Thursday, August 29, 2013

Michael Moynahan receives Honorary Life membership of PANZ

PANZ News

In Michael Moynahan’s term as president, to quote a councillor of the time, “the organisation shifted to the current highly successful model, which has enabled PANZ to achieve ambitious goals that would simply have been unmanageable before”.

“When he became President in 2006, we were a growing association, going from strength to strength, but we were hampered by our lack of administrative infrastructure,” according to the citation. “It was Michael who had the vision to promote, and the mana to sell, a full-time director’s role. He hired Anne de Lautour and that has proved to be a turning point. He transformed us from relying on admin support at Copyright Licensing and left, in 2008, a more self-sufficient organisation.

“But that is not all he achieved in his time as President. He repaired, and cemented, our relationship with Creative NZ and other arms of government in ways that have allowed us to work positively with those agencies ever since. Michael also reached out to our membership in a meaningful way, using regular regional member meetings to make the association more real to many. He also instigated the intern programme that many rely on now, and drove the re-development of the website, as well as re-structuring the finances and the subscription structure.

“Michael worked for us even when he wasn't on the Council. He gave of his time and ensured that Random House was fully involved in the life of the Association. He was instrumental in the creation of the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival as well as NZ Book Month, both events that are of real value to our industry, and therefore our members.

“Michael has always been an industry man. He cares about books, authors, publishers, and our whole environment. We simply would not be where we are today without him.”

Michael’s life membership was proposed by Kevin Chapman and was applauded at the recent PANZ AGM.
  


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