2024 Annual General Meeting
Annual General Meetings or AGMS are unfortunately often seen as tedious or dare I say ‘boring’.
However, they play a vital role in ensuring that an organisation’s activities and particularly their finances are open and transparent. They allow communication between the organisation and it’s members and help to build trust and accountability between the two.
Catholic School Parents Western Australia holds it’s AGM before the end of June every year and in a conference year (every second year) the AGM is held during the conference. On alternative years it is held as a separate event and the past couple of years it has been held on line.
The purpose of the CSPWA AGM is to review the organisation’s performance over the previous year and importantly to provide opportunities for members to ask questions and to seek clarity over particular decisions or elements of the workplan. Reports are provided from the President, the Executive Director and the Treasurer. A copy of the audited reports of the organisation are also included.
Any parent from a school which is affiliated with CSPWA is eligible to attend and a notice confirming this was sent to all schools giving 28 days notice of the AGM. Staff and members of CSPWA council were all on hand to answer questions and to ensure that the governance elements of the meeting were conducted appropriately.
One of the key elements of the CSPWA AGM is to take nominations for council for the year ahead. Similar to the process which occurs at your own P&F meeting, all roles on executive are declared vacant and the Chair passes this part of the meeting to the Executive Director to conduct.
The Executive Director receives the new nominations including renominations from the previous year. The two key prerequisites for nomination to CSPWA council are that:-
- You are a parent of a child currently attending a Catholic school
- That school is financially affililated with CSPWA
This year we are sadly losing two of our long standing and very committed council members – Marina Hayward and Richard Bone. Both have served CSPWA diligently and with passion and commitment to the work we do. However Marina and Richard have now entered into the next stage of life with their young people and do not have anyone left at school.
Although we all know what the rules are around membership we are nonetheless very sad to be losing these two council members. Marina has in the past three years served as our President as well as serving as a WA representative on the council of Catholic School Parents Australia, the national body which advocates on behalf of parents in Catholic schools across Australia. Marina has been very active in each of these roles and has provided vital input into many of the conversations that call on the perspective of parents being heard. Richard has served as Treasurer for the past six years and assisted greatly in all matters pertaining not just to finance but also with risk management. His regular scrutiny of the finances and contemporary input has been gratefully acknowledged by the Executive and has assisted in keeping our organisation moving forward in the right direction.
Catholic School Parents WA express our sincere thanks to both Marina and Richard and wish you both all the very best.
However as always when one door closes, another one opens, and we were delighted that all others who were members of council last year have renominated! Added to that we have had several new nominations, and we look forward to introducing you to everybody in the first newsletter next term. As always if anyone is interested in learning more about what it takes to become a CSPWA Councillor, please do not hesitate to contact our office.
For more information on our AGM, please visit our website.