ALIA and Group Budgets for 2002

For those not on the office-bearer broadcast e-list I thought it important to distill the decisions of the ALIA Board after the 11 March Board meeting. Following congratulations on the wide range of professional activities offered and the vibrancy of the association this indicated, Susanne Bruhn noted the creation of one new group Reference and Information Services group for NSW, Victoria and Tasmania and with regret, the cessation of three ALIA Groups, Central West NSW, Corporate Special Interest and TAFE Queensland Groups.

Susanne went on to outline the concerns of the board in relation to the Budget 2002 requests from groups and the fact that of the 66 groups in existence only a dozen have budgeted at break even level. Whilst the Board is NOT requesting groups to submit revised budgets for 2002 it trusts that all groups will take on notice the Board's concerns and achieve savings and greater levels of cost recovery. Without this the funding may well run out within two years.

As a result the Board resolved the following:: Groups that do not operate on a surplus or break-even budget are to review their budgets to achieve break even on group activities. Exclusions relate to administrative support for state wide and national groups, with complex programs, expenses associated with CPD activities provided to remote and regional members and projects of importance to the Association and approved separately. All costs associated with social functions are to be recovered and catering expenses at committee meetings are to be kept to a minimum. Groups are expected to charge participants in group activities and to implement the charging of non-ALIA members at 33 per cent more than members, By Law 2.
The Board also expects groups to achieve savings in respect of travel, conference grants, student awards and administrative support. The following guidelines are to cover those areas.: Travel - overseas and interstate travel for office-bearers will not be funded. The one exception is where an active national/multi state group executive meets to plan or undertake key group activities once a year following prior approval form the executive director.; Conference grants and grants for CPD activities will not be funded in 2002 but principles and criteria will be developed for future budgets. The exception here is where groups have a budget balance or surplus to support this.; Student awards will not be funded as a matter of principle and new awards not yet in existence will not be funded in 2002. A process for proposing awards is to be developed for 2003.; Administrative support wages for statewide groups should not exceed $10&nsp;000 in 2002 and administrative support for one group to support the work of other groups will not be funded unless related to specific joint projects.; Printing and distribution costs for newsletters are to be reduced and groups are encouraged to make the transition to e-mail distribution. This excludes those groups where subscriptions recover printing costs. In WA Biblia is posted on ALIA net and a notice posted on WAIN each month. The process costs us a very small amount, about $11.00 to produce and post a few hard copies to members without e-mail addresses. A Publishing and editorial Group has been asked to provide advice to the May meeting of the Board on a future strategy for funding group newsletters and the role of newsletters in the Associations publishing program.

If you have any questions regarding group funding and the information above for 2002 please contact your Group office-bearers or Susanne Bruhn at ALIA National Office.

Bobbie Bruce
Convenor, ALIA West 2002

A a