President’s Message

Kia ora koutou,

Greetings from sunny Canterbury where the blossoms are out.

We hope our Educate Plus members in Auckland are doing well despite the recent lockdown and COVID restrictions they have experienced and that those of you in the school sector are enjoying a well-deserved holiday break. 2020 has certainly been a strange one where everything has happened slowly and at high speed simultaneously!

We hope you have been able to access the Educate Plus webinars and online workshops over the last few months and that these professional development opportunities would add values to your line of work. Our special thanks to all the presenters for their time in sharing with us their knowledge and experiences.

If you have missed the webinars, session recordings are available on the Educate Plus website in the ‘Resource’ section. You can also listen to these sessions at your own leisure on your favourite podcast channel. Here are some highly recommended sessions for you to revisit:

Donor & Prospect Research in New Zealand (by Nicki Sayers)

Bequest Programmes Workshop (by Dr Alan Watkinson)

Managing Your Small Advancement Office (by Ann Badger & Dr Alan Watkinson)

Dr Alan Watkinson and Ann Badger delivered a great online workshop on managing a Small Advancement Office for our NZ members.

Key take away points that we noted were:

  • Know your place in the organisation
  • Have a plan
  • Focus on the real impact
  • Evaluate what can / can’t be done
  • Avoid micro management
  • Keep meetings timely and purposeful
  • Schedule emails
  • Tasks – keep moving forwards
  • Commit, go for it!
  • Reflect regularly on what you’ve achieved
  • Aim for effectiveness not efficiency

More webinars and networking opportunities are available to our New Zealand Chapter Members over the coming months. For more information about what’s coming up, please see the ‘Networking & PD Opportunities’ section of this e-Newsletter.

We look forward to more face to face networking as the weather warms up.

In the meantime, stay well and stay safe.

Ngā mihi,

Naomi Wilde

President, New Zealand Chapter