<&>Wellington Corpus of Spoken New Zealand English Version One <&>Copyright 1998 School of Linguistics & Applied Language Studies <&>Victoria University of Wellington <&>side one <&>1:09 welcome to the annual general meeting of serac for nineteen ninety three we have collected some apologies and i'll ask the secretary to read them out please john and kath thompson voc by letter and the other ones i've just collected the willis family chris witcliffe murray hymes tom smith sue goodman jim and mary coates david cameron benny myers les and allan trudgill and catherine brown <{><[>any others <[>martin gordon? martin gordon clears throat any other apologies to record please <,> would someone like to move that the apologies be accepted so moved christian gary gary seconder <,,><&>4 <&>2:00 martin burns <,,><&>6 the minutes of the twenty fourth annual general meeting of serac held on the twelfth of may nineteen ninety two <,,><&>3 were circulated shortly after that meeting <,> er somebody who was AT that meeting could you please move that those minutes were a true and accurate record of that meeting thanks jonathan buller seconded mike carruthers <,,><&>3 any matters arising from those minutes? <,,><&>4 no? i'll move on to my president's report which has been circulated much more <&>3:00 recently and that having BEEN circulated so recently i will not read it TO you but i will move from the chair that the <.>rep president's report for the nineteen ninety three annual general meeting be accepted can i have a seconder please <,,> thank you norman <,,><&>7 if there are any particular matters that anyone wishes to raise in relation TO the president's report that don't appear to <,> be capable of discussion later or in general business you might like to raise them now <,,><&>3 any matters? <,,> at this point we should have moved on to the treasurer's report but since er the treasurer hasn't <.>appeared hasn't made it yet er we'll <.>no move on to the notices of motion in <&>4:00 particular into the constitutional amendments <,,><&>3 these have been circulated as well they were required to be sent to you with er with the er notices of the meeting so as to give you the required time to consider them <,,> you'll find them on the yellow sheets that you have and there are four of them <,,> since <.>my I have moved the first one i'll um i'll talk to that one briefly the first constitutional amendment that has been suggested that has <.>moved has been moved by myself and seconded by grant hayes who is not here so we will have <.>to if he doesn't come i'll have to find another seconder this is <,,><&>3 this is <.>your your motion being moved here laughter i couldn't find a park anywhere this is <.>moved we move that clause four c of <&>5:00 the constitution be amended by deleting all of the words after excluding taxes so that clause four c will read the joining fees and levies for a senior membership shall be determined by the committee and as a corollary to that that in the case of any member resigning from the club prior to thirty one december nineteen ninety three the committee have the discretion to refund all or part of the building levy which would have been refundable pursuing to clause four c one of the constitution as the note to the amendment sets out we believe it's inappropriate for members to claim a refund word to the cost of the clubs lodges the essence of the payment as a contribution to the club's funds has long been recognised in that building levies have been shown in the club's accounts as an ASSET albeit inaccurately in view of the terms of the present clause four c one which in fact <&>6:00 requires that payment to be able to be refunded to the member and it is thus a liability <,,> it is therefore being proposed that the building levy no longer be refundable so that those sums can accurately been <.>showing be shown in the company's <.>accou in the club's accounts as an asset however <.>in because that is somewhat er sudden and in order to provide a lead in time for those existing members who may feel that this is absolutely unacceptable and would wish to resign rather than LOSE the possibility of a refund the second motion provides for the amendment to take effect as from one january nineteen ninety four is there any discussion to the motion please <,,><&>3 <.>i i would like to um speak if i may er <,> i <&>7:00 feel <.>against <.>i er against the motion i don't er i don't really think it's appropriate in my opinion it er reminds me rather of the last two governments we've had with their restructuring <,> where things are made er changes are made that actually apply to the past and that seems to be rather inappropriate that in a club of this nature people who join the club should find that the conditions under which they have joined are retrospectively er changed <.>in in such a manner <,> er <.>i i draw your attention to the fact that <.>i i don't think that because it's been shown on the wrong side of the balance sheet is <.>anything any justification for making this change <,> <.>i nor do <.>i i feel that there's any justification for a comment <&>8:00 that i've heard that the change should be made because it's difficult to find out which members have er the refund due to them and which because they joined as youngsters do not have their <,> um refund due to them <,,> so in brief i suggest that er <.>in instead of making this change for those members ALL members it should only be made for those members who now join <,,> and i feel that er <,,> the spirit in which many members joined the club should be maintained i don't think the amount of money is particularly large per member and i don't think the rather crass er requirement that they resign as a protest should have been brought forward <&>9:00 <,,><&>8 any other <.>s um people wishing to speak to the word i'd just like to confer with what martin said <,,><&>4 i'd like to make a comment i don't quite agree with all of the comments just made but at the same time it seems to me and it has always seemed to me that in fact the refundable <.>le building levies have constituted in effect a longterm investment by members in the club and this is in part recognised that it is repaid um when they leave and the replacement levy is if you like collected from people who then join um one option would be of course to make it so that the er person who had invested in the club were able to directly sell their membership to <&>10:00 a new member who might want to join that would have the um disadvantage that the club would no longer have so much control as it now has over who joins and who doesn't <,> but it seems to me that would be probably a more equitable way of looking at it incidentally i do agree it's on the wrong side of the balance sheet it probably should be shown as a liability <,,><&>3 sorry i've missed your point as to what would be more equitable well yes i mean my er what we're saying well have said in the past is the club has the right to decide who can join and whether people get repaid rather than having it sold directly why not <.>s say that members can sell their membership to another person if they want to <,,><&>13 <.>any the refundable building levy is a hundred and sixty five <,,> any other speakers? ernie <&>11:00 um i'm not sure if i missed a point but it seems to me that the only problem with the present arrangement is the mismatch between the reality as it is and as was intended by the constitution and the accounting method and i wonder whether we're adjusting the wrong side of the um mismatch that whether we should perhaps simply look at the accounting method and from here on treat the er building levy as a liability and leave the constitution as it was mm well we've actually done that anyway for this year's accounts but that's not the issue the issue is that we have <,> <.>w <.>w what is <.>a a relatively small amount per member a hundred and sixty five dollars that requires us to go through several sort of hoops every time a member resigns we have to check whether that person paid one or not um do they owe any money for any other reason um have they requested a <&>12:00 refund er <.>i it's just <.>a a lot of effort for a very small amount of money <,,> i understand the membership list has the asterisk in one particular column to indicate those members who have inherited their membership <{><[>from junior membership <[>yes but then again you have to <.>t check that it hasn't got dropped off on one of the <.>print i mean you know it is an issue yeah quite an issue oh yeah laughs <,,><&>5 maybe we <.>should using the word issue um <,> give to each member a certificate recognising their deposit <.>their their refundable building levy and that's then THEIR responsibility to maintain the document <,,><&>8 like a receipt yes <,,><&>4 i <.>think i mean if i can <,> just add another <&>13:00 thing <.>i <.>i it seems to me that there are problems um <.>o of the sort that you suggest peter um on the other hand having the building levy <.>i in the form it DOES does enable the committee to get some of the money owing it BACK in the occasional case of the refuse to refund er the building levy on the other hand the building levy is recognised in the constitution as always a refundable one it is refundable AT the discretion of the committee um it is not um on that point of view something which i would regard as a RIGHT of members or properly viewed really as an investment by the members and i must admit it seems to ME that certainly in the case of longterm members and perhaps not so much in the case of shortterm members that the first sentence of the explanatory note on this um <.>i is actually the <&>14:00 appropriate one that it's inappropriate for members to claim a refund of their contribution to the cost of the club's lodgings we recognise um that we are providing an asset er it is part of the membership obligation to contribute towards that asset it's contributed through the building levy and it's contributed <&>pronounced as contitributed through the annual subscription and on THAT ground um i've never seen any real reason why um we should be in the business of refunding er the building levy it may be that we reach a compromise solution of the sort that martin initially suggested where we leave members with what they regard as their existing rights but for the future we do not have this levy i mean peter's right in many ways it's actually a bloody nuisance from the point of view of the committee but i don't think that's the major consideration in the motion <&>15:00 <,,><&>9 cameron er yes madam <.>that's that's i guess my view as well um of this matter <.>having i've been a member of the club for a long time and um in fact i think the membership was part of my marriage contract emma got permission of the senior members of the club to er marry one of the er original members um <.>i <.>i i'm bound to say i think i got a very good deal in both respects and er clears throat i've never considered er this particular er matter as a bit of money that <.>i've like many others since that i'd ever see again and so er <.>i <.>i i must say that i think that um those of us who have been in the club for some time have had a <&>16:00 wonderful deal fantastic and um i guess i'm indicating how <.>i <.>i i'd er see some of the other financial matters that are before the meeting tonight in saying that er i think the idea in fact is to build up and retain the club's finances for the inevitable costs that we see projected in the future and er i think this was <.>a a totally painless and extremely appropriate way of er simply saying well okay let's er just <.>a acknowledge this as an asset and let's also acknowledge that those of us who paid it er many years ago or not so many years ago have had really good value for it <,,><&>11 sorry? i just want to say that er the hundred sixty five dollars i think it was <.>ori was <&>17:00 originally a one hundred dollars it er one point it DID increase at some stage increased at some stage but it seems <.>if <.>if if the levy's continued it's likely to stay at the current level <.>it's it's very much in danger of becoming an artifact i mean we raise it now but i can see if we don't do something about it tonight it's likely to be raised in five years time <.>or clears throat rather frequently <.>in <.>at at a g ms for er er removal and i think er now's the time to just <.>s rather painlessly cut it off and forget about it just as er the previous er two speakers have said <&>17:36