President’s Report, presented at the 2024 Annual General Meeting of The Friends of Te Papa on Thursday July 25th 2024.
Firstly, the Report to the Charities Commission
Compilation of the annual financials (now known as the Charities Commission Report) is no small task, and in that context, I would like to offer my sincere thanks to Tim Steel our Treasurer for his considerable efforts in preparing this document, and to Holly Erwin our administrator, who researched and provided the statistical data.
Operational highlights selected from that report show that, during the year, our membership grew to 1385 persons, our committee members provided almost 761 hours of work to the Friends, we produced 36 E-newsletters and general updates, we delivered 40 events in and around Wellington to almost 1287 people, including 150 non-members, and we organised 9 local tours and 4 more distant tours, all of which were very well subscribed. So we have been busy.
The Executive Committee
Last year’s AGM saw quite a change in the composition of the Executive Committee. The former President and Vice-President plus one further committee member had retired, and through the year one further established committee member stepped away from the role. We welcomed three new members to the committee. This all meant that the Friends now had a new President, a new Vice President and three new committee members. This represents quite significant change in a relatively small committee, with a lot of experience and institutional knowledge lost on the one hand, but new enthusiasm and skills gained on the other. I note that this seems to be the lot of voluntary committees that govern entities such as the Friends.
There was some early reorganisation of the sub-committee structure with specific and targeted role allocations and expectations, aligned to each person’s skills, backgrounds and areas of interest, distributed among the new committee. I am delighted to report that the committee has very effectively accepted the challenge of delivering quality outputs from a new team and structure through the year. The level of willingness, energy and commitment shown by this significantly changed and completely voluntary team has been outstanding. I thank all members of the Friends committee for their assistance in delivering a substantial programme to our members through the year.
The main subcommittees have been led by vice-president Mazz Scannell, who has overseen the Marketing and Communications and Tours areas, and Koenraad Kuiper and Ann Walker who have headed the Membership Development and Liaison functions. In all cases they have engaged closely and effectively with their sub-committee colleagues to deliver an engaging programme of events made available to a relatively stable membership base.
The Friends Office Administration
We are fortunate to have had the services of Holly Erwin in the role of Office Administrator through the year. This role manages the membership database and renewal functions for the Friends as well as coordinating delivery of the events programme to the membership throughout the year.
We are grateful to Holly for the diverse range of skills and competence she brings to this role, her ability to coordinate communications with, and the activities of, many persons in respect of programme delivery, and for her perseverance in dealing with some of the historical database and membership issues that have presented themselves during her tenure to date.
During the year we have applied considerable effort to reducing the complexity of our membership data and increasing the efficiency of our membership interface (be it regular communications or annual membership renewals) to better deliver accurate service to our properly identified membership. The membership renewal model has been redesigned to now work to an automated annual renewal date rollover, with (ideally) much less manual intervention required. Work continues on improving our website and this will, I suspect, be an area of perennial focus for us. Our social media and electronic marketplace presence has been refreshed and upgraded.
This greater efficiency is intended to also free up additional administration time to enable the continuing delivery of an attractive programme of events for our members. The fruits of this greater efficiency are just now beginning to emerge, with the new model having been in place for renewals from 31 March 2024. But we note that this remains an area of continuing focus for the coming year as we still have a way to go on this improvement journey.
Liaison with Te Papa and The Te Papa Foundation.
The Friends of Te Papa’s primary reason for existence can be summarised as being “to support the interests, objects and activities of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.”
In this respect Te Papa could be viewed as the mother ship, and the Friends are something in the nature of a satellite servicing the needs of that mother ship by adding value (which may be, but is not limited to, monetary value) to Te Papa through advocacy, promotion, maintaining and increasing public awareness of Te Papa and its activities.
And, to extend the analogy further, the Te Papa Foundation could be described as another satellite servicing the needs of the mother ship, in their case concentrating on actively raising funds to support Te Papa.
So, two organisations playing for the same team, working alongside, and sometimes in direct collaboration with each other, sharing one common central focus but employing two slightly different angles of approach to slightly different target audiences.
To achieve our primary objective stated earlier, the Friends are unquestionably in the seller’s position in all our dealings with Te Papa. Whilst we exist to support Te Papa, our activities are always governed by an acknowledgement that Te Papa’s needs and constraints come first. So, it is critical that in all circumstances we maintain a strong and effective working relationship with Te Papa. I am pleased to report that this is the case at all levels. From an operational standpoint, we have Holly embedded within the Te Papa office and functioning with virtually full access to her operational contacts in arranging events and everything that this may entail. We have Friends committee members extensively involved in hosting many of the events that feature Te Papa personnel, so familiarity is developing nicely in that regard. In addition, strong and open contact has been established with Te Papa executive management and governance, with a number of mutually beneficial meetings held this year between the Friends’ President and Vice President and Te Papa CEO Courtney Johnston and Chair Dame Fran Wilde. Courtney’s presence today as speaker at this AGM (along with what would have been Dame Fran) bears testimony to these important relationships and the recognition that we are all working together for the achievement of a common high-level goal. The Friends will, of course, be looking to continue the relationships and cooperation we share with both Te Papa and the Te Papa Foundation over the next twelve months and beyond.
Volunteers
Again this year our work has been greatly assisted by the willing involvement of a good number of reliable volunteers on whom we call from time to time. These volunteers in various informal groups assist us in a wide variety of tasks including with the presentation of our events, assistance in the administration of our renewal communications, and helping us in our membership retention and development efforts, plus many other tasks. The work done by all these generous volunteers, whilst often not visible to most, is much appreciated by the Friends.
Specifically in this regard, I would like to acknowledge the excellent voluntary work that has been carried out for a number of years by the Sub-Committee for Local Dealer Gallery Visits. The members of this group have decided that it is now time to relinquish this task, and we thank them – Jillian Wellings, Liz Medford and Christine Turner – for their inputs over the years.
Members
I am delighted to see the growth in our membership numbers through a year during which, like every year before and undoubtedly every year to come, has presented its own challenges. Your continuing support for the work of the Friends, your strong attendances at our various events and tours, and the ready flow of communication we receive from our members all demonstrate that the offering of the Friends is appreciated and valued. In the end, if we do not meet your requirements then everything else we do is ultimately in vain. But your responses suggest that, in large part, we are achieving our objective of providing a meaningful and valuable membership offering to you, and we will remain closely focused into the future on delivering that outcome.
Conclusion
We live in somewhat uncertain times at present.
The Friends cannot change international politics, or local economic tightening, or a whole range of external issues and constraints upon us all that occasionally make our world a little less of a delightful place to be. But the Friends can, and will, continue in our own area to promote, advocate, and deliver some of the more pleasant, joyous and genuinely interesting experiences that are available to us all via our involvement with Te Papa. We look forward to sharing these with you over the coming year.
Thank you.
Richard Dean
President