The membership of a governing council might need to change or it might just change suddenly. Some reasons include:

• not enough people nominated at election 
• someone resigns
• an elected person can’t be a member because they haven’t met a relevant history screening requirement
• changing need for community members.

If your council needs a new parent member the council will need to work together to decide on the best approach for filling the parent member vacancy.

If you had unsuccessful candidates in the last election this might be a good way to find interested parents. If not, there are some other options.

Parent member vacancies ­– options

Hold a supplementary election

If the council agrees, the site leader (as the returning officer) does this.

Do not fill the vacancy

You can choose to run a casual vacancy so you can fill the vacancy if someone comes along who is suitable. This vacancy will only be until the next election.

Look for someone new

How you look for new parent members will be about whatever works best at your site. A couple of ways are:

• put a call out for new members through the site’s newsletter
• someone on the council might already know a person who is interested in joining or would work well with the group.

Community members

These positions are based on need in the local community. Your council will work together to decide what skills and which people best meet the needs.