Dogs NZ - Presidents Blog

  I have a meeting with the CEO of Manfeild on Thursday 3 July.   Apart from the floor, which I know is a sore point, is there anything else you’d like me to raise?  

  Welcome to my Blog! I hope this will be useful and effective in keeping us in touch with each other and ensuring that you can ask about anything you want to know, and learn what's going on as quickly as possible. As far as I'm concerned there are only two rules. ·        Let’s keep it polite ·         No anonymous posts please ·         And maybe one request; try to keep it short Don’t forget that I’m only one person on The Team though; keep in touch with your executive councillors and let them know what you’re thinking too.  Often, I may deal with your posts by sending them to one of The Team for attention, or to the office.  We’re all here to make the best job we can of running the organisation and helping you.

  Facebook I believe that Facebook is unsuitable for online discussion in an organisation as large as ours, with as much going on.    As I was teaching myself how to manage this blog I discovered that you will be able to copy from here to Facebook.    That’s fine, but this blog will always be the only place you can have an inclusive discussion.   I won’t get involved in Facebook discussions – there will simply be too many and I won’t see them all anyway – and only whatever group has formed around the page on which you put the post will see it or whatever discussion it prompts.   I encourage you to take advantage of this blog.  

  New Executive Council Initial Meeting The new EC held an extraordinary meeting immediately after ACOD on 28 June 2025 to agree on the methods and style they will bring to the role over the next two years.   There were some topical issues that lent themselves to immediate decisions, so these were addressed. End of office lease Agreed to begin actively considering alternative locations immediately Social Media Policy Considered because we recognise that many members still feel we need one. Agreed that too many issues of privacy, jurisdiction, and enforceability exist, so we will not revisit the 2023 ACOD decision to do without a social media policy. Privacy Agreed to investigate Dog NZ’s privacy policies to clarify the reporting of disciplinary matters and disputes in our internal media considering the principle that justice should be seen to be done, and there is educational and deterrent value in awareness of disciplinary breaches and outcomes.

  Benefit Shows Being Tightened Up From July the requirements governing benefit shows will be strictly applied.    For years there has been a tendency for some clubs to honour the rules in the breach rather than in the observance and this has been overlooked.   The subject came up at ACOD and Executive Council supports the Director Secretary’s statement to the Conference that the time has come to start doing it right. The requirements are available here.

  Governance Review Steering Committees I spent the morning of the day after ACOD with these committees, observing their planning meeting.   Names of the members will be in the forthcoming article that you will see in the July Dog World. They have already done an impressive amount of work, with more to come.    They are committed to communication and consultation with you, and you will begin to see updates and surveys from them soon, in all our internal media.   Please look out for these contacts, and respond to them. THE STEERING COMMITTEE MEMBERS WILL NOT GO ON TO BE THE MEMBERS OF THE FINAL COMMITTEES. Nominations will be called in the New Year, and elections will be held in or about March. Many aspects of the new constitution have yet to be decided and your input will be important in deciding these, so please respond to the requests for input that the steering will put out.    If you have a question you would like to raise already, the st...

  Is the Office Moving to Auckland? Maybe, but not necessarily.  The current lease expires in August 2027, and we need to have a plan for that.   At $75,000 a year, the lease is more expensive than we would like, so we are considering options.   Going to Ardmore is one, but there are sound reasons for staying in the Wellington region too.    It’s central to the whole country, it’s where the head offices of the various bodies with which we interact are located and, importantly, it’s where our staff live.  We've been there since 1886, and we know that moving to Auckland would be an unpopular move among southern members.  Other options include finding smaller premises at a lower cost, sharing office space with another body, or buying a suitable small building for us.  All these options will be investigated before a decision is made.