Annual General Meeting

Date: Saturday 29th May 2010

Time: 1.30pm

Venue: Kaipatiki Project, 17 Lauderdale Rd, Birkdale, North Shore, Auckland

RSVP: National Office, Monday 24th May.

All members and supporters welcome.

Main items on the agenda:
Welcome and introductions
Chair report
Annual accounts
Confirmation of National Council
Announcement of Patron
Report on campaigns, by Steffan Browning, Soil & Health Spokesperson

AGM followed by afternoon tea and tour of Kaipatiki Project gardens with Dee Pigneguy, Soil & Health National Council member. Dee will tell you about the work of the Kaipatiki Project, and her work with Soil & Health’s Project Gro initiative.

All members and supporters welcome. All members of the Soil & Health Association (including Organic NZ subscribers) are entitled to vote at the AGM.

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National Council

Members on the National Council serve a two-year term and are elected by members or, if there are the same number of nominees as there are places on Council (7), the nominees are accepted without an elec-tion.

This year three existing National Council members are staying on to complete their two-year 2009-2011 term: Steffan Browning, Marion Thomson and Dee Pigneguy.

Some National Council members have stood down: Elvira Dommisse, Holger Kahl, Matt Morris and Mike Palmers.

Three nominations have been received for the four positions: Brendan Hoare, Marian Chick, Dean Rey-nolds.

National Council Nominations:

Nomination: Marian Chick

Gardening ever since a child while growing up on a sheep and deer farm in the central Waikato I turned to organic growing when living and working on an organic farm in England a few years ago.

I spent 2008-09 studying Organic Horticulture at the Biological Husbandry Unit in Lincoln, when I was also a grower suppling produce to organic retailers in Christchurch.

From 2008 and continuing, I work as a volunteer with the Southern Seed Exchange where we facilitate the exchange of seeds between gardeners throughout NZ but mainly in the Canterbury region.

For over two years I have worked at Piko Wholefoods in Christchurch where I now work full time. I am now also studying in my first year of a four year diploma in Homeopathy.

I have a particular interest in initiatives which involve children in growing and am passionate about working towards an organic future for all New Zealanders.

Nomination: Brendan Hoare

Brendan Hoare is committed to sharing his passion and vision then delivering on meaningful action for change. He has been committed to organic systems approaches to sustainability for 27 years.

Over the last eleven years he has served as the President of the Soil and Health Association, a Director of BioGro, Co-convenor / Chair of the Organic Federation of Aotearoa New Zealand and a World Board member of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements. He was instrumental in establishing and the development of the National Organic Sector Strategy and the formation of the new peak organisation Organics Aotearoa New Zealand.

He is the founder and Team Leader for the Journal of Organic Systems, audits a national organic certification  participatory guarantee program and serves as the Executive Director of the 'econation2020 Trust'. His family run an Organic certified 4 hectare property designed on polyculture systems of Asia/ Pacific.

Through his company Organic Systems Ltd, his commercial expertise lies in the development and delivery of collective strategies through complexity while engaging all stakeholders towards successful and progressive solutions. In this capacity he has served on Unilever’s Sustainable Agriculture Advisory Board, and designs and manages numerous projects through New Zealand and the Asia Pacific region.

Nomination: Dean Reynolds (ACA, ACIS, FNZIM)

I was the Association’s part time Treasurer approx. 8 years ago & I’m delighted to be back in the role again.

Back then I was involved in obtaining & accounting for the MAF funding which helped establish Organic Farm NZ & I look forward to updating myself on all of the Association’s valuable work which has occurred since I was last involved.

My main organic ‘activity’ has been as a local body activist. In 1993, as part of the Toxins Action Group, I was instrumental in persuading the North Shore City Council to replace pesticides with hot water, for street weed control. This was a first for NZ & the Waipuna hot water system is now used extensively in Europe & North America for a wide range of weed control applications. Brendan Hoare & myself are on a steering group which aims to persuade the new Auckland City to continue with organic weed control methods.


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Soil & Health National Office
PO Box 36170, Northcote, Auckland
Phone 09 419 4536
Email info@organicnz.org