The role and purpose of Fitness Australia
From time to time it’s useful to remind people about the role and purpose of Fitness Australia. We do occasionally come across people who are connected with the industry who do not fully understand the role that Fitness Australia plays within the fitness industry or how it is constituted, governed, organised or operated. Nor do they understand Fitness Australia’s vision, mission and long term objectives despite this information being publicly available.
Unfortunately, some of these people choose to voice their uninformed and incorrect opinions about Fitness Australia via the social media, for their own purposes. We would hope that most people in the industry understand that blogs and other social media networks are mainly used to voice opinion and that the information contained therein is not necessarily factual or correct, especially when we know that the ‘blogger’ has not bothered to contact the organisation to check on the facts before publishing their material online.
Fitness Australia’s role as a Peak Industry Body
Fitness Australia is often referred to as an “Industry Association” or a “Peak Industry Body”. Following are a couple of useful definitions of a “Peak Body”:
A peak body is a representative organisation that provides information dissemination services, membership support, coordination, advocacy and representation, and research and policy development services for members and other interested parties. (Industry Commission, 1995:181)
A peak organisation or peak body in Australia is an association of industries or groups. They are generally established for the purposes of developing standards and processes, or to act on behalf of all members when lobbying government or promoting the interests of the members (Wikipedia).
Peak bodies are non-government organisations, are properly constituted and have a ‘not-for-profit’ status. This means that the organisation is not a ‘private’ company, but an independently incorporated organisation which does not distribute its profits to shareholders, even though it is desirable for them to produce surpluses for future working capital or the building of reserves.
In the case of Fitness Australia, the organisation has been legally set up as a Company Limited by Guarantee i.e. a public company subject to the Corporations Act, but with a ‘not-for-profit’ status. As a result of this status, Fitness Australia is not owned by shareholders or a group of individuals. It is ‘owned’ by its Members – who are from the fitness industry and who choose to join as Members. When surpluses are achieved, most of these funds are re-invested back into providing additional services to the industry and some may be kept aside to ensure that adequate reserve funds are maintained.
Fitness Australia was formed by the fitness industry, for the industry and it is governed by the industry. The Board of Directors are all volunteers who are either elected or appointed to the Board in accordance with the Constitution. The Constitution is a legally binding document that details the Articles of Association for Fitness Australia and the rules by which it is governed and administered. This document is available on the Fitness Australia website. The Chief Executive Officer is selected and appointed by the Board of Directors. The role of the CEO is to lead and administer the organisation in consultation with the Board of Directors. The Board of Directors are the democratically elected and appointed representatives of the fitness industry.
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