CAN Hui; Come and Have Your Say

Update from Creative Arts Napier Board.

Late last year, at the Creative Arts Napier AGM, CAN members supported a motion for the Board to explore CAN’s governance structure, specifically moving the Society from its current status into a Charitable Trust. And that the Board was to consult the membership and present the results back to them in the first part of 2019.

Since the AGM your Board, working closely with CAN staff, has been occupied ensuring that the CAN was operationally viable and solvent. Alongside this work we have undertaken further research and evaluation into the benefits, or not, of transitioning to a charitable trust.

We remain grateful to the Napier City Council for their ongoing commitment and support as we worked through refocusing the CAN and developing a plan to get us on the path to a sustainable future.

The Board particularly want to thank our wonderful team of staff and volunteers who have gone above and beyond to reinvigorate the CAN and keep its day-to-day operations functioning so well.

This support, along with that provided by our artists, visitors and wider community, has been invaluable. It has meant the CAN now has all its display/gallery spaces fully booked for the next six months, there are an ever-growing range of workshops and classes running at capacity, and our visitor and sales volumes are steadily increasing.

Change has also happened around your Board table with Stephen Swabey departing our shores and returning to live in the UK in early June. The Board took the opportunity before his departure to thank him for his leadership and commitment in developing a strategy for the CAN, putting it on this path to a sustainable future.

Chris Lord has taken up the role of chair (previously deputy chair) and Michael Aherns has stepped into the role of deputy chair, providing valuable input into our strategic and governance discussions.

So where are we now?

In terms of the governance discussions the Board has now reached a position that we remain an incorporated society with charitable status, but with a new and significantly enhanced set of rules, or constitutional structure.

We are keen to share with how we came to this decision, share our thinking and hear from you in regards to what a new CAN constitution would look like.

Please join the CAN Board and staff for a hui at CAN on Saturday 27 July at 4.30-6.30pm, where together we can talk about where we are at now and more importantly, where we want to be in the future.

We look forward to meeting with as many of you as possible as we take the next steps in ensuring CAN remains a diverse vibrant centre of excellence for the Arts in Napier.

Please RSVP to bookings@thecan.co.nz with your name and numbers that will be attending.

All welcome to attend!
Light refreshments will be served.

If you would like to find out more about becoming a CAN member, please do not hesitate to request information from bookings@thecan.co.nz or from the front desk the next time you visit.