Building the board team.

The first day of the December 2008 NZNO board of directors' (BoD) meeting was dedicated to team building. This session was run by the director of communications company, The Effect, Annette Ryan. Most board members found this extremely beneficial, as it made us look at other members and why we often react the way we do in situations. Then, how do we or should we respond, bearing in mind we all come with different personalities and ways of working?

It is useful to have an understanding and appreciation of how we process and share information, so we can work more effectively as a team. It was also useful to consider the dynamics of collaborative intent and working to a common purpose, with a set of common values. This may sound simple but requires some attention to negotiate and maintain in unity.

Initial changes discussed at the board meeting included:

* The role of BoD in terms of governance is to ser strategic direction. Our business is then about ensuring delivery to, monitoring and evaluation of our organisation, in terms of achieving the strategic vision and goals.

As a result, one activity we have chosen to remove from board consideration is that of regional and group reports. While the information is interesting, we are unable to action any interventions specific to these reports. We are mindful that our priority is to ensure that issues occurring at regional and workplace levels do have a system through which they are raised and dealt with. As a board, we will instead conduct an environmental scan within the context of our goals, note the issues and decide if we need any more information on these.

* The draft board minutes are for board members only and until they have been approved at the following board meeting, they remain confidential. We will do a consolidated report at the end of each board meeting which can be presented at meetings, until the full minutes are available.

* We need to set up an audit and risk committee consisting of three or four people. This will be organised at the next meeting and its responsibility will be to provide risk and quality management.

We have a chief executive employment committee consisting of the president, vice president, kaiwhakahaere and tumu whakarhaere of Te Runanga O Aotearoa NZNO and this group will be responsible for managing the employment of the chief executive, in conjunction with the board.

As part of the next meeting, the board is having some governance training. The results of a survey of board members' assessment of board performance was to come out in mid-January and will help to shape the governance training.

It was suggested that those who were on the structural review board committee look at the recommendations from the structural review and action what is necessary.

It is becoming more obvious that our rule book needs changes. Quite often at conference, we make changes without looking at the whole rule book. One change can impact on something else within the rules. There is advice provided that suggests if we are making amendments to rules each year, the rules soon get out of sync, with mismatched consequences to other rules. It was suggested we explore opportunities to engage with someone skilled in this area, and that we consider examining our rules in their entirety, with a view to updating and contemporising to today's reality (while maintaining the intent of NZNO, including our history). There are external people who are skilled in this work, which might be an option.

NZNO has two forms of top level recognition--honorary membership and the Award of Honour. Both forms have been revised, with some further work required.

The consent agenda template has been revised. It requires more information, as well as an executive summary.

The honoraria for the president and kaiwhakahaere for 2009-2011 will be ser at the next board meeting.

A report was tabled on the increase in area for the Christchurch office and the necessary alterations needed to make it usable. The board agreed to the project going ahead.

We were also updated on the unified communications project. This is about the upgrading of the phone system and the video conferencing.

The rule change for the National Student Unit (NSU) to increase membership for each school to one student unit representative and one Te Runanga Tauira representative was passed. This takes NSU membership from 21 to 38.

The nursing and midwifery advisory committee position description, terms of reference and ground rules were passed.

Awareness of governance needed

The regional convention programme was discussed. It was suggested that a session on governance could be beneficial to members, especially as it is election year for NZNO office holders in 2009. It is important that members are aware of governance and what is required, so expectations between members and directors are clear and appropriate, and that those considering taking up board positions have an understanding of what is required. We would use an external facilitator and look at combining the BoD and TR session times in the programme to allow enough time for this.

Following on from our team building training, it became obvious the board needs to have a board purpose and values. These will be worked on at the next meeting, scheduled for February 12 and 13.

This consolidated report of the NZNO board of directors' meeting was supplied to Kai Tiaki Nursing New Zealand by the board.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS' MEETING DATES FOR 2009

Thursday, February 12 and Friday, February 13

Thursday, April 2 and Friday, April 3

Thursday, June 4 and Friday, June 5

Thursday, August 13 and Friday August 14

and centennial conference: Wednesday, September 16 and Thursday, September 17

Thursday, October 15 and Friday, October 16

Thursday, December 3 and Friday, December 4