Auckland PIA meeting Tuesday 9th August

[Propoholic]

When: 7.15pm for a 7.30pm start
Where: The Ellerslie Convention Centre, Greenlane roundabout, Ellerslie

Guest Speaker: Tony Alexander - BNZ Chief Economist
Tony is one of APIA’s most highly regarded regular speakers due to the way he can provide succinct, informative and humorous insight into what is happening to our economy. Tony takes a real interest in property so is always able to relate economic indicators back to how they are going to affect our industry. The information he provides is always an enourmous help with property decision making.

Special General meeting: In addition to Tony Alexander, a special General Meeting will be conducted to vote on renaming the Executive Committee a board, approval to appoint a CEO, changes to correct errors and changes with the APIA constitution plus election of Officers.

A supper will be served at the end of the evening.

[kieran]

A very interesting meeting with a Special General Meeting resulting in the committee being renamed a 'board' and the new paid CEO position voted in to pursue strategies for attracting new members.

I am very interested to hear anyone elses feedback about the meeting and/or the changes which have been voted on.

[Oopsick]

Kieran, I heard your speech and found your point of view interesting, was looking for you to chat about that after the meeting but you probably left soon after.

Would be interesting to hear more of your reasons as why you think APIA turning into a commercial venture is a bad idea.

rgrds,

[kieran]

Thanks,

For those of you who are not aware I am interested in APIA's future as I was one of APIA's founders in 1994, sat oin the committee for 7 years, am a lifetime meber and have a 10 year history of financially supporting APIA as a corporate member.

It's not that I think it's a bad idea. I'm still not sure and in business I have learned that haste can be very expensive.

As I said last night the focus appers to be to take a financial risk (up to $115,000 in 1 year) to try to increase membership and I'm not convinced the members were given adequate detail to make such a decision. The committee wouldn't disclose much detail as they kept refering to "commercially sensitive" information which they could not share with the members... I guess that may also be why we only had 2 days notice of the reasons behind what would be presented at this special meeting.

When a member (not me) suggested the decision be dealyed till a more appropriate time when it could be considered adequately by the members we were accused of 'procrastinating'.

I didn't want to vote on such a critical issue without adequate information. I simply chose to vote against it unless we could get better disclosure.

About a third of all members were there and the vote was passed by an adequate majority so the changes will occur. It will be interesting to see how APIA evolves as a result of the changes. The good news is that apparently the committee are now more accountable to the members , but the not so good news is that the committe has little transparency so I'm not sure how that accountability will be measured...

They will need an excellent CEO but wouldn't disclose the salary being offered (apparently even that is commercially sensitive?).

And someone asked if I would apply for the job of CEO...
my reply was - No Thanks.

What did you (and anyone alse) think about the meeting?

[Oopsick]

Thank you, Kieran

I certainly did not like the way the meeting was handled. I respect Andrew and the job he is doing for the Association but it felt like he was not welcoming our questions and comments and avoided giving any detailed information regarding the future changes. That made me (and as we heard some others) suspicious regarding the intentions of the changes.

I agree with you that if asked to vote we have the right to know what we are voting for. It is of a question why Business Plan of Association, which was claimed to be a non-commercial structure aiming to provide better services to the members and not to produce profits, was considered commercially sensitive.

And yes I support your on the issue of CEO’s salary not being disclosed too. How is it going to be advertised without the amount? We were said that any of us could apply. Well… a good start would be to know the salary…

[RentMaster]

I was at that meeting also.

I felt like the decision was made too quickly. I chose not to vote because I thought I did not have sufficient information to make a truely informed decision.

If I did have to vote, I would have probably voted in favour. This is for a one year trial, and it can be reversed in a years time if it does not work. The association also has enough cash reserves so that if the worse case scenario happens, they should still be in good shape. Sometimes you just have to back your gut instinct and go for it. Nothing ventured nothing gained.

If the existing committee thought it was a good idea, and they know more about it than we do, then maybe it is. We shall find out.

[Oopsick]

Andrew, I have no doubt that the commetee knows more than the members but why do you think they were making a secret out of the future figures and plans (in numbers)

Numbers don't lie

[kieran]

This is for a one year trial, and it can be reversed in a years time if it does not work

Yes, but how will the members know if it has worked...
I'm not sure the committee will be forthcoming with much relevant detail due to their attitude that such info is "commercially sensitive".

Again they have told us the committee will be more accountable but no-one has said how?

They said it will be easy to tell by the numbers but will we be given the details of new revenue and membership numbers generated specifically from the new structure?

I am all for progress but only if it is based on informed and well considered information. The committee made the decision to proceed with this change in May. This was after getting members approval for the committee to INVESTIGATE the proposal and report back to members with their findings...

They reported back to members last night with a final decision that the committee had already made and basically told us we had to support it or APIA may well 'self destruct'... (no real qualification given as to why this may be the case but it was implied that APIA would go backwards financially and the committee - Andrew King in particular - were overworked).

Relevant questions were asked about the proposal which all of a sudden could not be answered due to the "commercially sensitive" nature of their findings?

I still believe that the members were ill equipped to make the decision that was made.

[RentMaster]

Andrew, I have no doubt that the commetee knows more than the members but why do you think they were making a secret out of the future figures and plans (in numbers)

Numbers don't lie

Your quess is as good as mine . The 'Commercially Sensitive' line they were using is a believable line, but whether that was the only reason or not I really dont know.

[RonHoyFong]

APIA - Lack of meeting protocol

I have personally chaired and presided over numourious community organisations and found that last night was extremely dictatorial and unprofessionally chaired by the current Chairperson. There was a total lack of meeting protocol

I report only what I observed last night and would be interested if anything was minuted:-

Any members who spoke against changes were knocked down Tit-for-Tat repeatedly by the same senior members of the committee making the same repeated statement each time, and had far more than their fair share of say.

The committee was asked by members of the Special AGM for a work plan or projection for what would be seen as a possible $115,000-00 expenditure risk.

There was no accountability of any expenditure when asked. Only verbal replies of "cant remember exactly but....."

Members asked that there be more transparency.

Members asked simply for more time to be able to make an informed decision on changes

Threats of self destruction of the APIA offerred by the current committee if you didn't vote their way.

Consistent inadequate reply by Andrew King and David Whitburn and his committee with statements of:
"Trust me,"
"we are the committee we should know",
"sorry we can't tell you what is planned because of commercial sensitivity."
" If we lose the $115,000-00 we can always change our mind"

The vote for change was by an estimated half of the members, only a handful voted against, the other half abstained totally from voting! (was it intimidation?), never-the-less the vote was won.

Cheers

Ron Hoy Fong QSM, JP.

[Propoholic]

Thanks everyone for your feedback on the Tuesday meeting. Kieran and Ron's thread in particular provides accurate coverage of the proceedings and issues.

I have been a member of APIA since 1998 and am very concerned at the way this Special General Meeting was conducted. I have never seen an APIA meeting or any other for that matter degenerate to the degree where the chairperson struggles to answer members questions and concerns.

Andrew King and David Whitburns presentations were unprofessional, unprepared and lacking in protocol for the forum they were trying to conduct.

I have spoken to four APIA committee members about the proceedings and their concerns match feedback in this forum. Committee members have confirmed that Andrew Kings assertions of commercial sensitivity with respect to disclosure of a business plan and CEO remuneration were simply incorrect.
Kieran wrote:

They reported back to members last night with a final decision that the committee had already made and basically told us we had to support it or APIA may well 'self destruct'... (no real qualification given as to why this may be the case but it was implied that APIA would go backwards financially and the committee - Andrew King in particular - were overworked).

Im not sure about APIA self destructing but there are a number of board members who may experience this scenario; board positions are likely to be scrutinised in the short term.

APIA will need to ensure that board members nominated to chair future AGM or Special General Meetings demonstrate an in depth understanding of meeting protocol. This was totally lacking at the meeting of Tuesday 9th August 2005.

[wildwest]

I have to agree with the above. I was also at the meeting, helping out on the front desk.......and I had considerable concerns at how constitutional changes were advised and management structures were changed.

I have been involved with Board of Management activities before and in fact was vice president of one non-profit organisation for 2 years, and I know that correct procedure was not followed at this meeting.

In my mind here, it is clear that the current management team of the APIA do not have the experience to conduct business in a professional Board of Management environment, and should look to obtaining professional development in this area.

However, it is up to us to voice these concerns to the APIA committee and explain our reasons. I believe that we have enthusiatic amateurs running the show who unfortunately took umbrage at having these inadequacies pointed out by other members.

My concern now is what process will be used to select a CEO for the organisation, and how the current committee are placed to select the right candidate for the job.

I for one, will be communicating to the Board the reasons why I felt they did not act in the manner I would expect, and how I would have expected that type of meeting to be chaired.

[Propoholic]

Revised APIA Constitution

The revised APIA Constitution is available to members in electronic format. Contact Karen Farrell at APIA (ph (09)3799692, [email protected]) and she will email you a copy.

[Andrew]

I have been an APIA member for 9 years and a committee member for 7. During that time I have seen the association grow rapidly along with the management requirement. The first meeting I attended in 1996 had a property manager speaking who had been asked earlier that day. When I was voted onto the board, the first I knew of it was during the AGM when I was nominated and voted on during the meeting.

The Association has grown substantially during the past 10 years, especially during the past 5 years. We not only have a larger membership, we have a more diverse membership. With the extra services we have included over the past 5 years comes an expectation from members for more. I think that is a reasonable expectation.

At Tuesdays meeting the Committee admitted that we were not delivering an acceptable level of services or professionalism to members that we believed we should. We asked for a change of management structure that would ensure we could meet the demands of the growing membership over the next five years, provide extra services and achieve these without increasing membership fees.

We have received a lot of support for our initiative, however it is disappointing that some of you on this thread have chosen to complain that we are not good enough when that is precisely what we have said ourselves and why we put forward this proposal in the first place.

To clarify Oopsick, we are not turning APIA into a Commercial Venture. We are a not-for-profit group that is undertaking some activities that are of a commercial nature. We have provided commercial activities before, so this is nothing new for APIA, although we plan to expand what we have done in the past. The planned activities have been requested by our membership over the past two years and we, the committee, have not delivered. This is our strategy for doing so and the membership has agreed to allow it.

Past committees have not asked the members permission to take on these activities, despite there being some commercial risk in undertaking them. They have never provided detailed budgets of what they were preparing to undertake and nor should they. They provided the end result in the Year End Accounts and that is what we intend to do. This was confirmed on Tuesday night in response to a question from the floor.

I believe the current committee is being transparent by providing the information they have. It is more information than has been provided in the past and in my opinion shows a higher level of transparency. Having said that, we do acknowledge that the stacks are higher with a paid CEO.

Regarding the salary of the CEO, have a look through the adverts in the situations vacant section of the paper. Salaries are very rarely included.

The committee has advised members of their intentions at the AGM in June and in a letter to members last week, providing the benefits we expect and the risk to reserves that could occur. It could be said that we should have got that information to members earlier and I believe that is fair enough. However in the letter to members we included information on changes to the constitution and biographies of Board Member nominees in the same mail-out to save on postage costs, and it took longer than expected to compile everything. I think this is a good example of why we need to employ people to help run the association.

After advising people at the AGM and providing more detailed information in a letter to all members, we believed we did not have to repeat the information to a large degree at the Special General Meeting. I believed people had sufficient information to make a decision on whether we should proceed or not. We assumed there would be questions to clarify certain points about the restructure and members were invited to ask questions. This does not demonstrate that we were unwelcoming of questions.

In my attempt to move through the matter efficiently, I don’t believe I emphasised the benefits that we were looking to provide members through the restructure. I’m sorry for that but again it was because as volunteers we do not always have the time to prepare things as much as we would like.

It appears that you wanted more information than we were prepared to divulge, namely exact financial details of the activities that we were planning to undertake, and that is what upset you.

I’m sorry to upset you, however I cannot think of any group who holds public events and makes the full financial details of those events publicly available. Even if there are groups who do so, I still do not believe it is appropriate in this instance. You can choose to believe we were “secretive” and that there is a conspiracy if you wish, but I assure you there isn’t one. Two of the people who spoke against the proposal could assume that they are competitors of APIA and would probably like to see exactly how we plan to operate.

Kieran I believed you have the best interests of APIA in mind, which is why you asked me for more information about the restructure last week, before the SGM. After providing you with some further information you replied that, executed correctly, the CEO position would only enhance APIA. It is fair to say I was taken aback with your speech at the meeting on Tuesday.

To answer your question on this thread, members will know if the restructure has worked if the extra costs of employing a CEO are covered by the activities they generate, through the level of discounts for members they acquire and the extra membership services they produce.

Ron I disagree with you that anyone who disagreed with the proposed changes were knocked down Tit-for-Tat as you put it. We asked for comment and we respectfully listened to it. An attendee of the meeting also asked that we move on to the vote because we were showing disrespect to our guest speaker. Half way through reading the motion, you stood up and made a point of order only to accuse the committee of gambling. The other points you raised had already been dealt with at the AGM or previously at the SGM so you were adding nothing new to the discussion and appeared to be disrupting the meeting. You confirmed this when you apologised to me after the meeting had finished, saying that you had not attended the AGM and arrived late to the SGM. I accepted your private apology but your public post here seems to contradict it.

Propaholic and Wildwest, I would welcome and look forward to your feedback. Thank you for your help at the meeting Wild West, it really is appreciated. If four committee members believed details of the business plan should be made public they did not make this clear at any committee meeting we had before the SGM. I still don’t believe the details should be made public but if the majority of the board do then that’s democracy and we will make them available. We will put together a summary of the plan for members benefit. We want to be as transparent to members as we can.

In summary, the APIA committee developed a strategy to increase membership benefits and membership numbers in a way that would not require an increase in membership fees. We do not believe that the restructure will change the essence of APIA as an independent provider of education, networking and a public voice for property investors.

The restructuring was overseen by an independent business advisor, who developed a business plan demonstrating its feasibility. The business plan was provided to our Treasurer, Mark Withers, to examine. He also concluded that the plan was feasible.

Mark calculated what the cost would be if the Business Plan was unsuccessful and arrived at a figure of $115,000. This information was provided to the membership so they could vote on whether to endorse or reject the plan.

I believe the committee has acted with the best interests of APIA in mind, they have sought independent information to confirm their ideas are feasible, they have advised the membership of the risks as well as the rewards of the plan and they have asked the membership for permission to put the plan into action.

Some people who may or may not have a vested interest would have liked more information and do not think it was well handled by the committee. I don’t think we handled it well either, however I hope this post has answered some of your concerns. If not, I would invite you to contact us, become part of the solution and volunteer your time to help make APIA more successful.

Andrew King, President
John May, Vice President
David Whitburn, Secretary

[kieran]

I will respond in several separate posts to keep each one relevant and succinct.

POST 1 of 4

Kieran I believed you have the best interests of APIA in mind, which is why you asked me for more information about the restructure last week, before the SGM. After providing you with some further information you replied that, executed correctly, the CEO position would only enhance APIA. It is fair to say I was taken aback with your speech at the meeting on Tuesday.

Yes, as one of the few original founders of APIA I still do have APIAs best interests at heart. But if you want to quote parts of my emails then perhaps I should publish the entire email here outlining my thoughts about the lack of transparency amongst other matters?


In that email I also stated that "the wrong person in that role could be devestating for APIA"

And you had replied back to me in that email that
"I'll circulate your comments around the current committee" ... But the several committee members I have spoken with have never seen or heard about my comments?