The Annual General Meeting.

• Position: INSTITUTE NOTES

Under the new constitution approved by the special meeting of the National Council on 9 March, the NZIIA held its first annual general meeting on 25 May with 29 members present and a number connected by Zoom. Outgoing president Sir Anand Satyanand presided.

The meeting began by standing in silence in memory of the recently deceased former Secretary of Foreign Affairs Merwyn Norrish after Brian Lynch noted that he had been a staunch supporter of the Institute.

Sir Anand paid tribute to outgoing members of Standing Committee, thanking them for their contribution: David Capie, Don MacKay, Negar Partow, Wayne Mapp, Suse Reynolds and Tricia Walbridge. He also thanked those who had helped with the transition in the management of the Institute. He then spoke to his report, pointing to the need in particular for 'a tighter and more focused approach to governance' in the Institute's current circumstances. In presenting the accounts Luke Qin highlighted the Institute's healthy cash balance and commended the extra funding provided by MFAT to develop the Institute's website. Both the report and accounts were accepted by the meeting without comment.

The meeting elected five new life members--Sir Douglas Kidd, Dr Ian McGibbon, Professor Rob Rabel, Professor Don Trow and Ian Grant.

Quoting Deng Xiaoping's injunction to 'cross the river by feeling the stones', Sir Anand then turned to the recent election of the new board. At his invitation election supervisor Rob Rabel presented his report, noting a 'few pesky pebbles', which had all been successfully passed over. With 35 per cent of the 726 electors voting, the election had been completed in accordance with the new constitution. The names of the seven successful candidates--Sir Anand Satyanand, Suzannah Jessep, James Kember, Luke Qin, Serena Kelly, Andrew Wierzbicki and Dick Grant--were then read out by the Institute director Melanie Thornton. The eighth position on the board will be taken by James Waite, MFAT's representative. (At its first meeting, the board elected Sir Anand as chair and Richard Grant as vice chair.)

LIFE MEMBERS

Ian F. Grant

Ian Grant founded the New Zealand Cartoon Archive at the Alexander Turnbull Library in 1992 and was the Turnbull Library's first adjunct scholar. He was awarded the Print Industry Award for Outstanding Achievement at the Canon Media Awards in 2012. He also accepted the same award on behalf of the Cartoon Archive in 2017. This year, Ian and wife Diane received a...