Minutes of a

Special General Meeting of the

 Meteorological Society of New Zealand (Inc.)

Wednesday, March 17th, 2009,

 NIWA, Greta Point, Wellington

The meeting opened at 2:05pm

The meeting was chaired by Mike Revell (President) and the minutes have been written by Sam Dean (Secretary).

1. Attendance

Andrew Tait                 Andrew Laing              Mike Revell                 Sam Dean

John Sansom               Errol Laithwaite           Duncan Ackerley         Craig Thompson

Brett Mullan                 Rowena Moss              Sylvia Nicol                 Mike Harvey

Murray Poulter             Rupert Wood               Trevor Carey-Smith     Alan Porteus

Cliff Revell                  Katrina Richards          James Renwick

2. Apologies

Kim Dirks, John Hickman

3. Other Matters

Change of Constitution.

Mike Revell explained that the society was applying to be a charity and that this would mean that the society would no longer have to pay hundreds of dollars each year in taxes. The Metsoc’s application had been declined because the clause in the constitution relating to the dissolution of the society was inadequate. The special general meeting was called to amend the constitution to a form that was suggested by the Charities Commission. There was discussion on the wording of the final sentence which had been added by Sam.  

Sam Dean then put forward the motion that:

Section 18 of the constitution, which currently states:  “In the event of dissolution of the Society the disposition of any assets shall be decided at the last General Meeting provided that any property whatsoever shall not be paid to or distributed among the members of the Society”.

Be replaced in its entirety by the words:

“If any property remains after winding up or dissolution of the Society  and the settlement of all the Societies debts and liabilities, that  property must be given or transferred to another organisation that is  charitable under New Zealand law or for some other charitable purpose  recognised under New Zealand law. The recipient organisation shall be decided at the last General Meeting.”

The motion was seconded by Mike Revell and carried unanimously.

With no other business put forward the meeting was declared closed at 2:15pm.

REGIONAL REPORTS

AUCKLAND

Richard McKenzie of NIWA, a world authority on UV from Lauder, is giving a talk on 7 April at 12.30pm in the NIWA Conference Room, 41 Market Place, Viaduct Basin, Auckland Central.

Title: "How to balance your benefits and risks of solar UV exposure" or "Balancing Risk and benefits of UV exposure"

WELLINGTON

As part of the special general meeting at NIWA, Greta Point,  held on Wednesday the 17th of March the Wellington branch of the Meteorological Society organised two 15 minute seminars. The first was by Mike Revell on the meteorology of the Australian bush fires and the second by James Renwick on the cause of shifting storm tracks under global warming.

WAIRARAPA WEATHER WATCHERS (by Alex Neale)

In February about 16 members attended our third meeting of the summer season. The topic was based on a recent article in Weather dealing the Space Weather. While it was outside the comfort zone of most at the meeting including myself, it certainly generated more interest than I expected. In particular one member, who is involved with radio communications, found he enjoyed the relationship between events in the ionosphere and the meeting, at the stratopause, of ionospheric and meteorological interests.

Any past Wellington Weather Watchers may be interested to know that I recently met Bill Lees (now of Melbourne and now a Wairarapa Weather Watchers member) who was remarking on how the climate in Melbourne has changed resulting in the increased temperatures recently being experienced - and that was not long before the recent extreme heatwave and fires!

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Annual Conference

Our next annual conference will be held

2 - 4 September 2009 at the University of Auckland jointly with the NZ Marine Sciences Society

Early registration and abstracts for presentations are due 1 June 2009

Venue

The venue is to be the Owen Glenn Building, University of Auckland.  Deadline is 1^st June for submission of abstracts for offers of presentations (talks and posters) and early registration. The conference dinner will be on Friday 4^th September.

Theme

The broad theme is ‘Oceans and climate', but we look forward to presentations from a broad range of professional and student investigators.

Sponsors

Sponsors help by suppling venues, support services, student registration grants, student prizes, and special offers for attendees. Suggestions for sponsors and organisations who may wish to hire display stand space are welcome.  Please contact any member of the organising committee or the NZMSS council.

Organising Committee

Megan Stewart (ARC); Sandra Hinni and Emily Jones (Golder); Steve O’Shea (AUT); Mark Costello (Chair), Richard Taylor (UoA Leigh Marine Lab); Jim Salinger (Met Soc); Mary Livingston (MFish); David Raubenheimer (Massey); Kim Dirks (Met Soc); Paul Kench (UoA SGGES); Kendall Clements (UoA SBS); Dan McClary (Golder); Ann McCrone (DoC); Tom Trnski (Auckland Museum); and graduates Mark Fitzpatrick, Emily Duder, Elliot Brown, Jenni Stanley, Corinne Klein (UoA Marine Science); Kyle Morgan (UoA SGGES); Gabriel Machovsky (Massey).