Guild Reflects and Looks Ahead

After a different style of AGM over Zoom (for the Auckland branch anyway) but probably in many ways symbolic of some of the Covid challenges this year has brought, we have voted in the new Guild Executive and many of last year’s guild leadership and renewed their vows for another year. I guess many of us are glad to be seeing the end of this year, but the after-effects of the pandemic and the economic and political disruptions that have followed will be with us for some time to come.

I think it’s important to be optimistic for the future, and I think in spite of the difficulties of this year, we can also say that much of our industry has bounced out of lockdown to one of the busiest periods for many of our members we have had in recent memory.

Much of this business is due to many offshore and local projects all ending up being layered on top of each other once lockdowns had ended, rather than the carefully spaced out projects that we were faced with prior to lockdown. We also have our relative lack of Covid transmission in the community to thank for a continued interest in NZ as a shooting destination heading into next year.

I want to thank our wonderful EO Kelly Lucas for all her hard work over this disrupted year, from managing the formation of the Covid safety protocol for our sector to operate under during these turbulent times. She has also been busy managing the rollout of the professional respect courses as a SWAG-inspired initiative to help reduce sexual harassment in our sector, as well as the further development of Screensafe.

I also want to thank Sioux McDonald, our Vice-President, for all her hard work and hours spent advocating for the Guild across a number of committees and working groups and being a vital cog in the management and smooth running of the Guild.

Another big thank you to all our branch chairs, secretaries, and all the committee members both on the branch committees and also those who I have arm-twisted and badgered to participate on sub-committees such as the likes of Sean O’Neil, Peter McCaffery, Christian Gower, David Madigan, Jen Butcher, and many more.

We look to have a busy year incoming for the New Zealand screen industry, and I aim to try to work proactively with the Guild Executive to ensure the Screen Industry Guild has a positive effect on all our workplaces.