Thursday 6th of December 2007

I do have to express my surprise again at the IFA’s annual results and its apparent lack of disclosure to members. As this story reports the IFA made its second consecutive loss in the financial year ending June 30. In the recent results it reported a loss of $170,821 and as a result members’ funds have fallen more than 60% in the past two financial years from $522,531 to $206,271. A couple of things are interesting from the story, that is subscription revenue has decreased at  a  time subs have gone up. This would tend to indicate that membership of the body is falling. Secondly, it must become difficult to set up an APB with such limited resources. It appears the association is expecting help from the government on this matter, but there is no sign, yet, that it will be forth coming. For the record, Tarawera Publishing has published the annual report for the association, the last time being three years ago. With the state of the relationship at the moment being poor, we have no expectation that the association would ask us to do this job at the moment. But at least the former leadership was prepared to keep members in the loop of what their association was doing and the state of its books. With good reason I guess as the members funds had been built to more than half a million dollars. I do find it bewildering that the president, at the start of his term, gave me a rather passionate speech about how, as the body representing advisers, the association had a higher fiduciary standard than other organisations. He said the association had to go one step further than others with financial matters. It’s a pity actions don’t fit the words. I do wonder what members of the association think about this apparent lack of disclosure by their association?