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Mounted July 10, 2002
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Chapter
leaves ARMA: RMAA affiliation plans near completion
The Wellington chapter of ARMA has closed. At its annual general meeting on July 9, 2002, the chapter confirmed its 100
percent ballot acceptance for reconstitution as the New Zealand branch of the Records Management Association of Australia
(RMAA). The RMAA affiliation project committee, lead by outgoing chapter president Trish O’Kane, hopes to have formal arrangements completed for the establishment of the new branch by mid-September. The reconstitution decision ends a 14-year relationship with the U.S. organization, a time characterised by the outgoing president as “an amazing period for records managers in New Zealand and the rest of the world”. The US connection had been enormously helpful in laying a sound foundation for the Wellington group, she said, but in recent years had become frustratingly remote and disinterested, and increasingly expensive. Trish O’Kane believes that the group had made a wise and exciting decision to join forces with the Australian association. “Australian recordkeepers and recordkeeping are now at the cutting edge of the profession’s development,” she said recently. She told the ARMA chapter’s final AGM: “Our development with ARMA has gone as far as we think it can go. The links was good and valued but now we can move on with the Australians in a combined drive to improving our professional status through education and training, and recognition within the profession. She challenged the meeting: “Our aim now is to recruit people to the new colours and achieve the required level of professional members’ status to establish our branch quickly. We need your to sign up for membership so we can get this new, challenging opportunity up and running as soon as we can.” Final ballot results Full details of the final ballot are as follows: On the proposition “The Wellington chapter of ARMA International be wound up forthwith and re-constituted as the New Zealand Branch of the Records Management Association of Australia” the vote was 33 for and none against. The result of the asset options ballot was:
The next steps The next step, in early August, will be the organization of a workshop, hopefully attended by a senior RMAA official, at which Association members will be guided through applications for professional status. Five RMAA members must hold Associate Member, Member of Fellow status in the association in order to form a branch. Presently there are two NZ-based members with RMAA professional status. Incentives to join RMAA now:
The target for the NZ group and the RMAA Federal Board is to have the new branch formally approved in time for an official announcement of its formation during the association’s annual conference. The ARMA chapter executive continues in the role of steering committee for final affiliation planning until the RMAA branch is established formally. A further general meeting then will be held to elect the branch council. Routine work of the former chapter, such as the second-Tuesday of the month lunchtime meetings, will continue during the interregnum. Funds will stay in the ARMA Wellington Chapter bank accounts until the new Branch is established, and will then be transferred to accounts established for that Branch. The steering committee is informing the newly-elected ARMA President, Juanita Skillman, of the decision that formal Chapter affiliation has been terminated and advising that a number of former members are continuing as members of a non-geographical ARMA Chapter 99. Background & history The Wellington chapter of ARMA was formally launched on November 22, 1988, two nights after the Auckland chapter, at a dinner in Wellington’s West Plaza Hotel. ARMA executive, David O. Stephens, presented the first Wellington President, Defence Department records manager Alison Fraser, with the chapter charter. It was the culmination of two years’ effort to get a records management focus group started in the capital. During this period, a short-lived Records Management Association of N.Z. was formed and ARMA officials visited Auckland and Wellington for talks. In the early 1990’s, chapter leadership was taken on by Alison Fraser’s Defence Department colleague, Betty Patterson, who began a membership drive. It was so successful that Wellington chapter won an ARMA International award for the greatest membership growth. Eventually, with membership in excess of 60, it became the largest chapter outside North America. Moves to secede from ARMA began during the 2000-2001 Wellington presidency of LINZ consultant, Jackie Jean. The following year, new President Kerri Siatiras, a SWIM Ltd partner, put the process on a fast track. A special general meeting (SGM) of the chapter in November 2001 gave the chapter executive instructions to investigate, report and test the members’ opinions twice, first for a last stretch run-up to “the point of contract” with RMAA. This poll was carried out electronically in May with the result that 93 percent of votes cast (27 out of 29) authorised the executive to “pursue affiliation with RMAA” up to the point of signing an agreement June’s second vote on the final accession act, also required by the November 2001 SGM, completed the process.
Presidents' 2002 Report to the Chapter is here. Chapter's moves to reconstitute as RMAA branch given here. Chapter Members' questions, and the answers, about the change are given here.
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