IABC Updates

Upcoming news and events from IABC Wellington

• Be There Forum with NZ Gold Quill winners
• New member benefit: Get your résumé proof read by experts
• Tony Ryall responds

26 May 2009: Be There Forum with three New Zealand Gold Quill winners

Exclusive to IABC - don’t miss this chance to learn how Kiwi communications projects beat the world’s best! It promises to be a fascinating session.

New Zealand punched above its weight in this year’s IABC Gold Quill awards, taking out six of the 120 awards for communications excellence throughout member countries.

Our public sector entrants did especially well: Immigration New Zealand’s MAGNET skilled migrant attraction programme won three awards, and the Ministry of Social Development’s “It’s Not OK” family violence campaign gained an excellence award. It will be profiled in next month’s Communications World magazine.

Wellington consultant Ann Kennedy-Perkins also won an award for her communications programme supporting the establishment of the New Zealand Transport Agency.

Now you can hear first-hand why the judges were so impressed! The teams that did the work on these winning entries have agreed to present and discuss them with members.

The presenters will be:

• Ann Kennedy-Perkins
• Victoria Forrest, Kirsty Ryan and Jenny Alexander, from the Department of Labour’s Marketing team, and
• Trish Green, Stephanie Edmond and Cristy Trewartha, from Family and Community Services, Ministry of Social Development.

Date: Tuesday 26 May

Time: 3.30-5.30pm - first 1.5 hours workshop/presentation, last 30 minutes time for socialising with wine and nibbles

Venue: The Loft Cafe (entrance via lift in Whitcoulls Lambton Quay)

Format: 15-20 minute presentations with 10 minutes for questions - interactive and workshop-ish. Handouts available to take away

Price: $50 members, $75 non members

Please Register by 4.30 pm on Friday 22 May
Click here to register

New member benefit: Get your résumé proof read by experts

ProofreadNOW.com, an online B2B proofreading service, has a special, limited-time offer for IABC members. Two expert proof readers will proof read your two-page résumé and suggest corrections at no cost. This offer is good until 30 May 2009. To receive your free job code, visit http://tinyurl.com/cbfzns.

Tony Ryall responds

Last month the IABC Wellington Chapter wrote to State Services Minister Tony Ryall seeking clarity around his 26 March announcement that public sector chief executives were expected to reduce the numbers of public relations and communications staff in their organisations. We will pass on his response to you when it arrives.

Earlier, IABC International Chair Barbara Gibson and Canada East Regional Chair Jeff Bishop had written to Mr Ryall of their own volition to express their concerns. Following is the substance of Mr Ryall’s response to Mr Bishop.

“There has been some confusion about the nature of the Government’s decisions regarding its commitment to cap the growth of core government administration and I welcome this opportunity to clarify the issue.

The Government’s policy is not to downsize the core government administration, but to cap it’s [sic] growth at the figure as at 31 December 2008. You can read the Cabinet paper and related Cabinet minute here: http://www.ssc.govt.nz/capping

I would also like to correct the misunderstanding that there is a ‘disproportionate target of public relations and communications staff.’

One of the promises that the Government was elected on was to reduce the number of public relations and communications staff. The policy includes expectations of chief executives of agencies that, over the next twelve months, there will be a reduction in the total number of communications staff employed across these agencies. That is, on 31 December 2009 there will be less than 321 people employed in these roles. I do not believe this constitutes a disproportionate target.

You will see that the Cabinet minute also allows for some flexibility and recognises that there may be a need to exceed the cap if, for example, there was a public health or biosecurity issue that required intensive communications.”