Kumanu March 2024

Trustees

Dan Burgess-Milne of Christchurch has stepped down from the Board of Trustees. During his time on the board Dan was renowned for putting Dharma first and foremost when considering issues and applied skilful reasoning and perspective which helped us with many governance issues. Dan spent quite some time working on the build-up and preparation for Service as the Path, something that is now successfully underway. This leaves just four members on the board of trustees until our Annual General Meeting in July. If you have an interest in Service as the Path as a Trustee, please contact Georgia at the centre, Simon the treasurer or email wangapekacentre@gmail.com

Dog policy

An earlier Kumanu asked for feedback on the desirability of pet dogs at the Centre. There was a LOT of feedback. There were three categories, in order of numbers of responses.

1. “Pet dogs are problematic at a Retreat Centre so only guide dogs for the blind are OK.
2. “Prefer no dogs but Caretaker has final say
3. “I want to bring my dog”

It was resolved to follow through with the first option i.e. guide dogs only.

The decision was not unanimous so this policy will be brought up for discussion at the AGM.

Governance v management

The trust board is legally responsible for governance, fair enough. However, in our relatively small group, it inevitably gets involved with local management issues. Therein lies a conundrum and one which has persisted for many years. The caretakers take care and do it very well. But when “management” issues arise, they are referred to the board which meets monthly on Zoom. As a result, decisions are sometimes (not always) bureaucratic and quite slow. Further, a majority of trust board members are not Nelsonians and lack relevant background information to make local decisions. Various strategies have been mooted over the years; a Centre Manager empowered to make decisions, a group of locals who collaborate to make local decisions and refer governance issues to the board. Collectively, the Trustees would prefer to limit their work to governance issues. It may be that the current six month Service as Path experiment come up with ideas. The board intends to bring this issue up also at the AGM in July.

People to contact:

Board Of Trustees

Caretaking team

Subcommittees