Message from Paula Daye, RNZFB CEO

I'm delighted to announce that the Foundation's 2005-2006 annual report was a major winner at the recent award ceremony in Wellington. The New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants (NZICA) said we were tops in two categories: Best Annual Report by a Service Organisation/Volunteer Sector; and Best Governance Reporting by a Service Organisation. We won both of these categories last year and the year before, so this is one habit we don't want to break. I'd like to give our heartiest congratulations to former CFO Geoff Warne and the Comms team who produced this excellent annual report - Bill Moore, Jude Cooney, Max Wong and Jade Reidy (freelance contributor). While this award refers specifically to the print version of our report, I'd like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the significant efforts of our AIC team to ensure the report was produced in all accessible formats, including for the first time a full text DAISY version.

You might like to see what NZICA judges said about our annual report. Here are their comments:

Best Annual Report by a Service Organisation/Volunteer Sector.

"The award to the Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind was well-deserved, and they were a clear winner in this category. The annual report was well presented and gave an excellent understanding of this organisation's activities which not only focused on their membership base but was also applicable to a wider audience. The statements of service performance gave a good balance between qualitative and quantitative information, as well as providing an accurate 'warts and all' picture and was not afraid to report on goals that were only partly achieved or not achieved at all, but also gave very clear reasons for why this was the case. The statements on governance gave the reader an assurance that the organisation is very well governed. The financial statements were very clear and of high technical standard."

Best Governance Reporting by a Service Organisation.

"Your report was best in category. The judges particularly commented on your wide ranging set of observations that displays a good description of how the Board goes about its business."

For a full list of all winners please visit http://www.nzica.com/AM/Template.cfm?Section=News&Template=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=7755

Paula Daye