Tēnā koutou ki te whanau,

Nga mihi o te ra. 

October has been a busy month.  I normally find that sometime around the start of October, my clients realise how close we are to Christmas and suddenly decide they want everything done in the next three months.  Despite the very bizarre year that is 2020, the end of year rush hasn’t been any different. 

We have had more progress of the Landscape Guidelines in October, with another Peer Review Group workshop with the authors held on 21 October.  The authors are incorporating another round of feedback from the workshop while we are planning the engagement phase with the membership using a combination of our Zoom electronic meeting licenses, possibly followed by workshops with the main Branches.  We are confident that we will have a refined set of Landscape Assessment Guidelines to share very soon. 

I have also been busy with a number of member enquires across a range of issues and processes. 

You will have seen the call for abstracts for the 2021 NZILA Firth Conference - Radical Reorientation Te Rangitāmiro which came out recently.   The closing date for abstracts is 06 November.  This gets us a step closer to delivering another quality conference to our members in May 2021 in Tauranga.  If you have any ideas for a paper, then get your abstract in.  

We are also heading into Registration interview season in the first two weeks of November.  We have another large group of people being interviewed in 2020.  Neil Challenger, John Potter and the rest of the Registration Interview panel have been doing a great job of getting logistics organised, work books reviewed and organised and ready for the interviews.  Thanks again for your help in 2020.  This year, to meet the location requirements of the interviewees, the interviews will be held in Auckland and Wellington: 

·       4th November – Wellington

·       9th-11th November – Auckland

Thanks to Beca, Boffa Miskell and Jasmax for hosting the interviews. 

Stay in touch and look after each other.  As always, let me know if there is anything you would like to discuss.   

Mā te wā,
Brad