Setting Up A Society For Poker In New Zealand

It’s not too difficult to set up a society, but there are a few things that you will need;

1. At least 15 starting members,
2. A set of rules for the society
3. An initial setup fee of $102.22 (correct at time of writing)

Step 1

First thing to do is set up some rules for your society, these are the rules for the club and not rules for a game of poker, these rules cover how the club will operate internally. There are minimum requirements for these rules but you can expand and add to them. Here is a link to an outline of the rules according to Societies NZ

Step 2

Choose a name for your club, this has to be something that hasn’t already been registered with societies NZ. For simplicity you may just wish to call it your “your town’s poker club” or if say you already have a nickname for your poker nights you could call it that.

Step 3

Hold a meeting of initial members. Here you will need to hold a meeting with at least 15 members, during this meeting you go over the rules and make and amendments according to the members objections / suggestions. Also you need to decide who will be the first president, secretary and treasurer. Also choose who the committee positions will be filled by that are outlined in the rules.

Step 4

At the end of the meeting, 15 members must then sign the application form. Note – the signatures must be witnessed by someone who does not sign the form as a member.

Step 5

Certify the final rules and send the application along with the fee to Societies NZ

On going requirements.

• You need to make sure that every one who plays at your events is a member of the club. But you don’t need to charge a membership fee. Just complete a membership form.
• You need to log every game you play, including the income, outgoings and any rake or expenses.
• You need to complete accounts end of each year for the club.
• You need to set up a bank account for holding funds acquired by the club. (if you club is purely non profit and all the money paid in each event is payed back to the players the same event then this would be nulled, as there is no money being put into the club – exception to this is if you have membership fees you would need to store these somewhere).

So it may sound like a bit of work, but in reality the hardest part is getting 15 players together at the start, you can have you meeting on a poker night before the game starts.

When it comes to doing the accounts this doesn’t take long either, as after every game I would simply update an Excel spreadsheet with that games details, and it updates another sheet with total incoming and outgoings, I can then use these figures as part of the end of year accounts along with any other income or expenditure the club faced.