NZPPI’s New Board

The process to elect Producer representatives for NZPPI’s new Board is now complete following our call for nominations in October and the receipt of one nomination for each of the six Board seats.

The industry body says it thanks to those who stuck their hand up, or who encouraged and put nominations forward. It received one nomination per seat, thus avoiding the need (and expense) of going to an election. NZPPI congratulates the following, who have been appointed to represent the sector’s interests as follows:

Sector Board members

• Orchard and vine – Geoff Thorpe
• Retail – Greg Kitson
• Landscape, amenity and revegetation – Grant Hayman
• Forestry – Patrick Murray
• Food Production - Vince Wylaars

Producer Board member (at large seat)

• Mike Simpson

The new Board will meet in December to consider the need, if any, to co-opt up to two additional members and appoint a Chair and vice-Chair.

Transitional board wraps up

Matters progressed by the Transitional Board included:

• Conference 2017 – NZPPI’s inaugural conference will be held in the first week of July 2017 at the Novotel in Hamilton. A conference organising committee will pull this year’s conference programme together, with a “local” flavour, ably led by Peter Fraser of Growing Spectrum. If you’re keen to get involved please get in touch with Peter directly or with Frances Palmer at the NZPPI office: e-mail
• Progress toward preparing an NZPPI prospectus
• Early work toward developing NZPPI’s Strategy and 2017 Work Plan – the elected board will have a focused strategy session when it meets in December to further progress these.
• Member benefits – focus on initial short-term work streams to deliver benefits to members, such as resources to assist work place health and safety, cyber security and insurance packages, and discussion on member access to services.
• Interim NZPPI Branding
• Special Interest Groups and their governance. At least half of the Transitional Board members then joined a group of plant producers growing for retail and retailers, who are at early stages of considering whether they need to form a special interest group.

This was the final meeting for several transitional board and working group members. NZPPI offers its sincere thanks and acknowledgement to Don Forgie, Andrew Tayler and Peter Fraser for their service, humour and impressive commitment. “They‘ve all played key roles in association governance and bringing about the changes needed to create NZPPI. Many thanks gents.”