February 2025

Hello and welcome to our first newsletter of 2025. I hope those of you that managed a bit of a break this summer had a relaxing and recharging time.
The club executive committee also took a bit of a break over Christmas and New Years, but we are back into it, and had our annual planning meeting early this month. We have lots of interesting plans for our dinner meetings and look forward to your support and attendance again in 2025.

Just a reminder as we get into 2025, please confirm your attendance to the dinner meetings at the earliest opportunity. We also recommend you pay for your dinner online if possible. Please reach out if you don’t have our bank account number. No shows to the dinner will continue to need to be paid for as the club is charged for the meals we have booked.

In February we recognise Red Bag Day. Red Bag Day represents how big the gender pay gap is. As of June 2024, the gender pay gap in New Zealand was 8.2%. This is the difference between the median hourly earnings of men and women. As women in New Zealand, on average, are paid less
than males, by my calculation women would need to work to Monday 3 rd February 2025 to earn the same amount as men earned in 2024. The gender pay gap is even bigger for Māori, Pasifika and Asian women, and disabled women. Using Stats NZ’s median weekly earnings of $1343, an 8.2% gap is equivalent to $110.13 per week difference.
The government launched a gender gap toolkit for businesses to complete as self-assessment. You can find out more information on this from the Ministry for Women / Manatū Wāhine website.
https://www.women.govt.nz/gender-pay gaps/gender-pay-gap-toolkit
This website has a large amount of useful and interesting information. The good news is that the
gender pay gap (June 2024 figures) within Taranaki is lower than the national average. In Taranaki men have median hourly earnings of $32.70, and women have median hourly earnings of $30.74.
Resulting in the gender pay gap within this region being at 6.0%. Still a way to go. Southland has a gender pay gap of 0% with equal median pay at $31! At the other end of the scale Nelson / Tasman
/ Marlborough/ West Coast region has a gender pay gap of 12.7%.
We have come a long way since the Equal Pay Act of 1972 and the Equal Pay Amendment Act 2020 but there is still work to do by many businesses right across New Zealand.

Along with this theme we have Kirsty Jamieson as our guest speaker this month at our dinner meeting. Kirsty is a P&C (People and Culture) Business Partner at Fonterra. Kirsty is going to talk to us about some aspects of the gender pay gap, and what can be done to close gap including at the recruitment stage. Kirsty is also a very entertaining and engaging speaker so come along and bring your friends.
Please also bring along a red bag, if you have one, to represent the ongoing fight for equal pay for equal value work for all women.

Save the date: Saturday 3rd May and Sunday 4th May is the BPW NZ AGM and conference in Auckland. Please let our club executive know if you are keen to attend and be one of our club delegates.

As you might have seen from my email recently, Catherine Trowbridge our club Treasurer has stood
down from her role due to personal reasons. I would like to thank Catherine for her efforts as Treasurer since October 2023. Its so good to receive her feedback that she learnt a lot during that time, and now feels more confident using Xero. Just goes to show the value of stepping into a role on the committee as a development opportunity.
A huge thank you to Dee Werder-McCrea who offered to pick up the treasurer role!

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