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Summary of the Minutes of the Executive Committee held by Teleconference on Tuesday 30 January 2007 at 7.45pm
Present: Margaret Edwards, Ian Manson, Alastair Bridge, Ed Scott, Anne Opie, Graham Keen, David Pearson.
Apologies: There were apologies from Mike Amour and Paul Williams. Margaret moved and Alastair seconded that the apologies be accepted. CARRIED
Margaret chaired the meeting in Mike’s absence.
Minutes of the previous meeting. These minutes be accepted.
Executive Officer’s report.
1. He had attended the Pinot Noir 2007 celebration on 29 Jan – he thought that this had been a very successful occasion for ONZ. There were 750 guests, including overseas people. ONZ had its own well- signposted station, presenting a range of oils coming from all regions and there was a lot of interest in the oils.
2. He has developed a draft Complaints Procedure and had circulated it to the exec – this issue is on the agenda for discussion( Item 17).
3. He proposed that only ONZ branches receive capitation grants (Item on agenda for discussion).
4. The date for the 2007 ONZ one day conference is 22 Sept, and Alastair is approaching the James Cook and Holiday Inn as possible sites.
5. He will represent ONZ at a NZTE Business Roundtable in Wellington on February for three visiting US chefs.
6. The ONZ email system has been generated a vast number of spam mail on a daily basis. This is to be addressed by reducing the number of email addresses from 5 to 3 (relating to information, adminstration and Alastair). The necessary changes will be made on the website.
7. He has been involved in work relating to linolenic acid levels – on the agenda for discussion (Item 6).
8. Membership now stands at 320. The Exec needs to approve a resolution that non-financial members have 28 days to pay or are deemed to have resigned from ONZ.
The report was accepted
Treasurer’s reports
The Treasurer noted that although more late subs have been received, the revenue from membership is down by $14,000.00 from what had been anticipated and he and the EO will need to assess the impact of this and report back before the next meeting. This issue aside, ONZ was in a healthy financial position.
The EO was asked if any sort of database being kept recording why people resigned from ONZ (where known) as this may be an issue affecting the levy proposal. He said that he did not recognise any of the names of the non-financial members (ie they were not major producers) and assumed that they were disillusioned by lack of fruit set. There is not much feedback from branches about why people resign and it is not clear if all branches do ring around those whose subscriptions are in arrears. Where there has been feedback, then the reasons given are that they have no crops or are pulling out their trees.
David moved and Alastair seconded that the financial reports be accepted. CARRIED
Technical
Linolenic acid - The EO said that the work ONZ was doing on this issue depended on the willingness of members to participate and he hoped that those who are involved will continue to be part of the work.
FSANZ has collated the NZ and Australian data and sent it to the IOOC which has now released its report; FSANZ regards this as a mediocre report. FSANZ is not sending anyone to the up-coming Codex meeting but Australia will be attending and will lobby for New Zealand in relation to its pushing for the setting of an international standard re-instating the level of 1- 1.5% – indeed, if this level is not adopted then even a substantial number of traditional oil-producing countries will have compliance problems.
The Treasurer said that the previous chair (Edwin Pitt) had attended the Codex meeting 2 or so years ago and wondered if ONZ should be sending our own representative. It was noted that ONZ is not a member of Codex; these negotiations are conducted between governments and we therefore need to rely on FSANZ. The EO said that Edwin went because the MFAT representative was unable to go and Edwin had been invited to attend in his stead. He believed ONZ can have confidence in the Australians to push our (and their) cause firmly but politely.
Processors’ Course - The exec had been sent a the draft programme for the course (to be run on 13-15 April) to David Shovel (Manager of Food and Health Standards Ltd) and Lawrence Eyres and with a request for feedback; once this has been obtained it will be forwarded to Pieralisi to check that they are au fait with the objectives. David Shovel will stay for the three days and will contribute as appropriate through the course, which is designed to have a mixture of practical and more theoretical dimensions. She reiterated costs etc. as per last meeting. The Exec. will get the final draft once it is completed – it is very similar to the initial draft circulated earlier.
It was asked if it was proposed to encourage participants to stay in the same accommodation to encourage networking –this is what is intended but it and transport issues are still to be attended to.
Research
The Exec was circulated in advance with a copy of the SSF proposal, which is is a re-vamp of a previous proposal but with an increased emphasis on the need, in light of increasing volumes, for oil, including exported oils, to be of a very high standard. Greater knowledge pertaining to harvesting dates and fruit maturity is important as these factors impact on quality and quantity. The proposal will go under ONZ’s name but in relation to its membership of the HortNZ product group.
Two other small research grant possibilities are to be explored: Tech NZ for $5000 for the conference; and AgMardt for funding for research on residue testing.
Funding levy
Members had earlier received a copy of Ian Turk’s report on the complex stages etc. involved in seeking the imposition of a levy. ONZ is to talk about Jim Tait at NZTE, who has only just got back from leave, about funding Ian T’s work..
Food Safety Programme
An exec member has spent about 20 hours with David Shovel working through with him the issues involved in his HAACP plan in order to take account of the specific needs/issues associated with HAACP and oil production. The Exec will receive a draft of the template shortly and will need to review this carefully to ensure that all issues have been covered off. Once the Exec has signed off on the template then it can be sent to MOH – the intention is that it be registered before the processors’ course so it is available to participants.
David Shovel has costed the work associated with the development of the template as $3000 (ONZ regards this as very reasonable) and also given a further figure of $50.00 per hour for final verification and correction costs – clarification will be sought about what this last actually means as ONZ will make any corrections/modifications.
David S. has cited the cost of the resultant manual to the individual processor as $500.00 plus costs of implementation, site verification, travel etc, making the all up costs for an individual site approximately $750.00.
Ideally ONZ would absorb the cost of the template as a service to members but it is more likely that members could be charged a small fee (approximately $50.00) for the manual/template.
It was moved and carried that ONZ accept the initial $3000.00 cost to purchase the template developed by Food Standards 2006 and endeavour to recover the cost from processors or via a grant under NZTE Business Development.
Christchurch Chefs’ Trade Exhibition 12-15 July
ONZ will meet the costs involved in Margaret Edwards’ giving two 45 minute presentations on the quality and faults on NZ EVOO. Margaret’s costs will involve airfares, accommodation and associated expenses.
NZ Gap.
Documentation is being developed on NZ Gap and will be forwarded to exec members to review. Once signed off, the material can go on the website. ONZ will need to work on encouraging members’ to take up this important programme as part of their quality assurance processes.
Marketing
The date for meeting with those associated with Auckland University is still to be finalised.
The brochure - This initiative is being developed and a draft will be circulated to the exec once it is completed
Communication and Website
Points raised and agreed to were:
- there is now a counter on the Home Page and one on the Home Page of the Members' Page that records the number of visits for that month– clicking on it gives details of hits (location of viewer etc.)
- no exec. member has forwarded their profiles or photos, except Ed but Anne needs to have sentences, not points
- the communications member was approached by th Tree Croppers editor to write an article about the industry. This has been sent in and will be published in the March edition
- the communications member emailed all chairs before Xmas about their writing or producing an item of regional news in the month allocated to them. She will follow this up by ringing the relevant person each month and their reports will be posted on the Industry News section of the website
- the communications member proposed asking the chairs for a contact in their region who is not a “gold” grower so that she can call them and write up a series of short profiles focusing on: why they decided to grow olives; what they have seen as the challenges and how they met these; what they see as the current challenges; and what they are looking for from ONZ. Her intention is to publish these on the Home Page in order to give a flavour to the industry. She intends that these would complement the much more detailed profiles written up in The Orchardist
she proposes that members should be emailed each month giving an account of new postings on the website
Margaret said that members could be asked to submit recipes for inclusion on the site to her or to Anne– but need to acknowledge the source. Margaret is happy to test these and also edit the text if necessary before putting the recipe on the site. Anne thought that members could be reminded about sending in recipes on a regular but not too frequent basis.
Capitation
David said that $7,350.00 was due to be paid out to branches. It was moved and agreed that capitation in 2006 – 07 be paid in full only to those branches that are members of ONZ.
The branches that will receive capitation are Auckland, Hawkes Bay, Wairarapa, Nelson, Marlborough and Canterbury.
There was a question about what the branches use their capitation monies for and it was agreed that the monies were put to good use. It was asked that it be recorded that Canterbury had offered to forgo 50% of its capitation funding so that money could be used in marketing; it was also noted that Nelson was prepared to give consideration to doing the same once the marketing brochure was developed.
Complaints procedure
Various drafts have been reviewed but it has turned out that there are legal complications associated with developing a detailed complaint procedure. Consequently, it was agreed that the EO draft a short statement for posting on the web (Policy section) to the effect that, if members have a complaint or concern that they wish to raise with ONZ, then the process is that they contact either the president, vice president or EO and that they could expect a timely response (matter to be dealt with within 3 working days).
It was also noted that those involved in the certification processes did have legal obligations; that these are reviewed on an annual basis; and that in the past when members have breached these obligations, a letter has been sufficient to resolve the issues.
Non-financial members
It was moved and carried that as of today’s date, all non financial members as set out in the Constitution be written to and advised that they are non financial and if their subscriptions remain unpaid within 28 days of that notification, then their membership will lapse.
It was noted that non financial members will no longer get access to the members’ section of the website.
Other business
ONZ Quality seal and food colour coding - It was asked, in light of the government’s proposals for food coding, if ONZ should consider changing the colour of the quality seal. After some discussion, and recognition of the difficulties of choosing another colour, it was decided to leave things as they stand, with one person saying that the red dot was now entrenched in the industry.
HortNZ paper on sustainability - It was agreed that ONZ needs to be involved in the HortNZ initiative and the communications person agreed to represent ONZ on the joint working party. It was agreed that ONZ knows very little about its members’ practices with regard to their use of fertilizers.
Date of next meeting February 27th at 7.45 pm.
The meeting closed at 9.55 pm.
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