All Swan Bay Environment Association members welcome
You are invited to our Annual General Meeting to be held on Friday 1 April at 7:30 at the Queenscliff Uniting Church at the corner of Hesse Street and Stokes Street. Our guest speaker this year will be Dr Danny Rogers, who will speak about ‘Shorebirds of Swan Bay’.
Danny is one of Australia’s best known shorebird ecologists with an unsurpassed knowledge of birds of Swan Bay. He is a research biologist at Arthur Rylah Institute (Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning) and is a co-author of the recently published ‘Australian Bird Guide’.
Time to update our rules
Our committee has decided that it is time to update the rules of our organisation.
There are several changes to our rules that are required. The Committee determined that rather than alter our existing rules, we would be best to adopt the “model rules” that Consumer Affairs Victoria has developed for incorporated organisations like ours.
The model rules are more flexible and explicitly include reference to Zoom and other modern communication methods. All organisations that adopt the model rules have essentially the same rules except for their statement of purpose, and the end date of their financial year.
Committee member, Chris Smyth, has made a careful comparison of our existing rules and the model rules, and we can provide a copy of his comparison if you are interested in the details.
The updating of our rules enables us to include our new statement of purpose, which was developed by the Committee during planning meetings held between major Covid lockdowns and finalised last May. The proposed statement of purpose is:
‘To conserve the ecology of Swan Bay and its environs and to mitigate the impacts of climate change, catchment development, weeds, loss of vegetation and litter, assisted by an active and engaged community.’
We are giving notice as required in our existing rules that at the AGM the following motion will be put:
‘That this AGM supports the adoption of the model rules of incorporation, distributed to members on 10 March 2022 and which includes a new Statement of Purpose and 31 December as the end of the financial year, to replace the existing rules of the Swan Bay Environment Association.’
Please join us at the AGM at 7.30pm on 1 April in the Queenscliff Uniting Church.