The Board was very pleased to see the results from the recent CF Insight Survey of people with CF and their families. This feedback is hugely important to inform us about how we can best meet our community’s needs so we were really pleased to see the great response – 52%. There was good alignment between these results, the results of the empathetic interviews and the focus of our draft strategic plan which will be coming out soon. Notable priorities for people were support for advocacy, building a strong organisation and supporting CF research. Point Research which undertook the survey, provided us with some useful performance indicators that we will now use to monitor how well we are doing in meeting the needs of people with CF and the Board is keen to explore some of the key themes further to get a better understanding of how we can better serve and support our community.
Jane Bollard, CE, will be travelling around the branches over July to present the survey results and to chat about the draft strategic plan. This is a great opportunity to find out about what is going on and to have input into the plan. Also for discussion will be how we fund our ambitious programme of work and as such the Board had a great discussion on the draft Fundraising and Marketing Plan. This is a key bit of work for us as it will shape our approach to generating revenue and will determine how many of those things in our strategic plan we can afford to do.
A key objective is to widen our income base and it is pleasing to see that we are already making good progress with this, particularly in growing our grants revenue. The Board is grateful for the financial support central branches have provided over the last two years towards the costs of the central fieldworker. While this funding model was necessary, it is inequitable and the Board has been considering a more equitable model of support going forward. The Board has asked Jane to discuss this as she travels around the branches.
Finances are, of course, the bread and butter of Board business so it was great to see the steady improvement in the quality of the financial information provided. It was also good to see that the accounts are still looking healthy and that we are still tracking towards a small surplus for the current financial year. Moving to the Xero accounting system has improved financial reporting. We heard that Canterbury Branch is now using Xero and they’re very pleased with how this is working for them. Wellington, Waikato and Hawke's Bay are in the process of moving across now. This will certainly make life easier for National Office in aggregating financial data for required reporting but if Canterbury’s experience is anything to go by, it will also make things easier for branches.
As part of our regular review of policy, we also had a look at the People and Culture Policy; a great omnibus document that covers all things to do with our staff, people with CF and our wider community. One of its more debated bits is the cross infection policy. Before this is finalised, we want to see CF Australia's policy which has yet to be finalised.
Finally, the Board agreed not to hold a conference in 2019 and to put aside some funding to support branches in sending representatives to the Australasian CF Conference scheduled for August in Perth. It is a long way to go and not cheap but the quality of speakers is always great as are the potential learnings. So we feel the investment is well worth it.
- CFNZ Board Member, Warwick Murray
