ALIA Queensland Branch

The renewal of ALIA has focussed attention on the structure of the organisation, and offers possibilities to develop a model that better reflects the needs of members in Queensland. Queensland Branch believes that this is an opportune time to again propose two branches in Queensland to General Council. This application is allowable under ALIA's by-law 26-3.

In order to ascertain support for this proposal, members were invited to vote in a ballot to change the constitution of Queensland Branch Council, which will create a Northern Queensland Branch and a Southern Queensland Branch, taking into account regional interests. The ballot was required by Section 31 of the Queensland Branch Constitution that requires a simple majority of votes for a change to the constitution.

Ballot papers were inserted in the August edition of Quill, and all Queensland members were invited to vote on the proposed two branch structure. The draft constitutions were also published on the ALIA website at the Queensland Branch site. There were a total of 110 votes received, and these were counted on 10 August, 1999. The result was 72 YES votes, 18 NO votes and 20 informal votes. Robyn Tweedale, Vicki McDonald and Caroline Young assisted the Returning Officer, Kathryn Harding. Christine Mackenzie was scrutineer.

Philosophy for the structure

• Queensland has a geographically dispersed membership and therefore involvement by many members is limited because of their location.
• This proposal aims to recognise the difference between metropolitan-based interests and regional interests.
• Outside Brisbane the basic unit of the association are the regional groups. This building block of the association needs to be nurtured and properly funded.
• Within the Brisbane metropolitan area the basic core groups of the association are the sections. It is within the sections that most Brisbane members are active.
• The needs of institutional, regional and sectional members are incorporated.
• The organising principle for this structure is critical mass, and it is seen as a natural fit.

Structure

• The proposed structure is built around two divisions - Northern Queensland Branch and South Queensland Branch
• The two divisions will run independently with coordination provided by local presence officers.
• Regional Groups will be encouraged, and representatives will attend Branch Council meetings

Recommendation
The recommendation is now before ALIA General Council. We hope that General Council accepts the report from Queensland Branch Council on the restructure of Queensland Branch into two branches.

Draft constitutions:

• Northern Queensland
• Southern Queensland