New Leadership, New Vision
Well the AGM is over and the dust has cleared, the Screen Industry Guild has voted in a new Exec and this year a new President. For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Brendon Durey. I’m a SPFX Supervisor based in Auckland working for Filmfx Co Ltd. I have been a member of the Guild since being conscripted by a very convincing Graham Morris (Sound Recordist) on the set of Xena back in the 1990’s. I was a general member in the background for a number of years through the 2000’s and somehow got pulled into an AGM by my brother and convinced to join the Auckland Branch Committee.
It was a very different Guild ten years ago with minimal core funding from the government. In those days our principle funding was from Lono’s (Letters of Non-Objection) and of course the membership subscriptions of our members throughout New Zealand. These were tough financial times for the Guild and for some of these years I ended up taking on the role of Treasurer and had to have a very tight fiscal approach to what the Guild could spend to keep us solvent. In subsequent years we have had many people, not the least of all our previous EO Karla Rodgers, work hard to achieve increased levels of core funding from the Film Commission and give the Guild some degree of interim financial stability.
Another huge looming problem for the Guild during the last fifteen years that was thrashed around and discussed over and over again in branch meetings, was the much-needed redrafting of the Safety Code of Practice (SCOP) that had become out of date and in dire need of a complete rewrite. And having been on sub-committees over that period with the likes of Willy Heatley and David Madigan and tried to grapple with how to achieve this rewrite, I can only emphasise what a difficult and enormous task it was. A number of ideas and strategies were kicked around until a solution was finally championed and developed by Richard Bluck during his term as president, and we now have Screensafe, which while still being finished is looking to be one of the most comprehensive Screen Industry safety initiatives in existence. Screensafe comes under the umbrella of the SIG and serves to provide guidelines to promote the safety of our members and the screen industry workers in NZ in a comprehensive and accessible way.
I have to admit I’m glad to be coming into the role of president of the Techo’s Guild having the advantage of all this great work preceding me and effectively standing on the backs of many great former presidents. Over the next year I want to look to the future and try to achieve some fairly clear initiatives, with the assistance of the Guild Executive, the branch committee’s and the general membership. These initiatives include:
Increasing our Membership Through:
Answering the Big Questions
Creating and defining a clear value proposition for the Guild. Essentially answering the questions that occur a lot regarding joining the Guild from those in our catchment groups. Questions such as “What does the Guild do for me?” “What’s in it for me?” “Why should I be a member?”. These are valid questions that we need to be able to answer clearly and effectively. We are forming a sub-committee to develop clear answers to these questions as the beginning of developing a better ongoing connection to prospective members in the industry.
Having more training opportunities, workshops and social event
A big reason for people to join the Guild is to learn from and network with other screen industry professionals, learn and develop as members of a professional industry. The Guild needs to use funding to promote safe workplaces and develop the skills of our members in the areas of business financial skills, contract negotiation, and many other areas. This is something we need to do more of, and a subcommittee is being formed to identify and develop a consistent and effective event program to connect with our membership.
Providing advocacy and representation to central and local government
The Guild has had representatives on several major working groups which are helping shape the industry in the coming years such as the “Hobbit Law” working groups on which Sioux McDonald has worked tirelessly to champion our members’ interests. The Screen Industry 10-year strategy group has SIG representation and looks to create an industry-led plan and pathway for our industry into the future. The Guild needs to clearly communicate all the work it does in this space to its members to ensure they understand the need for Guild representation in the policy development space.
In many ways the Guild is the best option for most of us as screen industry workers of having a voice and connection to Government, and an ability to influence the policy that affects our work and livelihood. The greater the number of screen industry workers in our ranks the stronger and clearer our mandate is, and the less able policy makers are to ignore our calls for change and investment in our industry.
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.
