10th April 2023 Newsletter
PRESIDENTS COLUMN
Council met last week with a number of initiatives we have been drafting finalised and agreed. The Registration Board has been designing an early career development program for our young professional foresters who do not have 5 years experience but wish to start their path to full registration. In general this will be aimed at our Graduate members. The plan was presented and approved at the meeting and we expect to have it up and running in a few months.
Council also finalised our strategic initiatives for the Council term which include ensuring our members are able to meet the requirement of the RFA scheme; making submissions on relevant consultations and maintain active engagement with Ministers and Crown policy; strengthening our CPD offerings and providing CPD plans / annual courses for members; defining and protecting our social licence to operate; and reviewing and implementing proposed changes to protect members data and privacy. If any member has any questions in regards to these please contact me or ask via members voice. We aim to keep you updated on these as the year progresses.
Council agreed the location and dates for our AGM and awards dinner. Our rules state we will need hold our AGM before the end of September and as the ANZIF conference is post September we will be holding our AGM in Wellington on the 8th of July. Combined with this will be a day of CPD sessions as well as our awards dinner. To all members (but especially registered members) I suggest you plan to attend some of the CPD sessions to get your hours up. It would also be great to get a large number of members at the AGM and the awards dinner. Please put the date in your calendar now and keep an eye out for more information and registration details in future newsletters.
I would like to thank Peter Gorman for stepping into the role of Register after Alan Bell departs in June. Peter has been a past member of the Registration Board so has a good understanding of the requirements of the role, nevertheless he has agreed to step into the role just as we are expecting a large volume of work as more of you decide to become registered to ensure you met the requirements of the crown RFA scheme. I am sure all of you will join me in thanking Peter for agreeing to take on this role. I would also like to thank Alan for his tireless work on this role since 2018. During his tenure we have seen an increase in registered members and I am well aware Alan has worked hard with members to help many of them achieve Registered status. Alan on behalf of the council and all members thank you for your efforts. The Registration Scheme would not be where it is today without you.
With the Journal moving online we only had 3 members who wished to receive a hard copy. Due to the low numbers council has decided no hard copies will be produced, as the unit cost is just too large. We will review this in six months time however going forward you will not receive a hard copy of the journal but all journals will be online for you to read or search against.
I would love to see more meetings from some of our our local sections. If you are part of the local section committee and struggling to find reasons to meet then please discuss with Peter Houston or myself. We have a number of speakers who are will to present to local sections. I too am happy to travel to a meeting if requested. Not only can I provide an update on Council activity but also provide an update on the RFA scheme and changes to our Registration scheme.
Council also agreed to the formation of a Carbon policy and ETS committee to help us respond to the large number of consultations within this area, as well as to help contribute to carbon policy and ETS discussions with Government. This will be a committee of the Council under rule 94 and will report regularly to Council. The inaugural Chair will be Greg Adlam and I thank Greg for taking on this role. Timing is perfect as we currently have two submissions in play in regards to the ETS and the Climate Change Commission will be consulting on their next recommendation at the end of this month.
Our submission to the inquiry was made at the end of last week. This document (all 63 pages) is available for members on the website Read here. Thank you to all members who sent us their thoughts or even their own submissions. It was great to see members views and they helped us with our final copy. Thank you to Kit who did most of the heavy lifting and to Rob for the proof reading. We hope to be able to present to the inquiry but have yet to receive confirmation of this. I encourage members to have a read of the submission as it provides a concise history along with a look into the geology and geography of the region. With permission of the Inquiry we will probably add this to the public part of the website so it is available for the public to read.
As always if you have any questions or ideas for Council please don’t hesitate to contact me. If you are thinking you need to be Registered to meet the RFA requirements please start the process straight away. If you all leave it until July we will struggle to get you all through the process. I believe there are at least 100 and probably more like 200 of you who will need to be registered or risk penalties post Aug the 6th under the RFA scheme. If you are uncertain if you need to be registered call me.
Hopefully I will see a number of you at the School of Forestry’s 50th this week.
Thanks
James
