Membership Standards Review - Update
2011 MTA Rules and Bylaws
The 2011 MTA Rule changes have been approved by the Registrar of the Incorporated Societies and are available below and on the MTA website.
2011 Rules [189kB]
2011 Bylaws [197kB]
The 2011 MTA Bylaws, supporting the MTA Rules, will be available on the MTA website on Monday, 19 December 2011.
While both the Rule and Bylaws changes come into effect straight away, some clauses, relating to the membership types, standards, qualifications/experience and premises will remain as per the 2007 Rules and 2009 Bylaws and be transitioned as follows:
Rule 7.2.1 – General members
- New members from November 2011
– join MTA under 2007 Rules (including billing) until
– 2 April 2012 – updated standards will apply
– 1 July 2012 – all November 2011 Rules and Bylaws will apply - Current members
– at 1 July 2012 (subscription round)
– Corporates – a transition plan is to be finalised
– Associates – 1 July 2012
Rule 7.3 Standards and Bylaws 3.4 Premises
- New members from November 2011
– join under 2007 Rules until
– 2 April 2012 – updated standards will apply
– 1 July 2012 – all November 2011 Rules and Bylaws will apply - Current members
A policy and process will be developed for the Business Managers to work with members who do not meet the updated standards. This will be tied to the annual member review process, but does not include instances of misconduct.
Bylaws 3.2 Qualifications
- New members from November 2011
– join under 2007 Rules until
– 2 April 2012 – updated standards will apply
– 1 July 2012 – all November 2011 Rules and Bylaws will apply - Current members
Where there is a New Zealand based qualification you must, by 2014, either meet the qualification yourself or employ someone who does.
MTA Category Committees will be asked to research competency standards where there is no New Zealand standard or a current member is not qualified and make recommendations to the Board.
Special General Meeting update
The Rule Changes Special General meeting was short and sharp. A presentation, by Vice President David Storey, detailed the work completed by the Membership Standards Review Project team and the purpose behind the Rule and Bylaw changes. A discussion, focussing on membership types and postal/electronic voting took place and members passed the Rule changes ‘en bloc’.
The new Rules will come into effect once they are lodged with, and approved by, the Registrar of Incorporated Societies. The Bylaws will come into effect in conjunction with the Rule changes. These changes will take effect immediately for new members and be transitioned for current members, eg change in membership types will take effect during the 2012 subscription round in the new financial year. The Board will advise other transitionary dates as they become known.
Proposed Rules and Bylaws Changes and Special General Meeting – 11 November 2011
Gavin Still and Ian Stronach visited approximately 10 branches to discuss the Membership Standards Review project and proposed Rules and Bylaws changes. The branches that did not have a project team member attend an executive or special branch meeting indicated they were happy with both the project team’s work and draft Rules and Bylaws changes.
All branches visited were supportive of the project team’s work, with many saying they had been waiting for this, and standards to be tightened. A few branches made minor suggestions via Gavin and Ian and three written responses were received from branches and members.
The Board considered all feedback including comments received from Kensington Swan, MTA’s lawyers. Kensington Swan’s feedback also included changes which needed to be considered to ensure MTA’s Rules and Bylaws are still legally compliant and or best practice and are future proofed, given the Government is currently reviewing the Incorporated Society Act 1908.
The final versions of the Rules and Bylaws changes will be considered by members at a Special General meeting to be held immediately after MTA’s Annual General meeting on Friday, 11 November 2011 in Rotorua.
The final version of the Rules and Bylaws changes are below.
Rules Changes [166kB]
Bylaws Changes [207kB]
A DVD has been sent to all branches. For those of you who haven't seen it, an overview follows. The Board commenced this project for a number of reasons:
- an increasing call from members and branches for MTA to clarify/enforce MTA's standards proposition
- members becoming more protective of the brand and its profile
- members wanting the Board and management to effectively deal with breaches of standards.
While doing this work, the board also asked the project team to review MTA's: current membership categories and processes for adding new ones, censure, suspension and termination of membership processes and national and branch membership entitlements.
It is anticipated that once this project is complete, MTA will have clear concise Rules, Bylaws, Policies and processes that are linked and consistently applied across the country and that are easily read and understood by members and staff.
The project team: David Storey, Dave Harris and Keith Webb (MTA Board) and Ian Stronach, Stephen Matthews, Gavin Still and Cathi Butler (MTA Management), has spent considerable time reviewing MTA's:
- membership application process
- membership types and entitlements
- membership standards (including Membership Criteria, Customer Promise, Warranty, Environmental standards, Registration of Qualifications etc)
- ongoing measurement of member conformance
- suspension and cancellation processes - what it includes, how it is applied etc
approach to emerging new market sectors and specialities.
They have made recommendations and drafted relevant changes to MTA's Rules, Bylaws, Policies, processes and standards to make them easier to read and apply. They have also developed a glossary of some commonly used words/phrases. While doing this the project team applied the following test to all its work - are the resulting Rules, Bylaws, Polices or standards logical, transparent, simple and fair (LTSF)?
The Board approved the project team's recommendations, tabled them at the July 2011 Council meeting and subsequently approved the draft Rules and Bylaws changes for member consultation. The Board now seeks branch, committee and member feedback on the proposed Rules and Bylaws changes.
Please email all feedback to Cathi Butler or in writing to: PO Box 9244, Marion Square, Wellington 6141 by Tuesday, 6 September 2011.
Next steps:
- Collate and consider member feedback on the Rules and Bylaws changes - August/September 2011
- Finalise draft Rules and Bylaws changes for Board sign off - September 2011
- Communicate final Rules and Bylaws changes to all members - October 2011
- Hold Rules and Bylaws SGM in conjunction with MTA's AGM - Friday, 11 November 2011
- Implementation and member communication on changes - November 2011 onwards
MTA business partners
Sponsored links
