FINAL Annual Report 2020

Annual Report 2020 members | reputation | results

The Otago Chamber of Commerce Incorporated

Notice of Meeting

Of the one hundred and thirty third Annual General Meeting of the Otago Chamber of Commerce Incorporated

Date Thursday 15 October 2020 Time 12:30 pm Venue Level 3 Public Trust Building 442 Moray Place Dunedin

General Business Any general business must be notified to the Chief Executive by 5pm Thursday 8th October 2020.

Business 1. Apologies 2. Confirmation of minutes of the 132nd Annual General Meeting 3. Matters Arising 4. To receive and adopt the annual report and financial statements for the year ended 30 June 2020 5. To record the appointment of auditor 6. To consider any general business that may be legally brought before the meeting

Register your attendance at the 133rd Annual General Meeting no later than 5pm, Thursday 8th October 2020. Phone 03 479 0181 or email [email protected]

The Otago Chamber of Commerce Incorporated

Directory Nature of business Business services Registered office Level 3, Public Trust Building 442 Moray Place, Dunedin Postal address PO Box 5713, Dunedin 9058 Phone 03 479 0181 Email [email protected] Website www.otagochamber.co.nz Incorporation Number 226943 Inland Revenue Number 10 356 997 Bankers Westpac Auditor Crowe New Zealand Audit Partnership Lawyers Anderson Llyod

Board of Directors Elected David Shelton J W Smeaton Ltd Professor George Benwell Clutha Health First Rebecca Twemlow Firebrand (Vice President) Mark Cameron Action Engineering Grant McKenzie Allied Press (President) John Guthrie Wilkinson Rogers Lawyers/Transition to Work Trust Neil Finn-House Mitre 10 Dunedin

Appointed Adrienne Ensor Cooke Howlison Toyota Tania Dickie Josh Meikle University of Otago Students Association

Committees George Benwell Business Awards Chair David Shelton Audit and Finance Chair Neil Finn-House Retailers/Tourism Chair Nigel Smellie Central Otago Advisory Chair Scott Willis Energy Chair Stephen Halliwell/Simon Berry North Otago Advisory Chair

NZCCI Representatives Dougal McGowan

Life Members Bevan Rickerby | Chris Staynes | David Humphrey, VRD, JP Steven Brocklebank | John Christie

Otago Chamber of Commerce Incorporated

President Report

It is my pleasure to present the 2019/2020 annual I would like to thank my fellow Directors for all their report for the Otago Chamber of Commerce. hard work on behalf of the Chamber. The weekly meetings during lock down were always interesting. This year will be remembered for one major event- Covid-19. The Chamber responded to the needs of The Board and myself would like to thank Dougal the business community and provided additional and the team for their efforts during the year. It has support not only to members but also the wider been a very difficult year and the team have done an business community. This support is continuing and outstanding job of supporting us the members. is going to be required in the months ahead as we slowly return to some level of normality.

The change brought on by Covid-19 has also had a dramatic impact on how the Chamber has operated. When you look at some of our major outputs (training and events) they were severely impacted by restrictions on gathering sizes. This meant overnight the business model had to change. The team continued to deliver and provide these activities through different avenues.

We were successful late last year to secure the contract for Regional Business Partnership programme. In the past we have delivered parts of this programme. The team did a great job of delivering the whole contract and meeting the performance expectations required. This is a great outcome.

Financially we have continued the progress from previous years and continued to ensure that the

Chamber is in a sound financial position. We have recorded an operating surplus (before taxation) of $71.3k (last year $58.6k). This is a pleasing result and the increase in surplus has been due to the additional activity the Chamber has been carrying out during the year. Revenue for the year has grown by over $200k and is now at $1.6 million.

The 2019/2020 year continues the trend of the previous few years, with events and engagement continuing to increase (adjusting for the impact from

Covid-19). We are now having more people attend events and training than any previous year. Our role in Advocacy, with the five local and regional councils, central government and its various ministries, continues to be a valuable way to influence decision making to better support business and remains a strong mandate from the membership.

I would like to thank sponsors, committees and partners, along with our members. You have all contributed to a productive and successful year for the Chamber. Grant McKenzie | President

Otago Chamber of Commerce Incorporated Members

Total Membership 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 960 972 963 938 953 Membership was again increasing until the effects of Covid 19 hit. During the lockdown period, staff and the board endeavoured to contact as many of our members as possible to help respond to their needs. In July we saw our largest month of resignations for 5 years but accounted for 3 month of follow ups during lockdown. Many of these were liquidations or no classified as longer trading or unreachable. Until this period we were experiencing membership growth. Regional membership was slightly up at just under 27% of total membership. Up to and including March, 27 new members joined the Chamber in the regions, along with 49 new members in Dunedin. Overall, there were slightly fewer new members than the previous year but was again on par with the previous 2 years, at around 90 new members. Resignation numbers were slightly higher than last year, but still lower than long term averages and some of these were absorbed under franchisees, thus still engaged with the Chamber network. 30+ businesses were sold, closed, relocated, liquidated or just gone.

Activities/Training: Up to and including the end of March

Total Training and Events 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 Training, Events activities Run 170 238 241 213 208 Training 105 125 110 112 129 Events 65 111 128 82 76 Awards 1 2 3 3 3 Attendees 3651 5398 5228 3793 3501 Participation Rate 92% 94% 89% 89% 84%

A good mix of training and events were offered to members over the 12 months including 65 events and 105 training sessions. There were 26 events run across the region providing direct contact with members, as well as the monthly networking functions. There were also activities for the Not for Profits and increased numbers of BA5s throughout the region. 25 Not for Profit sessions and 70+ presentations, guest or chamber specific activities were delivered. The wide selection of other workshops included Prince2 Project Management, Team Leader training, and we continued our development of our leadership academies. This does not include the 19 free webinars and zooms we ran during covid which had over 1000 participants, nearly 400 recorded views across the greater Otago region. This year we ended our contract with Kiwihost.

Numbers for events and training to be hosted in person were on target until Covid 19 effected this delivery model but we were proud to have presented the first RBP one to many webinar across the country

Otago Chamber of Commerce Incorporated Reputation

Partnerships The Chamber continued to work closely with partners and strategic organisations in the Otago region and beyond including: Dunedin City Council Westpac Otago Regional Council Noel Leeming Clutha District Council OfficeMax Central Otago District Council Otago Daily Times Waitaki District Council Z Energy Grow Dunedin Partnership Southern Hub Chambers Otago Community Trust Torpedo 7 Central Lakes Trust Hertz Tertiary Education Commission Firebrand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment Ministry of Social Development New Zealand Trade and Enterprise Education to Employment Brokerage service Project China Study Dunedin Young Enterprise Youth Employment Success (YES) Canterbury Safety Charter/Otago Safety Charter Workforce Development Group Hospital Rebuild Local Advisory Group Workforce Central Dunedin Dunedin Dream Brokerage Otago Rail Trail Operators Southern Trust Lion Foundation University of Otago University of Otago Business School Otago Polytechnic Air New Zealand

Submissions Waitaki District Annual Plan

Central Otago Annual Plan

Otago Regional Council Annual plan

National Polytechnic Review

Central City Plan

DCC Annual Plan

Waitaki District Plan

Clutha District Council Annual Plan

Octagon Closure

George Street Covid-19 Dots

University and Polytechnic streets upgrade

We also made other supporting advocacy reports:  Immigration  Interim Region Skills Hubs  Aurora Energy CCP consultation

Otago Chamber of Commerce Incorporated Results

Energy Leaders We continue to lead business and community in energy sustainability and responsible business. Employment Initiatives The 4Trades Apprenticeship Trust continued to be managed by the Chamber, employing and mentoring apprentices for automotive, building, horticulture, joinery and plumbing trades. We also act as Chair and Champion for the Workforce Development Group. We recently successfully tendered and won the contract to deliver the Education to Employment contract for Otago. Finances The Chamber reported an annual profit for the 4th consecutive year which has now recovered the loses from the 2014-2016. However, the costs of offering services and advocacy to members keep increasing in an environment where contracts, sponsorships and external funding are becoming harder to access. The Chamber is continually revising and updating its strategic plan and operational plans to look at ways to add value for members and create financial sustainability while reducing the dependency on membership fees. Leadership Academy This programme provides participants access to the wealth of knowledge and experience of a number of well-known and respected business leaders from the region. We are proud to have expanded this

programme to support other Chambers notably our partners in Southland and Nelson. Every year our Leadership Alumni grows and their engagement in follow up events have been strong. Membership Several strategies were set in place to ensure engagement of members in Chamber services and communications. Our strategic plan and membership engagement is based on business membership but individual self-directed engagement. Membership retention and totals were ahead of last year’s figures until Covid 19 hit. Engagement We were on track to have more people attend activities coordinated and run by the Chamber than any previous recorded time, with nearly 3500 people attending activities up to the time COVID 19 hit in mid March. This does not include presentations delivered to businesses and organisations on request. During Covid 19 we hosted Numerous free webinars with over 1000 live attendees and 400 subsequent recorded views Networking These activities were significantly affected with COVID19 restrictions. However up to and including February we hosted 19 BA5s or Beer and Yearns and 16 networking sessions including many politicians Regional Partner Partnership This year the Chamber was solely responsible for the delivery of the RBP programme. During the Covid 19 shut down and through the later part of the year we have increased this team to 8 staff members.

Table 1: RBP discovery sessions by region

Performance Commentary

KPI Name KPI Actual Result Commentary RBP Activity 275 YE 256% The demand created by the impacts of COVID-19 (unique 703 unique engaged pushed demand up to unprecedented levels in the engaged businesses third quarter of the reporting year. businesses) RBP Discovery 200 YE 299% Sessions 130 discovery sessions and 467 COVID-19 engagements

Mentor 115 YE 103% Our Mentor Manager has had a big task building Matches 119 matches the programme over the first 12 months of the contract. Her focus has been on quality engagement with existing and new mentors as well as coordinating matches. It is evident that momentum in the programme is building and the COVID-19 lockdown period pushed up demand for this service, NPS score of 100 up to and including the end of March.

We are very pleased to report that our push to grow the number of mentors has also been successful with 36 new mentors since 1 July 2019. Additional mentors gives us a broader pool of knowledge, skills and diversity and ideally better matches. To support these new mentors we held one mentor training session in Dunedin in August and another in December in Queenstown. RBP Net 50+ 57 We have been working on increasing our response Promoter Score rate to the survey by trialling emails to customers to let them know about the survey. We are encouraged by our KPI’s in the High ≥10% High 3% Callaghan Innovation area, with our Growth Medium ≥35% Medium 42% Advisor delivering greatly improved results. No No ≤30% 33% We have exceed the KPI for Medium service service engagement. We note that we need to lift our High engagement by 7% and will be will be Callaghan working with our Innovation Advisor to look at Innovation strategies to achieve broader uptake of levels of services by Callaghan customers. The engagement COVID-19 environment initially reduced demand for Callaghan services, but in the last month there has been a surge. We expect therefore that this trend will continue with good update of Getting Started Grants and R&D Loans.

Sum of Sum of # Sum of Sum of # COVID of Voucher of COVID Voucher Vouchers Spend Usual Row Labels Sum of Action Plan Issued Vouchers Spend Issued Fund

CODC 67 37 $63,091 16 $33,264.00

DCC 159 75 $122,902 31 $55,402.00

QLDC 241 183 $287,561 41 $61,117.50

WDC 18 4 $8,230 10 $19,750.00

CDC 5 1 $2,000 2 $4,969.00

Grand Total 490 300 $483784 100 $174,502.50

Level 3, Public Trust Building, 442 Moray Place, PO Box 5713, Dunedin 03 479 0181 | E [email protected] | www.otagochamber.co.nz