This year we have been looking at consolidating and updating the back ends of our website, with the support of our helpful IT consultant Edward Guilfoyle. This means that old, out-dated membership subscriptions no longer exist. I recently came across a subscription that a member purchased for $45 in 2017 which has auto-renewed at no cost!
These changes have also allowed us to link ‘active’ members to our mailing system, which didn’t automatically auto-update – meaning that our mailing list never had a recent list of our current members.
So now you should all be receiving correspondence and our newsletter!
Our membership stands at 144, which is up from 133 last year. Council have recently decided to trial for two years a free membership for sgudents, to increase our membership and connect our students with each other and our community. We are hoping that once joined, students will see the benefit and continue with membership.
| Total as at 31.10.2020 | Total as at 3.11.2021 | Change from last year | |
| Australian members | 98 | 105 | +7 |
| NZ members | 8 | 13 | +5 |
| Students | 19 | 18 | -1 |
| Fellows | 7 | 7 | na |
| International Members | 1 | 0 | -1 |
| Total | 133 | 143 | +10 |
The past year and half has been a challenging one for almost all of us, in many different ways. As a Council we have faced individual wanings of energy and focus towards GANZ, not altogether surprising, given many of us reside in areas that have been under prolonged lockdowns, and I have felt this reflective of the wider field.
I have been editing the newsletter for some time now, and recently our Research Chair Karolina Krysinka has been helping me. Karolina has generously agreed to take this on as I step down both from my Chair and also from the Editing role which I began a year before I joined Council, when I reached out asking if I could support them in any ways. Members don’t need to be Council members in order to participate!
I joined the Council in order to support Gestalt both within Australia and New Zealand, and also worldwide. A wonderful side note to this has been the connections with the other Council members, who seem to share a similar wish, and also the wider Gestalt community here Down Under and in NZ. I have enjoyed these connections, and realise in part that support takes some reaching for. Yet it exists. For this, I am glad to have been able to support GANZ for the past few years, and may one day come back to the fold. For now, other possibilities beckon, and I look forward to seeing some of you “in person” one day should that become possible!
~Aicha Brogan
Community and Membership Chair GANZ Council.