To all members of SCANZ,
There will be a Special General Meeting for SCANZ members held at Canterbury Fair, on 18 January at 7:30pm at Canterbury Fair, in the Main Hall.
There will be just one item of business at the meeting as below.
All SCANZ members present at Canterbury Fair are invited to attend. Other CF attendees may join as observers.
(Astute readers may note that this is 3 days less than the 6 weeks notice period of a general meeting required by our current constitution. Our bad, but having the SGM on the evening before the main CF activity starts is the least inconvenient time, and much better than trying to fit it into some other time during CF. Please bear with us).
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Agenda for the meeting
Proposed that two changes be made to the 2025 constitution. These changes are a single item of business, meaning that either both or neither of these changes will be made, according to the vote at the meeting.
Change 1. Remove clause d) from section 1.6.3 under "The purposes of the society" and renumber the remaining clauses of that section.
1.6.3 But SCANZ will not operate for the financial gain of members simply if SCANZ -
...
d. provides benefits to members or their families to alleviate hardship,"
Change 2. Add a clause in section 11.1 "Alterations to the constitution", and renumber the following parts of that section.
"11.1.2 No addition to, deletion from or alteration of the organisation’s rules shall be made which would allow personal financial gain to any individuals. The provisions and effect of this clause shall not be removed from this document and shall be included and implied into any document replacing this document."
The background to these changes
Inland Revenue Department has requested that we make these changes to our constitution to maintain our income tax deduction as a not-for-profit organisation. We have disputed the need for these changes since we consider that the current wording is allowed for in the Incorporated Societies Act 2022, either explicitly for the first text, or implicitly for the second text - all incorporated societies are required be not-for-profit by law anyway.
The Incorporated Societies Office are following up with IRD as to why we have been asked to removed a clause that has been provided by law. We suspect the IRD staff member who made the request for these changes was not aware of its origin.
Unfortunately, communicating with IRD appears to be a very slow process and we are running out of time, so this SGM will be to approve these changes so that we can avoid any tax issues while negotiation happens. Should further discussions with IRD result in our not requiring its removal before the meeting, we will not vote on it. If (more likely) the IRD discussion runs on past 18 January, we vote to remove it, noting that we may change it back in the future, if IRD can be talked around.
What happens if these changes are not accepted? SCANZ will face a considerably increased tax bill, since the $1000 tax deduction for not-for-profit organisations will not be available. The committee recommends that these changes be passed by the meeting.
A copy of the current constitution is available for reference on the SCANZ Rules and Policies web page at https://sca.org.nz/node/56.
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In service,
Scott Campbell,
SCANZ Secretary