20 October 2025 7.30pm, St Thomas’s Church Community Lounge, 200 Riddiford St.

This meeting began with the second part of the 2025 AGM, then continued with the October monthly meeting.

Merio Marsters opened the meeting and noted that it was her first full meeting as President.
 
Resumed Annual General Meeting
 
The 2025 AGM on September 15th received the President’s Report and elected the Officers of the Association, then was adjourned until this October meeting.
 
Treasurer Sam Somers presented the Income and Expenditure and the Statement of Financial Position. 
 
It was noted that previous prudent spending by the Association has resulted in us having a term deposit which provides a significant addition to our income by way of interest.
 
Sam then moved a series of motions about the operation of the Newtown Residents’ Association bank accounts – adding new signatories and removing others. See the full minutes for the details of these – link below.
 
Review of Constitution changes, as required by the Incorporated Societies Act 2022.
 
The proposed new constitution was circulated in the Newsletter on 17 Oct 2025.

• It was noted that our new constitution expects us to present the minutes of our monthly meetings at the following meeting.  We haven’t been doing this, and it was agreed that we should and we will!
• It was agreed that we will retain the suggested wording to give executive members control over admitting members.
• There was discussion about the number of executive members, in particular about the pros and cons of having a large executive (our current execuitive is potentially up to 16 members). However these Executive positions have been in our current constitution for a long time and were the basis of our elections at the earlier part of this AGM so it was agreed to continue it for now. There can be further discussion and possble ammendments in the future.
• There were some other small changes to wording discussed.
• After discussion about whether to allow proxy votes Rhona Carson /Steve Cosgrove moved -The constitution will not allow proxy votes. Carried 

Keith Powell /Steve Cosgrove moved – That this meeting thanks Stephen Pritchard and others who have worked on the constitution. Carried by acclamation.
 
Rhona Carson /Adam Awad moved -That this constitution, with the wording changes as discussed, should be processed as required. Carried
 
The Adjourned AGM was concluded at this point and we moved on to the October Meeting business.
 
A potential Fireworks Ban. There was discussion about Fireworks and their damaging effects.
Previous Councillors, Fleur Fitzsimons and Paul Eagle, were going to promote a local ban on fireworks, but it didn’t get anywhere then. 
 The meeting agreed that we will approach our current Councillors, Laurie Foon and Nureddin Abdurahman, to reopen the topic.. 

De-escalation Training – Andrew Wilson reported the next Salvation Army training in de-escalation would be on Tuesday 28th of October from 6pm to 9pm.