SERCUL’s Review Of Constitutional Vision, Mission And Objectives

Work on SERCUL’s current constitution commenced before the organisation was born and was finalised only about four months after we opened our doors in July 2003. So the constitutional objectives, mission and vision statements were inevitably expressions of what it was hoped the organisation might achieve when it was fully functioning.

With 20 years of operations behind us, we now of course know what SERCUL has actually achieved and every October we share that with you in our annual report and in project officers presentations at the annual general meetings. That knowledge foundation – plus a vastly better understanding of our many strengths – and limitations – has provided a solid foundation for the managers of our four operational divisions to prepare very good, detailed business plans, that among other things outline the scope, and their objectives for growth over the next 10 years. These business plans have been considered closely and endorsed by the board and will be complemented by an overarching organisation-wide business plan to be prepared this year.

All of that means we now have a sound and well understood base for reviewing the 20-year-old constitutional statements of objectives, mission and vision so that they better reflect what we are now, and what we aspire to be over the next 10 or more years.

Each of the three sections are being reviewed in turn over the next few months by the board and staff.  The revised drafts arising from this review will be sent to all our members by the end of May for their consideration and input with a 1 August deadline for any suggestions for changes. It will then be a discussion item for our community forum on Thursday 8 August at the City of Melville before the board considers the members’ input and puts a final draft to members before the AGM where there will again be time for further discussion and possible changes before it is put to the vote as a special resolution for ratification.

I would say at this early stage of the review, that while we will be proposing significant re-writing of the statements, they will be predominantly changes of emphasis and none of them should come as any surprise to members who keep in touch with what SERCUL is doing through the newsletters, these community fora, the AGMs and annual reports.

SERCUL was established as a regional coordinating body for Perth’s southeastern catchment groups. Therefore, not surprisingly the current constitutional statements focus a lot on SERCUL taking principally a facilitative, supportive and educative role in natural resource management in partnership with community, government and industry. That is still a very important part of our work. But an equal if not greater amount of our work has been – probably since our inception – and certainly is now and will be in the future – providing direct on-ground services.

I encourage all our member organisations to participate in this review of SERCUL’s constitutional vision, mission and objectives statements.