ECAWA FAQs

To join ECAWA go to https://ecawa.wa.edu.au/join-or-renew/  and look at the membership options available to you. That information is quite  detailed,  should help you to work through the process, and will answer the most commonly asked membership questions, but if you need more information, this is the next place to look.

All ECAWA Memberships carry the condition that:

In applying for membership of ECAWA / renewing your ECAWA membership you confirm that you agree to support:
– the Objects of the Association as outlined in the Rules of the Educational Computing Association of Western Australia (Inc) and
– the work of the Association, and
– abide by the Rules of the Association.

Please also remember that:
ECAWA membership is made available to individual teachers, retired members and pre-service teachers, as well as schools and similar organisations (colleges, kindergartens, university departments, government departments involved in education and the like).

Businesses, including providers of hardware, software, service and training, and their employees, are invited to contact ECAWA to discuss a sponsorship relationship.

Read the information and decide which membership is appropriate for your situation.

Once you have chosen a membership option go to https://ecawa.wa.edu.au/join-or-renew/ecawa-memberships/ (or use the link at the top of the previous page)

Find the membership you want and “add to cart”.  You can only add one membership at a time to your cart as people are only allowed to hold one membership at a time.

Next, go to your cart and, fill in the form carefully.  Select the option, “I am applying to join ECAWA.”

Select your payment option and complete the purchase.

After your application and payment have been received, your application will be presented at the next ECAWA Committee Meeting for formal approval and acceptance.

Please remember that:
ECAWA membership is made available to individual teachers, retired members and pre-service teachers, as well as schools and similar organisations (colleges, kindergartens, university departments, government departments involved in education and the like).

Businesses, including providers of hardware, software, service and training, and their employees, are invited to contact ECAWA to discuss a sponsorship relationship.

After you have submitted your application for membership and your payment of the appropiate membership fee has been received there will be a short interval until the ECAWA Committee can meet to approve / accept the application, however during this period you are welcome to attend PL activities including the ECAWA State Conference, at ECAWA Member rates.

It is important to remember that even if you have selected a voting membership, you will not be able to vote at any ECAWA General Meeting or be nominated for the ECAWA Committee or nominate any person  or second any nomination until the ECAWA Committee has approved / accepted your application for membership.

When you join ECAWA your membership ticket and your Tax Invoice will have a note reminding you of the date by which your membership must be renewed.

We suggest that you add a reminder of this date to your personal calendar at the time you first apply for membership.

When a renewal period is approaching general reminders are posted on ECAWeb and included in emails, however personal reminders may not always be possible, and a member’s responsibility to renew their ECAWA Membership on time.

When you need to renew your ECAWA Membership just go to ECAWeb at https://ecawa.wa.edu.au/join-or-renew/ecawa-memberships/ and select the ticket for the type of membership you are renewing, and follow the same proceedure as you used the first time – except that this time you would choose not “I am applying to join ECAWA” but “I am renewing an existing ECAWA Membership”.

If you do not renew your ECAWA Membership when the renewal becomes due you cease to be a member of ECAWA.

When your membership expires you cease to be a financial member of ECAWA and you are not permitted to to vote at any ECAWA General Meeting or be nominated for the ECAWA Committee or nominate any person  or second any nomination.

You will cease to hold any office in ECAWA  that requires Membership.

If you wish to rejoin ECAWA you will need to submit a new application for membership and this will need to be presented to the ECAWA Committee for acceptance / approval before you can resume ECAWA Membership.

If you need to re-apply for ECAWA Membership remember to select the option, “I am applying to join ECAWA” as you cannot renew an membership that has ceased to exist, and selecting the wrong option may result in your application being delayed.

YES!

We try to make things as easy as possible for our members to renew their memberships on time, so we make the tickets to renew ECAWA Membership available several weeks before the two renewal dates – however, we also know that slip ups happen, time flies, and we are all so busy…..

So, there is a “grace period” of few weeks from the end of March and the end of September, when you can “catch up” without any drama.

Just make sure that you are able to receive ECAWA emails, so that you don’t miss all the reminders – AND set your own reminder when you take out that membership!

When you join ECAWA and book tickets for ECAWA Professional Learning or other events you are asked to provide identifying personal information.

Protecting our members’ personal information is critical to maintaining ECAWA’s credibility as a Professional Association.

Restricting access is a key tool in keeping member and attendee information secure. ECAWA gives a volunteer or employee only sufficient access to members’ information to allow them do their job, and reminds volunteers and employees of their obligations whenever they receive such information.

As a rule, communications from ECAWA will come to members via the mailman server address or an association address, rather than from personal email addresses. This avoids members’ email addresses becoming part of an employee’s or volunteer’s personal address book.

Personal information that ECAWA collects may include names, addresses, email addresses, telephone numbers, places of employment, areas of specific interest, including subjects taught, special access and dietary requirements.

ECAWA aims to collect only the information that we really need in order to meet our obligations to our members, and our obligations to the state and federal agencies that oversee particular areas, and if at any time you consider that you are being asked for unnecessary details we encourage you to alert us to this.

Again, if you ever believe that your personal information supplied to ECAWA has been mis-used, passed to a third party or otherwise compromised in any way please alert us to this as soon as possible.

Personal information collected by ECAWA is used to:

• Process and record memberships and voting
• Allocate member discounts to those entitled to them
• Process and record event ticket purchases
• Send information, reminders and invitations to members and event attendees, including event information, ECAWA Updates, special announcements, etc
• Produce and distribute tax invoices, certificates of participation, name tags, sign in sheets, attendance lists for workshops, etc
• Arrange appropriate catering for events
• Ensure appropriate access to venues for members will particular requirements
• Arrange rooming for events
• Book accommodation
• Check eligibility for participation in projects, awards, etc

As a rule, communications from ECAWA will come to members via the mailman server address or an association address, rather than from personal email addresses.

This avoids members’ email addresses becoming part of an employee’s or volunteer’s personal address book.

Some messages are sent straight from ECAWeb during the purchase and payment process, but these will also be attached to an ECAWA email address.

You can help to ensure that you receive important messages by making email from the ecawa.wa,.edu.au domain “trusted” so that it will not end up in your “spam” box.

When you make a payment to ECAWA via ECAWeb and Stripe, PayPal or EFT,  your credit card details and bank account deails are not passed on to ECAWA.

If we need to send you a payment such as a refund or a reimbursement, we will ask for your

1. Account name
2. BSB and
3. Account Number.

We will only retain this information after you have confirmed that you have received the payment if you are likely to be a regular payee, for ecxample, a committee members who regularly caters for PL sessions and so is being reimbursed regularly.

NO!

The personal information of ECAWA members and event participants is NEVER made available to ECAWA’s Sponsors and supporters.

Instead ECAWA will forward to members a limited amount of information from sponsors and supporters by an ECAWA email or via a link to ECAWeb.

Sponsors and supporters may also collect members / attendee contact information directly from attendees at events, but participation in competitions, surveys, etc is by a member’s choice only.

If you ever believe that your personal information supplied to ECAWA has been mis-used, passed to a third party or otherwise compromised in any way please alert us to this also as soon as possible.

When a person asks for the contact details of a particular ECAWA member that person will be told that ECAWA is not permitted to give out  the contact details of members.

If it appears appropriate, the President may allow Secretary to forward a message with the name and contact details of the person making the request to the ECAWA member concerned, along with a note that this person has asked to make contact with them.

A response, if any, is always at the choice of the member.

The Associations Incorporation  Act requires associations to maintain an up-to-date Register of Members, which must include each member’s name and:

• residential address; or
• postal address; or
• email address.

It is also a requirement  that where any change in the association’s membership occurs the register must be updated within 28 days of the change.

ECAWA’s Register of Members is limited to the name of each member as supplied,  and the email address of the member. Any other information which ECAWA might hold does not form part of the Register of Members, and is secure from access requests.

The Associations Incorporation  Act  gives members of an association the right to inspect the Register of Members and make a copy of any part of its contents, or request a copy of its contents be provided to them.

This provision has often caused members great concern about how their information may be used or misused.

ECAWA has received a number of requests for access to the Register of Members over the past 20 years.

When a member insists that they be given a copy of ECAWA’s Register of Members, and they will not compromise in this, it has been our practice to tell the member/s concerned that: they will need to:

1. provide ECAWA with a completed, signed and properly witnessed Statutory Declaration using the form of words at https://www.consumerprotection.wa.gov.au/inc-guide-incorporated-associations-western-australia/sample-form-statutory-declaration
2. make an appointment with the person nominated by the President, and deliver the completed, signed and properly witnessed Statutory Declaration, and then view the Register of Members and make a copy of the information.

And they will be told  that ECAWA will notify the rest of our members, and explain who has taken a copy of their information, how they have said they will use it.

The Statutory Declaration format above requires the person asking for infomation from the Register of Members to, among other things, acknowledge that:

• I understand that it is a criminal offence to disclose information in the register of members for a purpose that is not directly connected with the affairs of the Association or that is not related to the administration of the Associations Incorporation Act 2015 (Unlawful Purposes)
• I will not disclose information obtained from the register for Unlawful Purposes.
• I understand that Unlawful Purposes include, but are not limited to, advertising for political, religious, charitable or commercial purposes.

Up to this point no member has carried through and completed the Statutory Declaration, and ECAWA has not had to release the Register of Members, however members do need to consider their own requirements for privacy and security, and  act accordingly.

Again, if you ever believe that your personal information supplied to ECAWA has been mis-used, passed to a third party or otherwise compromised in any way please alert us to this as soon as possible.

Sadly, this is not a unique problem.

Please contact the President of ECAWA at president@ecawa.wa.edu.au make a time to discuss this.

Again, if you ever believe that your personal information supplied to ECAWA has been mis-used, passed to a third party or otherwise compromised in any way please alert us to this as soon as possible.

ECAWA membership is made available to individual teachers, retired members and pre-service teachers, as well as schools and similar organisations (colleges, kindergartens, university departments, government departments involved in education and the like).

Businesses, including hardware, software, service and training providers, and their employees, are invited to contact ECAWA to discuss a sponsorship relationship.

The ECAWA Committee usually begins to set the date of the #ECAWA State Conference at least a year in advance, but will not circulate information widely until the venue that they plan to use has been confirmed.

To keep costs to members as low as we can, wherever  possible ECAWA uses spaces in schools or university campuses as Conference venues.

These venues are well set up for large group gatherings (for Keynote Addresses, Trade Shows, meals) as well as smaller group areas (for workshops and presentations in the concurrent strands of the programme), and are often available to us at a low cost, or even at no cost.

As a professional association we want our members to be able to have some control over their own professional  learning, to decide what professional learning they need, and be able to get it.

Unfortunately the reality is that this means teachers have to do much of their professional learning in their own time, and often, at their own expense.

This is turn means that ECAWA professional learning events are usually held out of school time – with shorter, after school workshops and presentations typically running from 4.15pm – to 5.30pm at the end of a school day, and other longer workshops and presentations being run over two hours on a weekend morning or afternoon. Half day workshops are also a weekend or “during Term Breaks” option, and full day workshops are  sometimes offered during Term Breaks.

The ECAWA State Conference has usually been held during school holidays, so that ECAWA members have as much personal choice as possible in their decision to attend. They can’t be denied the opportunity to attend the #ECAWA State Conference by their school if the Conference is taking place in their own time, and the event is easier to manage if the volunteers working on the Conference are not busy at school.