14th to 18th Feb 2012. Tony Popplewell (KRI Chairman) advised the meeting that with these dates, there would only be one regatta between Chistmas and National Champs, so it would be likely that there would again be no North Island Champs.

The board then proposed a number of House Keeping changes to the rules of racing that were a consequence of the constitutional changes approved earlier in the meeting before moving on to propose a number of changes to the classification system. The adopted proposal now has the classifications as follows:

Novice Rower
A rower who has not raced in more than one regatta
Premier Rower
All rowers are eligable to row in the Premier Class
Senior Class
Rowers ineligable to row in the Senior class are those rowers selected to row for a Regional Performance Centre crew in the current season
Club Class
The definition has not changed from the existing, but will be rewordrd by the board and voted on by email by the delegates by 30 June

Following these changes, the following rules were repealed:

  1. 12.2.4.b
  2. 12.3
  3. 12.4
  4. 12.6
  5. 13

As a result of discussions held at the morning workshop, the only remit to be discussed at the meeting was remit 23.24 from the Welleingto RA regarding the future dates of National Champs. The remit was amended several time with the end result being that the National Championships will start in the seventh full week (Monday being the first day) of the year.

There were a number of items of General Business on the end of the Agenda including Canterbury RA applying to host the 2011 AGual Meeting M to coincide with the 150th Jubilee of the Canterbury Rowing Club, Wellington RA applied to host the 125th Annual Meeting in 2012 in the Star Boating Club rooms which were the venue of the first ever NZARA Annual meeting, and Auckland Rowing Association resenting a discussion document on criteria for the selection of Life Members of the Association. The meeting was adjourned to the evening Dinner and would be closed after the presentation of the awards.