Gwen Mitchell, Coordinator of our Canterbury Service Desks provides a report on an enjoyable and educational three days in Blenheim 1-3 March 2019

The fantastic coastal drive from Christchurch to Blenheim was part of a very enjoyable experience at the three day annual conference in glorious, sunny Blenheim.  

Friday 1st March

The programme for day one was in the ASB Theatre which opened in March 2016.   After registration on and lunch, the Southern Regional Meeting was held in the Whitehaven Wine room.    Cathy Hurst ran the meeting which focused on Education and Accreditation statistic.........And, yes we need to keep working on getting our members accredited and re-accredited every two years.   A representative from each Southern region association spoke briefly about their region.

Continuing education and accreditation was a key theme of the 2019 conference, as were “complaints” and how to handle them.   Another issue discussed was the length of time it was currently taking from interviewing prospective Justices to finally being sworn in.  

Justices who were “unavailable” in their communities for whatever reason was raised for discussion.  If a Justice was to be away for a long period it would be good practice for the Justice to contact Sarah at Royal Federation administrator@jp.org.nz to have their name on the “find a Justice of the Peace site” parked (made invisible) until they returned. The fact that this is not current practice could help account for the difficulty some clients had “trying to find a Justice”.

With conversation centred on clients’ inability to find a Justice it was suggested that the Royal Federation should automatically have a default setting on the Federation website under “find a Justice of the Peace” which said for each Justice “By Appointment” unless directed otherwise by the Justice. This might help clients realise Justices didn’t just sit at home waiting for phone calls.

The Conference was officially opened at 5.30 pm on Friday evening followed by entertainment (fabulous brass band) and Social time at 6.30 pm.

Saturday 2nd March

The conference commenced at 9 am in the Marlborough Convention Centre with a wonderful speech by retired Judge Sir David Carruthers.    Among the topics he discussed was the importance of education and keeping up to date.   It was a pleasure listening to his informative speech.  This was followed by Business Session # 1 and #2.

The guest speaker in the afternoon was The Rt. Hon. Dame Sian Elias and it was a delight to listen to her particularly as this was her last week as the Chief Justice of New Zealand.

After Business Session #3  we were all given a lot to think about when guest speaker Steph Dyhrberg BA LLB who is a specialist employment partner at Dyhrberg Drayton Employment Law in Wellington spoke.  Among her many roles she is also the inaugural New Zealand Rugby Independent Complaints Service Manager and she spoke at length about this newly established role.   She was also very vocal on what is, and what is not, acceptable in the work place, pay equality and woman in the workplace.

The day ended with a very enjoyable dinner.

Sunday 3rd March

Tony Pugh presentation, titled A Demographic Review showed various statistical graphs.   One indicated Conference attendance numbers are dropping??? is there any call for ideas/actions being taken???.   Another graph presented the average age of Justices at the time of Appointment, which has gone from 35 to 56 (currently), and Justice gender percentages which currently equates to 40% female and 60 % male but this is changing as more women become Justices.

Janet Thompson, Registrar of the Auckland Association talked about the closed Facebook page set up for Auckland members with currently 10% of members on board with the initiative.  Janet indicated Auckland members had wanted a forum to discuss items of interest.

Denise Hutchins, the Immediate Past President spoke about handling Complaints by Associations and her summary was:

• Keep it simple…use easy to understand language
• Be timely in replying
• Take it seriously
• Acknowledge stress or inconvenience caused
• Don’t be afraid to apologise
• Appreciate feedback… value feedback good or bad
• Be clear and concise

Overall the Conference was an enlightening, educational  and entertaining three days.   I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to learn, to look to the future and network with other Justices from around New Zealand.

The 2020 Royal Federation Conference will be hosted by the South Taranaki JPs Association in Hawera 28th February to 1st March.

Gwen Mitchell