Iquad Place, 3rd Floor, 56 Mangold Street, Newtong Park, Port Elizabeth
Thursday, 11 March 2010

WELCOME

Samantha Bowers, Branch Coordinator of BWA PE, welcomed all members present for attending.   Samantha Bowers also read out the list of Apologies and handed over to the Chairperson Betsy Ings, to start the proceedings.

ATTENDANCE

There were 44 attendees and we received 9 proxies
15% attendance was needed out of 265 members = 40 attendees.
Quorum was achieved.
See Minute Book for names of attendees

APOLOGIES

• Rosa Maartens
• Michelle Potgieter
• Dornel Swart
• Jay Pillay
• Lisa Hundleby
• Melitta Jordaan
• Salome Clack
• Tanya Slabbert
• Camilla Stewart
• Dipti Varghese
• Suzette Meyer
• Lindi-Ann Landman
• Corrine Clack
• Leola Britton
• Ellen Fischat
• Gail Roberts
• Gladwynn Lindemann
• Gail Hawes

MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING & MATTERS ARISING

Minutes proposed by: Pauline King
Seconded by: Julie Spendley

No matters arising.

CHAIRMANS REPORT

delivered by Betsy Ings

INTRODUCTION

The vision of Businesswomen’s Association creating connections to inspire and empower women in business guided our activities for 2009.  This Vision led Gillian Adendorff, Michelle Brown, Jane Stevenson, and Cheryl Reynolds and now also governs me to aspire to serve our members in business in Port Elizabeth.

Our President Basetsana Kumalo will be stepping down this year and the president in waiting is Kunyalala Maphisa, an astute lawyer and business entrepreneur.

2009 presented great opportunities and growing experiences for the Port Elizabeth branch. Martin Luther King aspired us in 2009 with his wisdom in confirming, “the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy” 2009 saw the international landscape change as far as business and social aspects were concerned and we actively took part in rewriting financial history.

We believe that in many of our minds the fundamental first step in change required for our times came from our meeting of minds at the June strat session.  The ladies came together and challenged life as we knew it; we unpacked the purpose of all our efforts.   We pushed and pulled to a point where the offer we put to the table was markedly different from when we entered the room. We also know, however, that without challenging ourselves and really stretching the boundaries, we would never have grown.  We have achieved great things and have bedded down our new structure really nicely!

To add to the embracing of our structure the success was complimented by new faces and/or shifting of space from portfolio to portfolio of ladies. This healthy change breathes new life into an already great organisation. It is a privilege to reflect briefly on what an incredible team achieved in 2009.

The office is the life of BWA on the ground and what an interesting year for both Ollie and Sam.  We can't imagine how one would put a value to what they must have learnt this year. Well done to both Sam and Ollie for the running of the office in a challenging year.  We said goodbye to Ollie at the end of February and we wish her well as she takes on her next career.

On an operational and strategic level: The Chair, Vice Chair and Branch Co-ordinator continued to meet every 2ND Tuesday morning.

Salma  stepped down as Vice Chair at the end of June last year  She was clear that she was not stepping away from the BWA, but simply wanted to move into a position that would play to her strengths and cut down on the office time that she was devoting to the BWA. Salma carried us through a change in our leadership as I took over from Cheryl, her constant and precise approach to our organisation cannot be overlooked. Thank you Salma

After the BWA strategy session on 6 June 2009, Salma applied for the position of Virtual Board Coordinator and was immediately appointed.
 
For the July to November Virtual Board, the team sourced an impressive group of mentors: men and women from business, the university and the professional sector. There were 39 boards: 39 mentees and 78 mentors, 117 in all. Some of the boards were extremely successful, others not, and because of the sheer numbers involved a Roving Mentor system could not be implemented. Instead, team member Bev Hancock of Kaleidoscope, the Virtual Board sponsor, gave workshops to our mentors on mentoring. These were welcome and mentors participated enthusiastically.
 
There are 23 Boards on the present round of Virtual Board, which kicked off on 18 February 2010. Once again, we have some excellent mentors on board and they add value to the programme and credibility to the BWA.  The process has been streamlined: a task team member serves as a contact point for each board and the Roving Mentor system is back in place. Early reports are encouraging and we trust that the Programme will continue to fulfill the mandate of the BWA to inspire and empower women.

Julie Spendley stepped into membership with our new strategic Vision to consolidate and grow membership. We know that we have 322 paid up members of which 15 are corporate memberships.  Bernadette Meistre stood down as our membership retention portfolio chair with her team she continually maintained a 70% membership retention. We are growing steadily but not aggressively. Working to understand our members, we put out a survey which gave huge value ito knowing our members. We have ensured that we take cognizance of what we've learnt to add value to the membership. Our end goal is to achieve a platform that will provide meaningful business value to members.  Membership has grown through our strategic alliance efforts. Our dynamic portfolios are the vehicles that allow our branch to serve our members. One of our key focus areas in terms of membership is transformation and by this we mean transformation at all levels.  Our team has been hard at work to ensure that we are attracting members across all age and race groups, industry sectors and business categories.

Tied very tightly with membership are finances. We are committed to running a financially sound branch and gaining understanding of our financial requirements provided clarity. Lise and her team have added enormous value.  Our financial reporting is done monthly, where challenges are addressed and advice is provided. Sound financial principals are key.

René Schaeffer took the bold move to run the RBAA portfolio. The business plan developed is precise and clear assisting the process and allowing seamless interaction with nominees and judges.  The challenge to us as women in business is to support this flagship event with nominations. We received 40 nominations in 2009 and this year we have received 58 to date. We had 4 worthy winners Dr Amber Anderson in Corporate, Tanya Kisten in Entrepreneur, Vanessa Langford in Emerging Entrepreneur and Gail Hawes in Social Entrepreneur. We celebrate our 2 national regional business Achiever winners in the Entrepreneur and Social Entrepreneur Categories. What a testimony to the amazing business women in the Port Elizabeth region.

Leanne Bennett and her team have really challenged our status quo in the communications portfolio. They have come with fresh and off the wall ideas. We are really proud of how we have grown our internal and external communication space. We have grown our relationship with the media which has stood us in good stead. We enjoyed media coverage for most of our events, improving our print media coverage locally and nationally in the BWA Magazine.  Algoa FM kindly sponsored our RBAA coverage. The sponsorship team together with the communications team successfully produced the BWA Calendar for 2010 with a new look showcasing our members and events.

Focusing on improving our efficiency, we consolidated related sub committees under the Public Relations portfolio.  This committee is led by Michelle Brown. Sub-committees under the PR Committee are:

Sponsorship - an area of strategic importance we moved towards meaningful partnerships which provide win-win opportunities. Mimi Rupp and Harsheila Riga put up their hand to tackle this task and made it work.  We have broadened our sponsor base.  We have got to a space where we have a better sense of who benefits and how the benefits manifest themselves. Mimi also took on a larger role within PR continuing to assist Harsheila with sponsorship - this is a dynamic portfolio continuously recreating itself.

We have partnerships with all our sponsors, our national sponsor being Nedbank, and we have forged relationships locally with Old Mutual, Spar, Magnetic Storm and Rooftop. We have also been blessed with monthly sponsors for office assistant Olwethu Dwane and our Virtual Board series.  We thank them all from the bottom of our hearts and the impact of their sponsorship is evident in the lives of each BWA member.

Dornel Swart and Corrinne Groenewald of Nedbank continued to support the BWA. Corinne has been promoted and we wish her well in her personal growth both ladies expressed continued to the partnership.  Our aim is to provide them with a platform which will make these commitments easy.

Our Flagship events - We set out with the understanding that all events must be financially viable and that we need to offer cost appropriate, relevant and meaningful platforms to ladies in business.  What we never expected was how tough this would be given the economic back-drop.  We have needed to be agile and fast to change our focus and thinking. Salome Clack did a wonderful job in delivering against the constraints.  Our National Business Woman of the Year Venette Klein stands out as a motivator of great measure to all women in business. We had top diverse topics and inspirational speakers. Our 2010 Collaboration focused on creating excitement, interest and sharing valuable information to capacitate our members to be ready for this historical experience. Knowledge is power and the team successfully facilitated appropriate topics and speakers with the team focused and working closely with PERCCI management.

Salome stood down as portfolio chair for events and our 2010 Collaboration with PERCCI.

Hurdles and Help led by Sue Gaskin and her team provided relevant topics with great speakers adding great mentoring and business information to members. This is a wonderful platform where our members share their knowledge and as members we can implement truths in our business.

The Youth outreach Projects displayed commitment to our youth empowerment efforts.  Antonette Hamman took over the reigns and we enjoyed successful initiatives through our BWA and NMMU partnership with the  Matric “Pay it Forward – 3 generations” Workshop and the Cell C take a girl child to work initiative to mention but a few.  The girls were hosted by members and treated to a formal lunch at a hotel, where they were addressed by both BWA and Nedbank. We gave out 3 bursaries to the amount of R 15 000 to deserving winners. 5 young ladies with NMMU Students also attended our RBAA event in their finest wear.

The CSI portfolio, led by Pauline King made some valuable changes.  The Introduction of power hour has been well received and we believe that the practical knowledge has helped many ladies.  The tough economic environment is very real.  To see support to this cause come from CSI portfolio is Testament to the fact that women are incredible survivors.

Michelle and her extended team have done us proud and will continue to do so with synergy and great organisation skills.

A testimony to the team is our 78 events and meetings we hosted during the year this includes our buzz hour, hurdles and help, virtual board matchmaking and kickoff sessions, women’s day, BWOYA lunch, our year end functions and our flagship event RBAA, quite a mouthful and they did it in style.

There is a platform, event or occasion for each member, cost effective networking and empowering opportunities to grow and connect your business.
As a team, we hope to achieve our goals in providing efficiency and in so doing allow you a better space in which to perform.  By the same token, we look forward to interacting with our members in a wonderfully positive and energetic manner.

Jacky Buys stepped up from the RBAA and took up the incredible role as mentor, support and champion vice chair. Jacky set out as her primary goal to lessen the admin burden and provide strategic focus and direction.  Jacky has risen to all our challenges and assisted with calm confidence to assist me in building our Strategic Alliances. The Strategic Alliance portfolio has been incredibly exciting and has allowed us opportunities to exhibit the strength of our leadership and members.  Our meeting with the President and CEO with the team of PERCCI we believe is a step in the right direction creating valuable platforms for our members. We determined the areas of collaboration and will consolidate our relationship towards great synergy. We wish to expose our brand to business and confirm our voice of women in business. Allowing NMMU to partner with us in the Youth Outreach, Virtual Board, Hurdles and Help and gaining valuable membership has been a mutually beneficial relationship and we look forward to continuing with an even great impact in 2010. We wish to use alliances from various sectors to build the credibility and reputation of BWA.  Through these alliances we would like to: grow diversity, become recognised as the voice of women on business issues, form synergies with other organisations co-host functions.

We participated in the National Census Launch in Jhb and hosted our very own interactive session with a dynamic panel which comprised of Ms Rojie Kisten Old Mutual investment Group , Ms Ruby Ann Levendal NMMU Director organizational transformation and equity, Salma Munshi, Samantha Venter Operations Manager PERCCI, Mbulelo Ngxonono Nedbank  led by Prof Mimi Struwig.

I attended the National BWA OPCO and Board meetings quarterly. The Minister of International Relations and Cooperation invited National BWA Board members who including Jane Stevenson and myself, to join her for a formal supper with Mrs Hillary Clinton the Hon Secretary Of State of the United States of America, what an honour. It was a prestigious event where the voice of women in business was honoured and BWA received great support.

2009 has been a great year of anticipation but reflecting on it,   we have to all agree that we have achieved great things and have moved toward our goal to achieve greatness for our members. What a wonderful honour to be a part of this great organisation!! Thank you for allowing me to lead the local chapter with my team.

I wish to end by sharing a brown sugar quote - “don’t be afraid to take big steps, you cannot cross a chasm in two small jumps”

Thank you

TREASURERS REPORT

delivered by Lise Claassens

2009, a year of challenges! Following the financial crisis in 2008, 2009 has illustrated to all that we are in the middle of a recession.  As many other non-profit organisations, the BWA records its transactions on a cash basis.  This means that we do not accrue for expenditure or income until we have paid or received the cash.  We made a loss of R3 816 for the 2009 year.  The BWA Head Office however still owes us R27 737.60 in respect of travelling expenditure incurred on their behalf in 2008.  Our bank balance amounted to R4 747 at 31 December 2009.

As many businesses have done over the last 2 years, the BWA also had to re-assess our position.  To ensure that we are a leaner organisation going forward, we have decided to consolidate.  We will be moving to a cheaper premises, actually we will not be paying any rental due to support being received by us from commerce.  We also had to make harsh decisions on our staffing and unfortunately had to let our office assistant go at the end of February 2010.  We believe that with these changes, we will be able to cope better with the pressing financial times that we are in and that may still lay ahead.

In 2009 we offered our members a large number of very valuable and relevant functions.  We would like to thank our members and our sponsors again for their attendance and incredible contributions to these events.  Our main events in 2009 were the RBAA and Women’s Day.

Due to the financial pressure on all, our membership numbers have remained relatively constant from 2008 to 2009.

Our main income sources were:

• Membership income
• Function income
• Sponsorships (in cash and in kind)

The money raised through these means was expended as follows:

• Office running costs (such a rentals, telephone/fax costs, staff costs, etc )
• Function expenses
• Outreach Projects
• Cover the costs of Who is BWA functions – which are free to the public
• BWA Calendars – sponsored by us as a gift to members
• Our Virtual Board Programme

We look forward to continuing in a healthy manner ... and being able to bring you more value added programmes in the 2010 year.  In these economic tough times, we will strive to make functions as affordable as possible to ensure that you receive the value you deserve.

I thank you for your support and contributions.

CONFIRMATION OF CHAIR, COMMITTEE and PORTFOLIOS

Jacky Buys, the Vice- Chair, confirmed the electing of Betsy Ings as Chairperson by the committee after the 2009 AGM.
Proposed: Salma Munshi  Seconded: Mimi Rupp

Betsy Ings, Chairperson, confirmed the election of Jacky Buys as Vice Chair.
Proposed: Michelle Brown  Seconded: Julie Spendley

Jacky Buys, Vice Chair, confirmed the following Committee Portfolios and Champions.
Treasurer: Lise Claassen
Proposed: Leanne Bennett  Seconded: Pauline King

Membership: Julie Spendley
Proposed: Michelle Brown  Seconded: Yolanda Vermeulen

RBAA: Rene Schaefer
Proposed: Harshiela Riga  Seconded: Pauline King

PR: Michelle Brown
Proposed: Leanne Bennett  Seconded: Harshiela Riga

Virtual Board: Salma Munshi
Proposed: Pauline King  Seconded: Zibu Ndikinda

The Communications Portfolio champion has stepped down nominations were called for.

Two nominations were received for this:

Cheryl Reynolds – nominated by Jacky Buys
Tanya Kisten – nominated by Betsy Ings

As per the Chairpersons report the following committee members had stepped down during the 2009 year.

• Bernadette Meistre
• Salome Clack
• Pauline King
• Sue Gaskin
• Leanne Bennett

ADDRESS BY GUEST SPEAKER, CHARMAIN NAIDOO, EDITOR, WEEKEND POST

Ms Charmain Naidoo addressed the Quorum on the topic of “The Glass Ceiling Effect” basically the effect it had on her.

She mentioned the pressures that women of all cultures are put under to be Superwoman. She spoke in depth about the guilt we carry with us, whatever choice we make. The main focus of her speech was: “Make your choice, but ensure you are happy with it. Get rid of the guilt and be happy with who, what and where you are”

CLOSING AND THANKS

The Vice Chair, Jacky Buys, thanked the Guest speaker for her moving talk and wished her all the best in her way forward. She presented her with a gift.

The Vice Chair, Jacky Buys, thanked all for attending, the guest speaker for availing herself and Iquad Place for sponsoring the venue.

Gifts were then handed to the ladies present who had stepped down during 2009:

• Sue Gaskin
• Pauline King
• Leanne Bennett

The meeting was adjourned at 9:00am