CNAV Membership

Latest Annual Report

Download the President’s Annual Report 2015 as PDF, (also shown below in full)
Download the Financial Financial Report 2015 as PDF

President’s Report to the 2015 CNAV AGM

The 2014 CNAV AGM in Caroline Springs saw four committee vacancies opened, and the subsequent reelection of Caroline Roff and John Ellis, making the full committee Thea Bodourian, Mick Bourke, Tim Croucher, John Ellis, Caroline Roff, Helen Smith and Jens Kristian Toft-Hansen.

A special committee meeting was convened after the AGM to elect the committee office bearers for the following year and the office bearers were re-appointed: Vice-President Jens Kristian Toft-Hansen, Secretary Caroline Roff, Treasurer Helen Smith and President John Ellis. Subsequent Saturday morning committee meetings were held at Borderlands (Hawthorn) in December 14, and then in February, April, June, July, Aug and September 2015.

Apart from the obvious task of organising this conference and the annual awards the CNAV committee agendas have included:

• Approval of CNAV memberships for Waterline News, The Burra Flyer, Noojee News, Buninyong and District News, Bridge Connection and The Goon News.
• Working through legal firm Lewis Holdway to develop a legal contract between PAS Consulting and CNAV to cover the unusual CNAV advertising broker situation. An MOU was developed to allow this relationship to begin, and the MOU has had several extensions since then. CNAV now has the latest proposed contract for finalisation.
• State Government advertising has been continually monitored through the monthly reports from Bill Penrose (PAS Consulting). After the summer fire season advertisements advertising for CNAV members fell away, the change of government brought many changes. The advertising budget was slashed, new staff appointments were made and expenditure was almost frozen whilst new strategies were planned. This affected all advertising, but CNAV was dramatically affected. $25,331.68 of advertising (143 ads) in 6 months till 31/12/14 fell away to $9,684.40 in the following 6 months (and the first 2 months of the new financial year saw only 3 ads worth $284 placed). This situation has been addressed by correspondence and subsequent meetings with the Strategic Communications Director within the Department of Premier and Cabinet (Jeremi Moule), with Dentsu Mitchell and acceptance of an invitation to brief members of the State Government’s Country Caucus. Plans are now in place for the summer fire campaign ads and John Thompson of Dentsu Mitchell will be meeting with the CNAV committee to discuss future possibilities.
• The CNAV annual budget came under committee scrutiny this year and a formal budget was drafted, discussed and finally adopted. CNAV’s finances are relatively simple and we’d operated with an overall understanding of the situation in previous years – the adoption of a planned budget formalises that understanding. Income currently consists of membership fees, conference registrations and bank interest – and ultimately will include advertising brokerage too. Expenditure is made up of conference costs, meeting room hire, legal expenses, website and incorporation costs. The biggest expenditure is the cost of the conference and the registration fees charged bring in only about half of that cost. CNAV membership fees subsidise that shortfall. In framing the 2015/16 budget it was necessary to increase the membership fee from $30 to $35, and similarly increase the conference registration fees slightly. CNAV’s future depends on being financially sustainable and framing a budget is a big step towards this. The budget will be monitored and reviewed during the financial year.
• Formalising the CNAV governance has been a focus this year. Under the guidance of Mick Bourke, Policies and Procedures approved and adopted have been: Financial Management Policy, Reimbursement of Expenses Policy, Authorisation of Payments, Corporate Card Policy, Fraud Risk Policy, Asset Management Policy, Procurement Policy, Code of Ethics, Conflict of Interest, Confidentiality and Privacy Policy, Succession Planning Policy, Induction Policy and Training and Development Policy and Procedures. A big list but they are important stepping stones for CNAV’s future development.
• Professional insurance came up again this year for some members. Although this isn’t resolved we have attracted the interest of insurance brokers who are following up with insurers to see if a “package” taking into account the special attributes of CNAV members can be arranged. Unfortunately this is taking longer than one would anticipate.

Communication with members remains one of the committee’s priorities. Roundabout newsletters have been published and circulated in October 14, December 14, March 15, April 15, July 15, August 15 and September 15. It is still being circulated to all Victorian municipalities and to all Victorian state parliamentarians. Tim Croucher’s role in Roundabout has been increasing which is a notable effort  when Roundabout demands have to be juggled with a heavy student workload. Apart from passing on committee happenings and items of journalistic interest, we have tried to focus on community events and celebrations that our members are involved in. The obvious vibrancy of the community newspaper scene is not at committee level – it is in the publications themselves. I believe we could be much more pro-active in promoting CNAV by highlighting more of the grassroots community newspaper scene. I’m not sure how we can achieve this, how we can encourage our members to share their achievements, celebrations and even their campaigns.

The Facebook presence has continued with Marina Cook as administrator issuing memberships of the “secret” group to requesting CNAV members. At this stage we have only 19 members, but the number of posts and responses to them have been slowly picking up. It’s great to see papers like The New Woodend Star and Waterline News making their publications available to other CNAV members. Other very recent postings have included the data map of CNAV membership distribution areas, the CNAV brief for the Summer Fire Season 2015 – 2016 and a link to an ABC podcast on Making News. Each of those have been posted since the last Roundabout, our Facebook presence is a way of keeping informed and participating.

And it is possible for any CNAV member to have more than one of their team as a CNAV Facebook member. If you don’t use Facebook yourself, why not have another of your team take the role? Facebook allows instant communication, and is a two-way process to boot.

“The CNAV website re-development has been an extended process due to circumstances beyond CNAV’s control,” was a statement in the report to the 2014 CNAV AGM. Unfortunately, we have only been on-line intermittently since then. The rebuilt website went live only to be hacked shortly after. A reload of the site was hacked for a second time, presumably by a different person or different organisation. Obviously, the why and how questions need answering before we can proceed with a CNAV shopfront that we all believe is necessary.

So where do those achievements leave CNAV? What are our challenges?

First and foremost, as I suggested last year, CNAV membership must go beyond the plateau we seem to have arrived at. To have a robust network, to boost our brand recognition and to assist in negotiations with the government and outside organisations, CNAV needs a strong and confident membership base. The new working map of our papers and their distribution areas show deficiencies where recruitment must be still possible.

Selling ourselves depends on us communicating – knowing ourselves first. An update of The Community Newspaper is an important next step and for that we need to have member information available. In a rapidly evolving communications environment we really need to ensure this publication is updated annually.

And there’s the committee. It has taken from the 2006 formation of CNAV to 2013 to fill all the committee positions available. Maintaining a full and vibrant committee is going to be a challenge for any statewide organisation. Each committee member is valuable and has a valuable role to take on as their expertise and talents are recognised and shared.

As president this year I’m very pleased to have had the support and talents of Caroline, Helen, CNAV’s Foundation President Mick, Jens, Tim and Thea to draw on. And, fortunately, that group is being added to by non-committee volunteers like Marina administering the Facebook page, and Anne Boyd pulling together the overarching MC role for this conference.

And to conclude, all CNAV members must be thanked for their support of this association, and congratulated for their dedication in meeting those continual deadlines in the production of their community’s voices.

John Ellis, President. 9/10/2015.