Issue Date:  -  Wednesday, 2 July 2003

Good response by North West Associations

(Travelling Information Sessions)

The Department's recent visit through the Northwest of the state conducting information sessions for incorporated clubs and organisations has been hailed a success following big turnouts in Hedland and Karratha.

"Country people traditionally put a lot of their time and energy into community activities and with many of these falling under the Associations Incorporation Act we felt it opportune to visit and offer to answer any questions that may exist", Consumer Protection Commissioner Patrick Walker said.

"There are so many issues which impact on the responsibilities of committees and members we wanted to make sure that people had access to accurate information.

"We were delighted to see so many people attend our information sessions interested in speaking with our officers so that they could run their organisations better", he said.

A range of recently developed user-friendly information sheets were distributed and discussed with some of the key issues being:

* Lodging changes to rules (constitution) with the department prior to them taking effect

* Children being known as `players' of sporting clubs as opposed to `members' as legal requirements make lists of members names and addresses available to any other member upon request

* Responsibilities of committees

Further sessions are planned for other parts of the state later this year.

Information sheets and model rules for Associations are available free of charge at www.docep.wa.gov.au/associations <http://www.docep.wa.gov.au/associations> or by telephoning 1 300 30 40 74 for the cost of a local call from anywhere in WA.