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Affiliated Club

Becoming a Waka Ama NZ Affiliated Club provides many benefits, with the most important one being part of our waka ama whānau. The following information provides a step by step process on how to become a Waka Ama NZ Affiliated Club.

1. Establish a Committee

To ensure your club's sustainability, a management committee must be established. This will include a president or chairperson, a secretary, and a treasurer; formed with the intention of making decisions about issues or acting on tasks. These people provide governance for the club - they will ensure good leadership and adhere to principles of best practice. A club's main committee will be the management team.

For a list of committee job descriptions and tips to running a good meeting see the Sport NZ website:

Committees, Roles, and Meetings

Roles of a Committee

Your club may also have several different sub-committees who are in charge of specific events like fundraisers, regattas, etc. Committee members have set roles and jobs to complete. The roles of people on your committee or management team could be, but not limited to, the following:
  • President/Chairperson
  • Secretary
  • Treasurer
  • Volunteer Coordinator
  • Safety Officer

Responsibilities of Committee Members

The roles and responsibilities of the committee members can include, but are not limited to, the following:
  • Ensuring the club meets its aims and goals, and its obligations, as outlined in its constitution
  • Making sure there are people and resources available to achieve these aims and goals
  • Managing any potential risks to the club
  • Developing and implementing policies that achieve its aims and goals
  • Involving everyone in the club with achieving its aims and goals
  • Reporting, at least once a year, to the wider club
  • Ensuring the long term well-being of the club, both financially and organisationally
  • Monitoring and evaluating the club's activities for quality and relevance
  • Providing a job description for each role within the management committee. Job descriptions outline the key tasks and responsibilities of each of the management roles.

2. Create a Constitution

The next step in becoming a club is developing a constitution, a set of rules, which outlines how your club is run. A constitution is a basic set of rules for running your club. It details for your members and others the name, objectives, methods of management, and other conditions under which your club operates and generally the reasons for its existence. 

Click the link below for our Waka Ama Aotearoa NZ constitution template:

WAANZ Constitution Template

3. Become an Incorporated Society

An incorporated society is a membership-based organisation that has registered under The Incorporated Societies Act 2022, which gives the group its own legal identity, separate to that of its members. It means that while the membership may change, the society’s identity does not.

The Incorporated Societies Act 2022 came into force on 5 October 2023, bringing significant changes to how incorporated societies are governed. These changes affect membership, governance, meetings, dispute processes, winding up, financial reporting, and auditing.

Waka Ama Aotearoa NZ has now updated and adopted our new constitution to meet the requirements of the Incorporated Societies Act 2022.

Click the link below for more information on Incorporated Societies:

Incorporated Societies
WAANZ Incorporated Societies Info

4. Affiliate to Region and Waka Ama NZ

Once you have become an incorporated society, you will then need to firstly affiliate your club to your waka ama region. Your club must be an Incorporated Society with 10 affiliated members to become an affiliated club of a waka ama region.

Contact details for Waka Ama Regions can be found here:

Waka Ama NZ Regions

Once your regional representative from your waka ama region confirms your affiliation to the region, the next step is to request affiliation to Waka Ama NZ. Confirmation of affiliation to the region must be provided to Waka Ama NZ during this process.

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Attachments

Template - Constitution.docx