The Committee Room

Kate Hartwig and Kate McPhee
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Practical governance for volunteer committees and not-for-profit organisations. Hosted by governance consultants Kate Hartwig and Kate McPhee, each episode tackles one topic — clearly, honestly, and without the jargon. Short enough to finish before your coffee goes cold.

Episodes

  1. 6d ago

    Questions are Gold

    A $14,362 line item in miscellaneous expenses. Budget was $2,000. No explanation. Two committee members noticed it. Nobody said a word. The reports were approved and the meeting moved on. Six months later, the organisation discovered where the money had gone — and the paper trail led straight back to that meeting. In this episode, Kate H and Kate M get into why people don't ask the hard questions — and why that silence is never neutral. They cover the four forces that keep committee members quiet, the baseline questions every committee member should feel comfortable asking across finance, risk and strategy, and how to frame questions that get you information rather than defensiveness. Plus: the quiet meeting, the elephant in the room, and what a good chair does to make asking questions feel normal. Show notes and free Questions Are Gold checklist at thecommitteeroom.com.au

    23 min

  2. Jun 1

    Choosing your Committee

    It's AGM night. Four usual suspects nominate each other, a hand shoots up from someone nobody's seen in two years, and seven people are declared elected to stilted applause. Six months later, everyone's wondering why everything has gone sideways. In this episode, Kate H and Kate M make the case for ditching nominations from the floor forever — and walk through the eight-step election process that gets the right people in the room: informed candidates, proper voting, a returning officer, and a result the whole membership can trust. Plus staggered terms, term limits, and the uncomfortable truth about past presidents. Show notes, election checklist and candidate statement template at thecommitteeroom.com.au

    13 min

  3. May 25

    Care, Loyalty & Obedience

    Every committee member carries three legal duties — whether they know it or not. Care, Loyalty and Obedience. They sound straightforward but they trip up committees every day. Kate H and Kate M cut through the legal jargon to explain what each duty actually means in plain English — including the reasonable person test, conflicts of interest, and why obedience doesn't mean doing whatever the President says.  Show notes and free resources at thecommitteeroom.com.au

    10 min

  4. May 25

    What's your job,exactly?

    Most committee members know they have responsibilities — but ask them to name those responsibilities and you'll get a very long silence. Kate H and Kate M break down the three dimensions of committee responsibility, explain where governance ends and management begins, and offer a free role description template so your committee always knows what's expected. Show notes and free resources at thecommitteeroom.com.au

    13 min

  5. May 25

    Who's in the Room?

    Before you can govern well, you need the right people around the table. But how do you actually build a committee that works — not just a collection of whoever put their hand up at the AGM? Kate H and Kate M tackle committee composition, diversity, size, and the uncomfortable question of what happens when the wrong people are in the room. Show notes and free resources at thecommitteeroom.com.au

    11 min

  6. May 12

    Governance - The Big Picture

    It's 8pm on a Tuesday. You're in a community hall that smells of burned coffee and the meeting was supposed to start an hour ago. Sound familiar? In this first episode, Kate Hartwig and Kate McPhee cut through the jargon to explain what governance actually is, why it matters, and why it doesn't have to be this hard. Eight words that change everything: doing the right things, and doing things right. Show notes and free resources at thecommitteeroom.com.au

    9 min
  • 6 Episodes

About

Practical governance for volunteer committees and not-for-profit organisations. Hosted by governance consultants Kate Hartwig and Kate McPhee, each episode tackles one topic — clearly, honestly, and without the jargon. Short enough to finish before your coffee goes cold.

Information

  • Creator
    Kate Hartwig and Kate McPhee
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    6
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Kate Hartwig and Kate McPhee. All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    The Committee Room