Presidents Report Oct-Nov-Dec 2025
ABA President
Vince Schnyder
Dear Members,
It’s amazing how fast time flies by when there is so much going on and I didn’t realise that there was no report for some time until Fiona, our Editor, chased me for an update.
ABA Committee Strategy Day
The ABA committee held its annual strategy day on Saturday 22 November in Prospect NSW. It was a great day to have everyone in one room (Fiona dialling in from Qld) to acknowledge what has been achieve over the last term and set goals for the 2025/26 membership year.
First of all, we were able to fill the vacant position of Secretary by Ester Nyers joining the committee. It’s great to have the position filled again so that some of the admin work can be shared.
We still have a few open positions on the committee (also available outside the committee) to support the clubs. Skills we are looking for are: Biosecurity/Beekeeping Education, Social Media, IT, Google Workspace admin, Website and Google Ads, and Event Planning & Management. If you have any of these skills and want to support your club, please get in contact with any of the committee members.
We also discussed the program for next year. First of all, we are considering running either a Beekeeper Field Day and/or a Conference and I invite all clubs to reach out to me if they are able to support such an event.
Col Pulling / Bruce White Shield Competition
As you have seen in the last TAB Magazine, the 2025 Col Pulling / Bruce White Shield competition was held at the Tocal Beekeeper Field Day. Unfortunately, I didn’t notice a bug in the scores’ spreadsheet which resulted in an error when presenting the awards on the day. Cumberland Club won the Bruce White Shield, however, the Col Pulling trophy went to Nepean. Thankfully both clubs were forgiving.
The Col. Pulling competition is a long running, inter-club competition, in honour of Col Guy Pulling. He founded the ABA in 1954 and the competition allows the clubs to showcase their honey products. Later, the Bruce White Shield was added to give smaller clubs (1/3 with lowest membership) a better chance of winning, as historically the Col Pulling was dominated by large clubs.
Probably as a result of the break during the COVID years many members (and clubs) don’t remember the great competitions we had over the years, including heated debates about the honey cake recipe. We plan to run the Col. Pulling competition as part of our Field Day and/or Conference in 2026 and encourage all members to talk their club committee into participating. We will run a few articles about this in future TAB Magazines.
Swarm System
As pointed out in my last update, we adopted a new Swarm System where members of the public can report a swarm online and members covering that area will be notified via email, SMS or WhatsApp. The first beekeeper “claiming” the swarm will be connected with the reporter.
Many members have since signed up and with some minor teething issues the system overall runs smoothly. The developers are currently fixing some of the issues identified and the ABA committee will reach out to members on the platform in early 2026 to get their feedback so that we can determine if we want to stay on the new platform or look for alternatives.
Further details can be found on the Swarmed Wiki page.
Note: Please sign-up via the link on the ABA website and click “join Amateur Beekeepers Australia” so you get the free service and are notified of all swarms in your area. If you don’t sign-up via the ABA and there is an ABA member covering the area you will not be notified. Members come first.
Annual General Meeting
In 2024 we held a conference in Mittagong with four great speakers. After the event we received feedback from so many members that they regretted not having read the full program, because they saw the magic three letters A, G and M (although the AGM was over in less than 15 minutes).
Based on that feedback we held a hybrid AGM for the 2024/25 membership year in conjunction with the Club Forum on Sat 30 Aug 2025 at Hornsby RSL and online.
At the meeting a new Constitution was adopted to address the findings of the 2023 Strategic Review of the ABA Structure with the Objectives of the association streamlined and a 5 consecutive term limit for all committee members introduced.
With these changes, the majority of the recommendations from the 2023 review have been implemented. It was determined that for the time being the legal structure will remain unchanged as there is no immediate need for change.
We plan to hold the AGM as a separate online event in Oct/Nov 2026 for interested members to attend. As in previous years, the Notice will include links to the Presidents’ and Treasurers’ reports and other relevant documents so that full transparency is maintained.
Australian Charities and Not for Profit Commission (ACNC) Registration
With the 2023/24 budget the Federal Government introduced a rule that requires non-charitable not-for-profits (NFPs) with an active Australian business number (ABN) to lodge an annual NFP self-review return to confirm their eligibility to self-assess as income tax exempt.
Most associations thought that being a not-for-profit organisation would make them automatically tax exempt and the change came as a big surprise to many.
The ABA looked into the options and soon realised that we don’t fit nicely into any of the tax-exempt categories outlined in the Income Tax Assessment Act.
With support from a tax barrister from one of our clubs we tried to get an ATO ruling that all beekeeping clubs should be tax exempt as they support Agriculture. However, the ATO declined as the ABA was set up to support beekeeping “as a hobby” and not for commercial purposes.
Thus, we applied for registration with the ACNC and the ABA is now a registered charity and exempt from income tax obligations.
As each club is an independent legal entity, clubs with a live ABN will need to determine what suits them best. For my local club with little non-member revenues the easiest option is to file the annual tax return with the ATO and not bother about compliance with ACNC registration.
Royal Easter Show 2026
Yes, some of the Christmas leftovers are probably still in the fridge or freezer and we are already thinking about the Royal Easter Show 2026.
The 2026 Sydney Royal Easter Show will be held from 2nd till 13th of April 2026 along with the Sydney Royal National Honey Show.
If you want to participate, check the Royal Agricultural Society of NSW website for details as entries close on 28th January 2026.
Our colleagues from the NSW Apiarists’ Association are running Honey Land to showcase beekeeping and honey to the wider public and are looking for volunteers. Over the last few years, I generally volunteered for one or two days to engage with the public but also learn so much from other beekeepers.
Please Download this Form and send it to honeyland@nswaa.com.au or get in contact with Belinda if you have any questions.
I hope you enjoy reading our newsletter.
Happy Beekeeping
Vince