The Society is holding a Special General Meeting at 7pm Thursday 18 October. You are urged to attend in order to vote on several proposed changes to the current OAS rules. Prior to the meeting we are conducting a brief online questionnaire, to gather your feedback on the proposed change to Society membership.

The OAS Council is recommending replacing our two types of membership (artist and non-artist) with one type of membership for all. This would bring OAS in line with other NZ Art Societies, and benefit the Society by:

• Simplifying membership, which is currently confusing for many.
• Streamlining membership management, which takes up a lot of administration time.
• Offering the same opportunities and benefits to all members. Currently artist membership subscriptions are the same as non-artist members, which is not a fair reflection of the extra benefits or administrative time required for artist membership.
• Better aligning with funders’ objectives. Since the OAS was formed 142 years ago, contemporary society has changed to encourage inclusivity rather than separatism. As a society dependent on DCC funding, we have to meet the objectives of their Arts and Culture Strategy, a cornerstone of which is inclusivity.
• Encouraging more volunteers. We are very dependent on volunteer help and we feel that more members would be willing to assist if all members had equal rights and opportunities.

Your feedback is important!

The questionnaire should take less than 5 minutes to complete, and responses are anonymous. Your responses are not a formal “vote”, but will contribute to the discussion at the meeting on 18 October, prior to voting. For any change to be made, a two thirds majority vote is required. The deadline for completing the questionnaire is Friday 12 October.

Please click the link to start the questionnaire http://bit.ly/OASmembership

Thank you for your participation, and we look forward to seeing you at the meeting.