Articles

Register Editor, Meeting Transcription and More Process PA Improvements

November 03, 2025 Product Updates Features

Managing board meetings effectively requires tools that adapt to your organization’s needs. Over the past few months, we’ve enhanced Process PA with features that make your board management more flexible, intelligent, and efficient.

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Registers, Assign Action Items to Sub-Committee and More Process PA Improvements

June 19, 2025 Product Updates

Registers are essential tools for boards to manage and mitigate risks and conflicts of interest. They provide a structured way to document, track, and address potential issues that could impact the organization’s governance and operations. By maintaining comprehensive registers, boards can ensure transparency, accountability, and proactive management of critical matters.

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Send Outstanding Actions, Set Default Folder, Smart Document Search (Early Access) and More Process PA Improvements

May 26, 2025 Product Updates

We’re constantly evolving Process PA based on your feedback and the changing needs of modern governance. This latest update introduces intelligent document search capabilities that understand context and meaning, alongside enhanced safeguards to protect your finalized meeting records. We’ve also streamlined workflows with new notification tools and improved the overall user experience across desktop and mobile devices.

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Performance, Simplified Carry Over, Scheduling & Cancelling meetings, Lite mode and API Integration

August 24, 2022 Product Updates

At Process PA, we are committed to providing the best possible experience for our users. We understand that the needs and demands of our customers are constantly evolving, and we are dedicated to continuously updating our platform to meet these changing requirements. Whether it’s adding new features, improving existing ones, or fixing bugs and issues, we are always working to make our product the best it can be. Our goal is to provide a platform that is easy to use, reliable, and most importantly, effective in helping our users achieve their goals. By constantly updating and improving our product, we...

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Circular Motions, Sub Committee Access and Signed Status

August 21, 2020 Product Updates

We’re constantly working to bring product updates to you to help make your administration easier, keep your directors up to date and connected, and improve transparency. At Process PA we’ve always had the message, Move your board online, however in light of the current forced remote work around the world, we have adjusted our road map to deliver functionality to help your board connect remotely even better.

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Common Meeting Mistakes to Avoid

June 03, 2020 Tips Meetings

Board meetings should be some of the most productive time your organisation spends together. The right people, in the same room (or call), with the authority to make real decisions. But a handful of recurring mistakes turn that potential into wasted hours — and worse, into governance gaps that compound over time.

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Discuss, Add Notes, Sign Online & More Process PA Improvements

May 04, 2020 Product Updates

We’re constantly working to bring product updates to you to help make your administration easier, keep your directors up to date and connected, and improve transparency. At Process PA we’ve always had the message, Move your board online, however in light of the current forced remote work around the world, we have adjusted our road map to deliver functionality to help your board connect remotely even better.

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The Four Models of Governance

April 29, 2020 Governance Management

When building an organisation from the ground up, there will come a time when you can’t go at it alone anymore. You’ll need direction, accountability, and a few pairs of hands. For most Australian associations and not-for-profits, that means forming a board of directors or management committee.

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Out of the Office: Tips on Managing Your Governance From Home

March 25, 2020 Governance Management

Remote work has moved from exception to expectation for many Australian associations and not-for-profits. Directors and committee members who once gathered in a boardroom or community hall are now meeting via video call, reviewing board papers on their own devices, and signing off on minutes without ever being in the same room.

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Good Governance vs. Bad Governance

March 25, 2020 Governance Management

When governance is working, it’s invisible. Meetings run to agenda, decisions are made and documented, actions get completed, and the organisation moves forward. Nobody calls it “good governance” — it’s just how things work.

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The Four Ps of Corporate Governance

March 11, 2020 Governance Management

Corporate governance is a complex beast. Even those of us who have built careers in fields where governance is a necessity might not fully understand everything it encompasses.

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The Due Diligence of Selecting Board Members

February 26, 2020 Governance Management

“Due diligence” is one of those phrases that gets used in a dozen different contexts and rarely defined properly. In governance terms, it simply means: have you researched and prepared thoroughly enough that if something goes wrong, it couldn’t reasonably have been prevented?

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Advisory vs. Governing Boards - What's the Difference?

February 12, 2020 Governance Management

You’ve spent years building expertise in your field. Someone approaches you and asks you to join their not-for-profit’s board. You prepare carefully — read up on governance requirements, understand the legal obligations of a director, and arrive at your first meeting ready for a formal governance session.

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New Year, New Look

February 11, 2020 Product Updates

The year 2020 brings the picture of clear vision. A new decade full of possibilities. With that we are ready to take Process PA to the next level. Our goal is to give your board a clear view of all resources they need for good governance.

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Creating Accountability in Your Meetings

January 22, 2020 Governance Management

Accountability in a board or committee context is simpler than most governance writing makes it sound. It comes down to one question at the end of every meeting: does every decision have a named person responsible for the next step, and do they know exactly what they’ve committed to?

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What To Do in Your First Board Meeting

January 08, 2020 Governance Management

Running your first board meeting as Chair is genuinely daunting, even if you’ve been a director for years. The skills of participating in a board — listening, debating, voting — are different from the skills of running one: managing time, facilitating fair discussion, knowing when to push for a decision and when to allow more deliberation.

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How to Close Your Committee for the Holidays

December 24, 2019 Governance Management

The Australian summer holiday period brings most community organisations and committees to a natural pause. Boards stop meeting, volunteers take a break, and the pace of activity slows. But “closing for the holidays” properly takes a bit of governance preparation — both so everyone can genuinely switch off, and so the organisation resumes smoothly in the new year.

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The Governance of Shuttering Your Organisation

December 11, 2019 Governance Management

No organisation lasts forever. Whether a not-for-profit has accomplished its mission, run out of funding, lost its membership base, or simply reached the end of its natural life, there will come a time when the board has to govern its way through a closure.

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What Should Good Minutes Look Like?

November 27, 2019 Governance Management

Minutes are the official written record of your board meeting — what was discussed, what was decided, and who is responsible for what next. They’re the document that a new director will rely on to understand what the board has committed to, that a regulator may request to confirm that governance obligations are being met, and that will be reviewed if a decision is ever disputed.

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How Many Members Should Your Board Have?

November 13, 2019 Governance Management

Board size is one of those governance questions that sounds simple but has a surprisingly consequential answer. Too few members and you’re vulnerable to quorum problems, skill gaps, and over-reliance on individuals. Too many and decision-making slows, accountability diffuses, and meetings become unwieldy.

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What is a Board's Most Important Function?

October 23, 2019 Governance Management

Most governance literature will tell you the board’s most important function is setting strategic direction — analysing management’s recommendations, approving or challenging the path forward, and ensuring the organisation is working toward its mission.

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What Happens if a Whole Board Resigns?

October 09, 2019 Governance Management

Board resignations — even mass ones — are more common than most people want to admit. Personalities clash, missions diverge, a founder’s grip on the bylaws becomes untenable, or a series of smaller problems compound until the board simply can’t continue. It happens in for-profits, in community clubs, in charities.

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How are Boards Chosen?

September 25, 2019 Governance Management General

The process of selecting a board can seem opaque from the outside. Who decides who sits on these governing bodies? What qualifies someone? And what obligations do they take on when they accept?

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What Are The Three Primary Functions of a Board of Directors?

September 11, 2019 Governance Management General

The work of a board of directors can feel sprawling — bylaws, financial oversight, strategic planning, stakeholder relations, compliance, staff performance, risk. It can be difficult to see the shape of the whole from inside it.

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How Do You Form a Board or Committee?

August 28, 2019 Governance Tips Volunteering

Forming a governing body is one of the most consequential steps any new organisation takes. Get it right and you have the infrastructure for effective governance from day one. Get it wrong and you’ll spend years correcting problems that were baked in at the beginning.

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Does a Startup Need a Board of Directors?

August 21, 2019 Governance Tips Volunteering

One of the earliest governance questions a startup faces is whether to form a board — and if so, what kind. The answer is rarely simple, and making it too early or too late can both create problems.

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The Many Different Types of Board of Directors

August 14, 2019 Governance Tips Volunteering

Not all boards work the same way — and one of the most common sources of confusion for new board members is discovering that their board operates very differently from what they expected. The term “board of directors” covers a wide range of structures, each with different levels of authority, different relationships with management, and different governance obligations.

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What You Can Do About Burnout

August 07, 2019 Governance Tips Volunteering

Volunteer burnout is one of the most common reasons capable committee members step down — and one of the least discussed. Sitting on a board or management committee while maintaining a career, a family, and any semblance of a personal life is a significant commitment. When that commitment starts to feel like pure obligation rather than meaningful contribution, something has gone wrong.

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6 Ways People Waste Unnecessary Time In Meetings

July 31, 2019 Governance Tips Volunteering

Board meeting time is some of the most valuable time your organisation has — experienced, committed people in the same room (or call), with the authority to make real decisions. Wasting it is expensive. Not just in the dollar value of everyone’s time, but in the erosion of motivation that happens when people leave meetings feeling like nothing was accomplished.

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Five Tips on Being a Better Board Member

July 24, 2019 Governance Tips Volunteering

Sitting on a board or committee can be one of the most rewarding things you do — and one of the most frustrating, if you’re not playing your part well. Good intentions aren’t enough. The best board members bring specific habits and behaviours that make every meeting better and every outcome more likely to happen.

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Building A Dynamic Team Environment

July 17, 2019 Governance Tips Volunteering

There’s a version of the committee meeting that drains every volunteer who attends it: two hours of the same agenda items, no clear decisions, actions that nobody follows through on, and the same faces every time because newer members stopped showing up.

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A Quick Guide to Writing Good Minutes

July 10, 2019 Governance Tips

Minutes are easy to dismiss as busywork — you were just in the meeting, you know what happened, why write it all down? But meeting minutes are the official, often legally required record of your organisation’s governance. They’re what you’ll rely on when someone asks, a year from now, exactly what the board decided and who was responsible for acting on it.

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6 Tips for Writing a Great Agenda

July 03, 2019 Governance Tips

A board meeting without a well-prepared agenda is a conversation that happens to have quorum. The agenda is what transforms a gathering of people into a governance meeting — it structures the discussion, signals what decisions need to be made, and gives directors the information they need to come prepared.

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Last Modified, Email Attachments & More Process PA Improvements

June 28, 2019 Product Updates

Product updates are deployed frequently and available for all users next time you login. We have been hearing your great feedback and ideas. If there is something you want to see in Process PA, please vote and add your ideas. If something is not working correctly, please let us know at support@processpa.com.

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What Happens When a Board Member Steps Down

June 26, 2019 Meetings Governance Management

Board member resignations happen to every organisation eventually — and how smoothly the board navigates them is a direct function of how well-prepared it was before the departure.

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The Future of Board Meetings

June 19, 2019 Meetings Governance Management

Board meetings have followed roughly the same format for decades: paper agenda, paper minutes, post-meeting distribution by email or post. The governance obligations haven’t changed — decisions still need to be formally recorded, actions tracked, minutes approved and filed. But the tools available to fulfil those obligations have changed significantly, and the organisations that adopt them are measurably better governed as a result.

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What to Look For in Prospective Board Members

June 12, 2019 Meetings Governance Management

Building a board is one of the highest-leverage decisions any organisation makes. The right combination of people can take an organisation from functional to exceptional. The wrong combination can consume years in conflict, turnover and governance remediation.

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How Voting Works in Board and Committee Meetings

June 05, 2019 Meetings Governance Management

Voting is the mechanism through which a board converts discussion into decision. Without formal votes, a board has conversations but no binding commitments — no resolutions, no clear record of what was authorised, no accountability structure for what comes next.

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What Are People Actually Thinking in Your Board Meetings?

May 29, 2019 Meetings Governance Management

A board meeting where everyone is genuinely engaged — present, prepared, contributing — is one of the most productive environments an organisation can create. A board meeting where people are mentally elsewhere is governance theatre: decisions get made, but not necessarily good ones.

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Setting Up Your Board — And Getting Governance Right From the Start

May 22, 2019 Meetings Governance Management

Setting up a board is one of the most consequential governance decisions any organisation makes. Get it right and the board becomes the infrastructure through which the organisation grows, governs itself, and fulfils its mission. Get it wrong and it becomes a recurring source of dysfunction and conflict.

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The Do's and Don'ts of Presenting to a Committee

May 15, 2019 Meetings Governance Management

Being asked to present to a board or committee is a significant opportunity — and a concentrated governance moment. The board will review your work, ask questions, and make a formal decision. Getting it right requires more than confidence and a good slide deck. It requires understanding how boards work, what they need from you, and what will and won’t land in a governance setting.

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How to Write Effective Board Papers

May 08, 2019 Meetings Governance Management

Ineffective board papers are one of the most common sources of friction between boards and management. Management feels the board can’t tell them what it actually wants; the board feels it never gets the information it needs to make good decisions. The result is frustration on both sides and, frequently, deferred decisions that should have been made.

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Three Things to Remember When Preparing for Your First Board Meeting

April 24, 2019 Meetings Governance Management

Your first board meeting as Chair is a significant governance moment — the point at which informal startup energy gives way to formal institutional process. Getting it right matters not just for the meeting itself, but for the governance culture you’re establishing from day one.

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The 3 Major Steps to Building an Effective Committee

April 24, 2019 Meetings Governance Management

Building a management committee or board from scratch is one of the highest-leverage things an organisation does. Get it right and you have the infrastructure for sustained governance and growth. Get it wrong and you’ll spend the next several years managing dysfunction that was preventable at the design stage.

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How To Chair a Board Meeting

April 11, 2019 Meetings Governance Management

Chairing a board meeting is a different skill from sitting on one. As a director, you debate, vote and commit. As Chair, you facilitate — ensuring everyone has the opportunity to contribute, keeping discussion on track, and guiding the board toward formal decisions that get properly recorded.

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The Secretary is the Most Important Role in Any Committee

April 03, 2019 Meetings Governance Management

Every well-governed committee has someone who keeps everything together. Not the Chair, who facilitates the meetings. Not the Treasurer, who manages the finances. The person who makes sure the meeting happens, is documented correctly, and that the governance record is complete and accessible.

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Close & Finalised, Combine PDF Improvements, Export Actions & More Process PA Improvements

March 31, 2019 Product Updates

Product updates are deployed frequently and available for all users next time you login. We have been hearing your great feedback and ideas. If there is something you want to see in Process PA, please vote and add your ideas. If something is not working correctly, please let us know at support@processpa.com.

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3 Ways to Declutter Your Board Reports

March 27, 2019 Management Governance Meetings

Board reports are one of the most commonly produced — and most commonly misread — governance documents in any organisation. The problem isn’t usually a lack of information. It’s too much information, poorly organised, written in a style that makes it slow to read and hard to act on.

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The Big 3 Documents You Need to Have in Your Meetings

March 20, 2019 Governance Tips

Every board meeting generates more paperwork than anyone wants to deal with — budgets, reports, correspondence, bylaws. But underneath the pile, three documents matter more than everything else combined: the agenda, the strategic plan, and the minutes.

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Board Meetings Are a Waste of Time — But They Don't Have to Be

March 13, 2019 Governance Meetings Management

C. Northcote Parkinson described what he called the Law of Triviality — later popularised as the Bike Shed Effect. A committee convenes to discuss a complex technical project, and ends up spending an hour debating the colour of the bike shed because everyone feels qualified to have an opinion on something simple. The complex, important decision gets deferred.

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How a Dysfunctional Committee Can Affect Your Organisation

March 06, 2019 Governance Management Tips

Imagine joining an organisation as a volunteer — motivated, ready to contribute, believing in the mission. Then you attend your first general meeting. The board squabbles. Agenda items get relitigated without resolution. A key member is absent for the third time. Nothing decided at the last meeting appears to have been done.

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Is Succession Planning Right for You?

February 27, 2019 Tips Governance Management Succession

Every Chair, every secretary, every treasurer will eventually move on. Whether that’s planned — a term limit, a career change, a new chapter — or sudden, the transition is inevitable. The question is whether the organisation will absorb it smoothly or spend the next six months recovering.

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Report Options, Time Limits & More Process PA Improvements

November 30, 2018 Product Updates

Product updates are deployed frequently and available for all users next time you login. We have been hearing your great feedback and ideas. If there is something you want to see in Process PA, please vote and add your ideas. If something is not working correctly, please let us know at support@processpa.com.

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5 Must-Have Reports to Good Governance

October 10, 2018 Governance General Management Process Tips

A board that doesn’t have the right reports in front of it can’t govern effectively. It’s making decisions either on incomplete information or on an instinct that may be well-intentioned but isn’t grounded in reality. For Australian not-for-profit associations — where directors are often volunteers without deep financial expertise — this problem is particularly acute.

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Email Attachments & Robustness, Exports & More Process PA Improvements

October 08, 2018 Product Updates

Product updates are deployed frequently and available for all users next time you login. We have been hearing your great feedback and ideas. If there is something you want to see in Process PA, please vote and add your ideas. If something is not working correctly, please let us know at support@processpa.com.

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What Are the Primary Duties of Your Non-Profit Board?

May 09, 2018 Management Tips Meetings

Being a director of an Australian not-for-profit isn’t just a title — it’s a set of legal obligations. The directors of incorporated associations, companies limited by guarantee, and registered charities all carry formal duties that can, in some circumstances, result in personal liability if breached.

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Top Tips for Effective Meeting Minutes

May 09, 2018 Management Tips Meetings

Meeting minutes are the official record of your board’s governance. They’re the document that proves decisions were made properly, that actions were assigned and tracked, and that the organisation’s governance obligations were met. Getting them right matters — not just for compliance, but because the quality of your minutes directly affects the quality of your governance.

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Creating Good Online Governance

May 09, 2018 Management Tips Meetings

Paper-based board governance has an obvious and underappreciated problem: the documents it produces are only as accessible as the place they’re stored. If the secretary’s filing cabinet is locked, if the minutes are in a folder on someone’s laptop, or if the previous year’s board papers are in a cardboard box somewhere — the governance record is functionally inaccessible to most of the people who need it.

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Team Building Exercises for Dynamic Committee Teams

May 03, 2018 Management General Tips

A committee is a team with unusual constraints: members are usually volunteers, they’ve often been brought together by a combination of election and invitation rather than careful team design, and they meet formally and infrequently. Building genuine collaboration within those constraints takes deliberate effort.

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Dynamic vs Traditional Teams — What It Means for Your Committee

April 26, 2018 Process Management General

The way boards and committees structure themselves has changed significantly over the past two decades. The traditional hierarchical model — a clear chain of command, fixed roles, top-down decision-making — is increasingly being supplemented or replaced by more collaborative, flexible approaches. Understanding the difference, and its implications for governance, is worth the time.

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Who is Responsible for the Meeting Minutes?

April 19, 2018 Governance Meetings Tips

Meeting minutes are one of those governance responsibilities that everybody assumes is someone else’s job — until something goes wrong and nobody can produce an accurate record of what was decided.

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Membership Details, Enterprise Security and More Process PA Improvements

December 12, 2017 Product Updates

Improvements are constantly deployed and available to all users when you next login. Below is a summary of a few things that have been added over the last couple of months.

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What I Heard From an Association President — Do You Experience the Same?

August 07, 2017 Governance Management

I had a frank conversation recently with the president of a P&C with a combined turnover of around $500,000 from its after-school care, canteen and uniform operations. These aren’t trivial activities — they involve employment, procurement, contracts, and significant cash handling. The people running them are mostly volunteers who care deeply about the school community.

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Quick Status, View Online, Email Members and more Process PA updates

June 20, 2017 Product Updates

Over the last few weeks the updates below have been made as we continue to improve the platform to bring you a better governance experience. Being an online service you don’t have to do anything to update as they are available to all subscribers available now on your next login.

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Assign to Many Actions, Custom Numbering, Time Limits and More Process PA Updates

May 02, 2017 Product Updates

This update brings a handful of top requests which bring a better configurability and control for administrators.

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Utilize Enterprise-grade Office 365 with best practice setup for your small Nonprofit organization

March 03, 2017 Office 365

Now that you have Office 365 at Free or greatly reduced cost, it is time to setup it up in a way to get the most benefit out of it. All don’t need to be done at the same time. Change is hard. Take one at a time and as you and your staff and volunteers become comfortable try taking on the next step.

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TechSoup Validation Token in Australia with Connecting Up for small Nonprofit Organizations such as Kindergartens and P&Cs

March 02, 2017 Office 365

The TechSoup Validation token is required to utilize Nonprofit pricing on service like Microsoft Office 365. Connecting Up is the organization in Australia responsible for verifying eligibility and issuing token. Connecting Up provides other technology discounts and donations that are worth investigating for your organization.

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Registering Office 365 with Nonprofit pricing for small Nonprofit Organizations such as Kindergartens and P&Cs in Australia

March 01, 2017 Office 365

There are a few steps and parts of the process have to wait on others to be complete. It is best to have a quick review over the steps before getting started to see if you need to get some other things sorted first (like a domain name).

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How to Set Up FREE Office 365 for small Nonprofit Organizations such as Kindergartens and P&Cs in Australia

February 28, 2017 Office 365

Microsoft Office 365 is a subscription service giving you access to the Office application and productivity tools and services from Microsoft at a much lower price than buying outright, while always being up to date and containing supporting cloud services. The great news for Nonprofit Organizations is that Microsoft have a technology donation program which allows you to subscribe to Office 365 for free or at a greatly reduced price.

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New to a Committee and Found It a Mess? Here's the First 4 Things to Do

February 09, 2017 Governance Tips

Joining a dysfunctional committee is actually an advantage — you can see the problems clearly. Here's where to start fixing them.

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Summary Tables, Configurable Roles, Tutorials and more Process PA updates

February 03, 2017 Product Updates

We’re focused on reducing effort with cloud automation, reducing paperwork with digital efficiencies, reducing continuity risk with one place and one process for your important records and reducing compliance risk by providing transparency, accessibility and good governance. Here are a few of the features we’ve put in place towards that mission.

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Responsibilities of a Secretary on an Incorporated Association in Queensland

January 10, 2017 Governance

The secretary of a Queensland incorporated association carries far more responsibility than most people realise when they put their hand up for the role. It’s not administrative support — it’s a formal governance position with specific legal obligations under the Associations Incorporation Act 1981 (Qld) and the association’s own rules.

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How to Measure Meeting Effectiveness

January 09, 2017 Meetings

Most committees don’t measure whether their meetings are effective — they just hold them and hope. This means it can take months for a governance problem to become visible, and by then the damage (to motivation, to outcomes, to the organisation’s reputation with its members) has already been done.

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Paper Is Not As Reliable As You Think

January 09, 2017 Process

Most Australian associations still manage at least some of their governance records on paper — handwritten minutes, printed member registers, physical filing cabinets in the secretary’s home office. It feels tangible and reliable. It isn’t.

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The Difference Between Managing Paid Workers and Volunteers

January 07, 2017 Management Volunteering

Managing volunteers in a not-for-profit is fundamentally different from managing paid staff — and the governance consequences of getting it wrong are real.

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7 Ways to Keep Your Volunteers Happy

January 06, 2017 Volunteering Tips

Volunteer retention is one of the most persistent challenges for Australian associations and not-for-profits. Finding motivated people is hard. Keeping them engaged over time is harder. And the organisations that do it best usually share one thing in common: they run well, and volunteers can see that their time is making a difference.

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Do All Motions Need To Be Moved And Seconded?

January 05, 2017 Process Governance

The question of whether every motion needs to be moved and seconded comes up regularly in Australian committee meetings — and the answer is not the same for every organisation. Getting it wrong has real governance consequences, both for the validity of decisions made and for the accuracy of the minutes.

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Top 3 Reasons to Join a Management Committee

January 05, 2017 Tips

Joining a management committee can be one of the most rewarding things you do — or one of the most frustrating. The difference usually comes down to the organisation's governance, not the cause.

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How to Start an Incorporated Association in Queensland

December 17, 2016 Governance Process

A step-by-step guide to incorporating an association in Queensland under the Associations Incorporation Act 1981 — eligibility, naming requirements, constitution, management committee and the application process.

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What Makes Good Meeting Minutes?

December 16, 2016 Meeting Governance

Meeting minutes serve as the official record of what happened in a board or committee meeting — what was discussed, what was decided, and who is responsible for what next. For Australian incorporated associations, they’re also a legal requirement: the Associations Incorporation Act in each state requires that minutes be kept of all committee and general meetings.

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How to Market Your Committee's Achievements

December 15, 2016 Management Tips

Most committees are better at doing things than communicating what they’ve done. The year ends, meaningful work gets accomplished, and then… nobody outside the committee knows about it. Members wonder what the committee has been up to. Volunteers question whether their time contributed to anything visible. Funders can’t see the value of their investment.

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What Younger Volunteers Want From a Not-for-Profit

December 15, 2016 Tips Volunteering

Australian not-for-profits that want to attract and retain younger volunteers face a clear challenge: this generation’s expectations are different from those of volunteers who joined committees twenty years ago. They’re more connected, more results-oriented, and far less patient with disorganised governance. They’re also more willing to volunteer their time — if the experience is worth it.

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Volunteering Rates Are Declining — But Here's What You Can Do

December 13, 2016 Volunteering

Australian volunteering rates have been declining since 2010. The organisations that retain volunteers have one thing in common: they run well.

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4 Ways to Increase Attendance in Committee Meetings

December 12, 2016 Tips Meetings

Low meeting attendance in a committee or board is rarely a scheduling problem. It’s usually a quality problem: meetings aren’t worth attending, and people have worked out that their absence has few consequences.

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When to Motion a Report — 3 Simple Guidelines to Follow

December 01, 2016 Meeting Governance

Committee reports are handled differently depending on their content. Motions relating to reports are often used indiscriminately — here's when each is actually needed.

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What is the Difference Between a Motion and a Resolution?

November 30, 2016 Governance Meetings

The words motion and resolution are often used interchangeably in board meetings — but they mean completely different things, and confusing them creates real problems in your minutes.

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Benefits of Going Digital for Your Committee

November 29, 2016 Tips

Moving your committee's governance online isn't just about saving paper — it fundamentally changes how reliable, accessible and continuous your governance record is.

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How Do Good Meetings Increase Volunteer Participation?

November 28, 2016 Meetings Volunteers

There’s a direct, measurable relationship between the quality of an organisation’s meetings and the engagement of its volunteers. Meetings are where volunteers most directly experience how the organisation is run — and that experience shapes whether they stay engaged, drift away, or actively recruit others.

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How Healthy is Your Committee? 20 Questions for a Quick Health Check

November 25, 2016 Governance

A committee, like an organisation, benefits from a regular health check. Problems in governance rarely appear suddenly — they develop gradually, often invisibly, until they reach a point where they’re difficult and costly to address. A periodic, honest assessment catches them early.

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How to Evaluate a Not-for-Profit Organisation Before You Join the Board

November 18, 2016 Governance

Being invited to join a not-for-profit board is flattering. It can also be a significant personal risk if you accept without doing your homework. As a director, you take on legal duties and potential liability — and you commit substantial time to an organisation you may not fully understand.

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Meeting Conflicts? Don't Panic

November 15, 2016 Meetings

Conflict in meetings makes many committee members anxious — but it shouldn’t. A meeting where everyone always agrees is usually a meeting where genuine debate isn’t happening, and genuine debate is exactly what good governance requires. The board that never disagrees is either making poor decisions or suppressing the dissent that would improve them.

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The Committee Health Check

November 11, 2016 Governance

Most of us see a doctor periodically to check our health before problems become serious. Prevention is easier than cure. The same principle applies to committees and the organisations they govern: a regular health check catches problems while they’re small and manageable, rather than letting them develop into crises.

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5 Tips on How to Attract Volunteers

November 07, 2016 Volunteering Tips

Volunteers are the engine of most Australian community organisations — but attracting good ones has become genuinely difficult. With volunteering rates declining and people’s time increasingly stretched, organisations can no longer rely on volunteers simply turning up. Recruitment now requires the same care and planning as any other important organisational activity.

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Recognising Your Volunteers

November 04, 2016 Volunteering

Volunteers contribute their time without financial reward — and keeping them engaged doesn’t require financial reward either. What it requires is genuine, consistent recognition that makes them feel their contribution is seen and valued.

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5 Tips to Effectively Chair a Meeting

November 01, 2016 Meeting Tips

The chairperson guides the flow of a meeting and is responsible for keeping it productive. Here are five practical tips for chairing effectively.

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Principals View On P&Cs

June 08, 2016 P&C

See the results. Do you see the situation improving? Do School Councils make the roles more confusing?

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Volunteers week and P&C Day

May 10, 2016 P&C

Australia celebrates national volunteer week from Monday 9-15 May 2016. The theme is Give Happy, Live Happy.

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2016 Queensland P&C Constitution changes

March 07, 2016 P&C

Our March AGMs this year we have yet another constitution to adopt. You can find it on the Education Queensland web site or directly download it here.

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Are you ready to take a break?

October 28, 2015 P&C

November is almost upon us and many P&Cs are having their last meeting for the year next month. Have you considered if anyone in your executive is finishing up this year? There are a number of reasons people won’t be continuing. Without getting into the why, let’s be prepared for what needs to be done.

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5 Ways to Run a Better Meeting

October 15, 2015 General Meetings

Most committee meetings could be better. Not because the people are wrong or the cause isn’t worthwhile, but because the meeting itself isn’t structured to make the most of everyone’s time. The good news is that a handful of straightforward practices make a dramatic difference — and none of them require special skills, just consistency.

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Spring is here - Adopt a Farmer

August 28, 2015 General P&C

Earlier this year at the P&Cs Qld Metropolitan East training day we had an absolutely delightful and inspiring talk by Ann Boon from Seven Hills State School in Brisbane. Her story of bringing a garden into the school was featured on Gardening Australia in a segment you can watch here: The Barefoot Farmer.

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Find the volunteer talent within your school community

June 23, 2015 P&C

From the discussion on the survey results many people where asking for Volunteer form template that helps gauge how the broad school community can help. A big thank you to Janet from Highland Reserve State School who raised the idea and has shared the form they have used.

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Feedback and Feelings

May 27, 2015 General P&C

April 2015. After the AGM. I felt blindsided by the work I needed to do, tracking everything down to get prepared for the meeting. I thought my volunteering job was supposed to be easy. Send out an agenda and take minutes at meetings. That’s what I was told. That was my handover. I can help out the school and be involved with staff and parents to improve the outcomes for our children. So why was I up at 11pm tracking down paperwork for the AGM.

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