President Janet - Jul 2026

Tena koutou katoa

My thoughts are with Past President Faye Gardiner’s family as we hear she has passed away after a struggle with cancer. PP Faye was BPW NZ President from April 2006 to April 2009. She attended many conferences in NZ and Internationally, leading the delegation from NZ to the 2008 Congress in Mexico City, where she was re-elected as Chair of the BPW International Health Committee serving the two terms between 2005 and 2010. She was highly regarded in both our country and throughout BPW International. PP Faye was a member of BPW Tamaki and involved as an Individual member after that, continuing to attend virtual meetings until recently. May she rest in peace.

Communication – it is one of the main issues that crops up when you delve into what might or might not be working. It was highlighted as a problem recently through the BPW Listens survey results. We have not yet had the full summary of those yet – will be an interesting read!

Your executive team has worked hard to involve clubs and members in working towards our aims and goals. We have this monthly newsletter going to all members; we have monthly online membership and issues taskforces – usually only one hour each month; we also have the Individuals Club online meeting, which is free and open to all members and non-members – often with a guest speaker then a quick business meeting – usually 90 minutes. International online meeting opportunities are available although often at unusual hours but 6am isn’t too bad! And this is all from the comfort of your home.

All these options are available to keep members in the loop and current with BPW matters. So, do you take advantage of them? Do you prefer to attend a club dinner meeting and speaker? What would work best for BPW NZ to communicate with you? We are keen to hear from you.

A thought I heard recently was that there is too much coming at you from us. Maybe what we send is adding to the multitude of other information you get from other sources. So, I thought that bullet points might help:

1. The BPW NZ monthly newsletter is in digital form, and you can click on any article that interests you and leave those that do not.

2. Have a club delegate attend taskforce online meetings and report back to clubs – either one person or take turns on a roster.

3. Your club liaison on the BPW NZ executive is available to help with ideas and information – is a verbal update best for your club?

4. We can shorten our monthly newsletter to one page of key facts – would that help?

So – please let us know how you want to hear from us. I am ready to hear from you by email or phone call.

Ngā mihi nui

President Janet

president@bpwnz.org.nz 

027 475 3397