CHAIRMANS REPORT
In the past financial year, the Executive Director position has been handed over from Ms Jan Wu back to Ms Jenny Wang. It was because Ms Wu decided to return to her previous professional lawyer occupation. On behalf of the board, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Ms Wu for her hard work, new initiatives and contribution to The Chinese New Settlers Services Trust (CNSST). Her leadership guided CNSST staff working towards a new level of services to meet the demand from the communities. I also need to thank Ms Jenny Wang, QSM, who agreed to scarify her early retirement plan and returned to the Executive Directors role till next suitable Executive Director is recruited. I would like to thank former board members Colin Dale, JP, and Jessica Phuang, QSM, for their tremendous contribution and continuous support to CNSST.
Firstly, I would like to sincerely thank all of our funders (see the acknowledgement part for the name list), who make our operation of the Trust possible.
I would thank the Office of Ethnic Affairs for organizing the good governance training programme for the Ethnic NGOs, in particular to Honorable Pansy Wong, Minister of the Ethnic Affairs for creating such a good initiative. All of our Board members attended the programme and the training reconfirmed the Boards roles and distinctively knowing the commonalities and differences between management and governance.
I was very glad to get so positive feedback from all CNSST staff who attended a review of working in CNSST. They were separated in to different groups working on the same areas. The summary of the feedback from the groups was: staff viewed CNSST has a very healthy organization structure and providing professional multi services to meeting demand from the community, the entire community recognized CNSSTs services, they also saw CNSST as their family and feeling proud to be a member of it, that also gave them sense of belonging, achievement, satisfaction and contentment. They also happy to see Chinese children could learn Chinese in our six community education centers, particular enjoying their spectacular performance during our Chinese speech competitions.
We have passed the approval assessment with no any issue and concern by the auditor from the Ministry of Social Development.
CNSST remains the only ethnicity-based community provider to work with such a wide variety of national and local Government agencies. There are two milestones in fulfilling the strategic goals of the CNSST in near future.
One was that we got new grants from government to provide services to the wider Asian communities, so that the services are not only for the Chinese community but also will be extended to the Korean community.
The other was that in order to reduce rental costs and CNSST would have our own identity to the community, the Board decided to reserve $250,000 for future property purchasing. The idea was developed during 2003 CNSST strategic planning day as one of CNSSTs long term goals and we are all expected the dream would come true.
At last, I would like to thank all of our staff and volunteers including all our members of Board of Trustees, who provide the services that mean so much to our Chinese new settler community in New Zealand.
John Wong
Chairman
EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS REPORT
2008~09 is a special year for me as I was reappointed to be the role of Executive
Director after a long break of 20 months. I would thank our board and staff for trusting
me and supporting my return to the role. I would also thank Jan Wu; previous Executive Director for her hard work and new ideas have been brought in during her in charge
period from April 2008 to February 2009, and wishing her a very successful career achievement at legal field in future.
During my time off, I was able to enjoy a lot of traveling, in particular for six months
around China with my husband. Through this wonderful journey, I learnt a lot about myself and improved
my attitude towards life, for example, we need to respect and value what happened in our lives and deal
with them positively. I believe that these spiritual life lessons will help me manage issues that I used to
struggle with and handle work related crisis much more calmly.
4.1 I am very proud of all the CNSST staff, contractors and volunteers who have been such self-
motivated and disciplined individuals, they have been working extremely hard to achieve the organizational
goals and their project targets through this period of CEO transition. I believe that this indicates that CNSST
now is at the stage of a mature NGO with a solid developmental frame-work, which it made us passed the approval assessment with no issues and concerns by the auditor from MSD. This is largely result of the
following five key elements we identified in 2003the 5Ps:
-Philosophies: our clear philosophies give us self-identity and solid reputation in both local Chinese and
wider communities, and have guided us working towards on the right track.
- People: all members of our governance, staff and volunteer teams are passionate and committed to
work for our community.
-Paper System or management infrastructure: All of our governance and management policies in the
operational manual ensured us to function more efficiently and effectively.
-Products: we have designed and created comprehensive programmes and services to meet the
needs of our community well.
-Partnership: CNSST has built a very positive relationship with communities and been well
supported by many funders, including government departments, private funders and donors.
4.2 For the period 1 July 08 to 30 June 09, the key performance indicators are summarized as follows:
4.21We are very lucky to have an excellent multicultural working-team who are also new migrants
Come from New Zealand, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia and other Asian countries. Around
200 people have worked for CNSST during this financial year including:
9 board member(two resigned)
12 paid full time and 13 part time staff( 2 resigned)
70 paid contract tutors and
Over 40 long term social work placement students and volunteers
Over 50 short term volunteers.
4.2.2 Contracts with government departments have ensured the viability of our Trust as a welfare
sector/community services provider. This enabled us to better achieve the goal of helping new
settlers to integrate fully in the economic, social and cultural life in a new country, and able to
contribute sooner to the local community. Our success in providing services is shown through
our large client base and grass roots contacts, as evidenced by the following during the financial year:
General enquiry calls and drop in: 12,200
Participation of our weekend programmes at our six community education centres: 1,300+ per week
and a total of 15,000+ individuals (on multiple visits) during the year;
Registered job seekers and employers in our data: 406 & 407
Successful job placements: 122, with 107 full time and 15 part time jobs.
Social work and counselling case: 62
Participation in our community projects, e.g. domestic violence prevention and SKIP parenting skills: 534
Receiving our free legal advice services: 121
Benefiting from our radio show educational programmes: 10,000+
Participation in our 57 educational workshops relating to New Zealand law and legislation: 1,129
Participation in our cultural and social events: 10,000+
Participation in our first home buyer courses: 1,068
Participation in our road safety driver license courses: 332
Participation in the New Zealand cultural learning programme: 589
4.2.3 Economic participation was an important part of our work for the new settlers during past year. With the support from 10 government departments, academic institutions and private companies, in 29 June 2009, we have achieved outstanding success with the 2009 Chinese Entrepreneur Forum at Business School of University of Auckland. All of the representatives played very important roles in this forum, which provided an opportunity for Chinese entrepreneurs to access information about New Zealands economic and trade policies, and explored the opportunities and challenges for doing business between New Zealand and China. A total of 60 entrepreneurs attended the forum and gave high praise on the forum and saw it as a step towards improving cross-broader businesses between New Zealand and China.
4.3 As an Asian-focused NGO in New Zealand, we are delighted to continue being in a position to bridge the gaps between sectors, government, academic, business and community-- and cultures. CNSST is always open for ideas on how we can best serve our community, as an example, to respond to requests we have received, we are planning to initiate a pilot project in the Korean community in near future.
4.4 I am so glad our board making decision on reservation of $250k towards purchasing an office building according to the long term goal we have set up in 2003, in order to reduce our rental costs and promote our own identity. We have been trying very hard to raise fund to achieve the goal and have to keep continuing to do so. All of our staff and community are expecting that our dream comes true soon.
I must once again acknowledge the contribution of all our Board members especially John Wong, our Chairman and Kit Wong, our Deputy Chairman, their passion and wisdom have helped us to keep the Trust on a secure and growing path.
I also greatly appreciate all the work and support from our staff and volunteers for they are the ones who define CNSST. I would take this opportunity to thank especially our wonderful Service Manager, Gloria Gao, for the key role she has been playing in our team to ensure the quality of our services and projects are provided to the community.
And last but not least, I have to thank my family for their support in my return to CNSST, particularly my husband Nixon for taking over all the chores around the house and allow me focus all my energy on the management and development of CNSST.
Jenny WANG
Executive Director
