Constitution – The Reason we Introduced SOPs

“The feedback from sub-Branches was vital really, because we are trying to prepare a document that is going to benefit the whole organisation and not just segments of the organisation,” says Bill Hardman OAM – President of Northern Beaches District Council.

Video Transcript

The reason we introduced SOPs, is when you add up the number of pages of by-laws and regulations – I did it, 660 pages! The SOPs will replace all of that and we can probably do it with less than 100 pages. So it is going to make it a lot easier for people at sub-Branch level, to be able to review these documents when they need to refer to them.

We had a lot already in place from the old regulations and whatever, so we used that as a bit of a template and then updated everything to fit into the current climate.

The process has been very good, we’ve given people time to review things and put in their thoughts and also the meetings have been very constructive. We had a bit of a template to start off with, being the Constitution produced last year, so we just refined that and hopefully, I think, we have come up with the answer that we can put to Congress and that would be accepted by the members.

The feedback from sub-Branches was vital really, because we are trying to prepare a document that is going to benefit the whole organisation and not just segments of the organisation. And, I think, that was an important issue.

The first thing we really needed to look at was the structure, to make sure we had the right structure. We have a board of governance, ANZAC House that would administer, we had the District Councils and the sub-Branches who manage the operation, and that’s where it all happens, down at the sub-Branch level. After all we are a community-based organisation, and for us to survive into the future, we must stay connected to the community.

What we have produced is a document that, I think, is sufficient to go forward with. Obviously, all documents are able to be amended over time, and if there are concerns in there then we address those next year at the Congress in 2020.