How We Did It
Megan’s resignation came out of the blue – but we fully understood her need to move on. However, her desire to move quickly meant that we had to also. We advertised widely – but “the big idea” website yielded most of our replies.
An initial vetting was done, with huge help from Megan. Then an interview committee had to be established – who (in Auckland) was available, daytimes, at short notice?
Jen Butcher took responsibility as Branch Chair, and Nick Treacy offered to assist, but in a junior role he insisted, since he was a newbie at such a task. Not for long! Paul Richards and Murray Milne were available for brief periods… Because of this mag, I decided to participate – it might help everyone if I made sure we did not get someone I suspected I’d find difficult!
The main trio all sat through three full days of interviews – including a conference phone call with a chap in Wellington. I don’t think any of us realized beforehand how taxing a day of interviews can be!
At the end of Day One we had two good candidates, and a new confidence that we would get someone brilliant – such was the quality of the candidates already. Day Two produced two more, and Day Three two others! An embarrassment of riches!
We chatted and assessed the people through lunch and again at the end of the day. On the last day, we were stumped. Reducing the best six down to three wasn’t too hard. Reducing to two was damned difficult, until we realized we needed to be TOUGH… But making the final choice was really hard – at the end of the day after all the interviews, we still had a deadlock.
There was nothing for it – we had to repair to the famous Gypsy Tea Rooms in Grey Lynn (I hadn’t realized how trendy a film’s place it is on a Friday afternoon – I’m normally never there till near midnight…)
We consulted references for our last two extensively – international phone calls included. They didn’t help! But in the end, one of us gave away a very slight preference and yielded to the very slight preference of the other two – and I think it’s fair to say, we are all very happy with our decision!
The fact that Megan and Fritha hit it off so well, so quickly, bodes well for the Guild – as does the immediately apparent attitude of commitment, focus, energy and personality that Fritha is already bringing to the job.
Megan, we will miss you greatly – no doubt – but we are confident that with your gracious help, we’ve found another “goodie”! Welcome, Fritha – clearly you’re going to be good for us – we hope that we will be good for you too, and that you enjoy your time with us.
My thanks to Jen and Nick especially, for making an arduous task an infinitely more pleasurable one than it could so easily have been!
Tony F.
