Cate Macinnis-Ng Constituent Organisation Representative
I am delighted to be representing the Constituent Organisations on Royal Society Te Apārangi Council. My two year term began on 1st July and I enjoyed meeting representatives from many of the Constituent Organisation members at our forum on that day.
My warm thanks again to Liz Gordon for her six years as Constituent Organisation Representative on Council. Many of you will enjoy Liz’s regular contributions to The Daily Blog such as this piece on rethinking education.
We are a highly diverse bunch of over 40 Societies and Associations so I have appreciated hearing from you at the forum and the disciplinary zoom hui on your challenges and achievements. Some of you have already been in touch with feedback and suggestions and I encourage you all to get in touch if you have something to share. I think the more input I have from CO's, the better job I will be able to do. One of the challenges of my role is staying connected with different CO's as office bearers change over within each organisation so if you are new to a role within your organisation, please feel free to get in touch.
On 6th August, Royal Society Te Apārangi had a pōwhiri for President Elect Brent Clothier, incoming Chair of the Academy Executive Charlotte Macdonald, incoming Branches Representative Jenny Pollock and myself as the incoming Constituent Organisation representative. After what was a very warm and moving occasion, the new Council spent the afternoon doing governance training with an induction for new Councillors the following morning. This has been a great opportunity to get to know other Councillors and begin to form some ideas about how best to support CO's in these challenging times.
I am grateful to Karen Knobloch for her support of CO memberships as one of her many roles and I have appreciated the warm welcome of President Wendy Larner, Chief Executive Andrew Cleland and the other Council members. My thanks too to the Domain Convenors of the Academy Executive for chairing our recent domain-based zui for COs. This was a great model for meeting CO members in focused groups.
Some useful links that may be of interest to COs:
- The Early Career Research Forum released their excellent report on the research sector. While this report is mostly focused on workers post PhD, the ECR Forum is open to all professionals, scholars and researchers, many of whom don’t have a PhD and work outside academia but are a valued part of our sector.
- The Royal Society Te Apārangi Code of Professional Standards and Ethics is available on the website. While individual members of Constituent Organisations are not officially bound by the Code, Constituent Organisations's may choose to adopt the code for their members or use it as a guide and adapt it to their own needs.
- The Royal Society Te Apārangi mentoring guidelines provide an excellent framework for enhancing mentoring practice. I know many you are keen to develop your early career members and mentoring is one way we can foster career development and build our communities.
The best way to get in touch with me is via email – c.macinnis-ng@auckland.ac.nz