Eligibility
To be eligible to be a Member of Gumala Aboriginal Corporation you must be 18+ years of age, complete an application form for Membership and must be recognised as an individual of one of our three language groups: Banjima, Nyiyaparli or Yinhawangka. If you are a registered Member of Gumala Aboriginal Corporation, you will be entered onto our Register of Members.
What Membership entitles you to
You must be either a Member of the Corporation or a Beneficiary of the Trust in order to access programs and benefits from Gumala. For this reason, when applying for Membership with GAC, you must also apply to become a Beneficiary of the Trust. This can be done through a joint Beneficiary Status & Membership Application form.
All Members of Gumala Aboriginal Corporation have rights and responsibilities as Members.
Some of these rights and responsibilities include:
- The right to attend, speak and vote at meetings of the Corporation
- To be elected or appointed as a Director of the Corporation
- The right to inspect registers
- To comply with the GAC Rule Book
- To notify the Corporation of any change in address details within 28 days
- To comply with Member codes of conduct
- To treat other Members with respect and dignity
- To not behave in a way that significantly interferes with the operation of the Corporation and Corporation meetings.
All Members are also required to abide by GAC’s Code of Conduct Policy. The Code of Conduct Policy outlines GAC’s expectations of Members in relation to their behaviour and personal conduct during interactions with GAC, its employees and its stakeholders. A copy of the Code of Conduct can be found here.
Our Application Reviewing Process
Once an application is sent to us for Membership/Beneficiary Status or both, the application is sent to the Foundation Application Review Committee for assessment and review. This committee make recommendations to the GAC and GIPL Boards respectively about the applications. The criteria to become a Gumala Member is that you are biologically linked to an original signatory of the Yandi Land Use Agreement.
The GAC Board approve Memberships. The GIPL Board approves Beneficiary Status. For this reason, the committee is made up of TO Directors from both the GAC and GIPL Boards. This ensures the decision making is consistent regarding the outcomes of Membership applications.
Membership Process Under Review
Over the past year, Gumala staff, in conjunction with the Foundation Applications Review Committee (FARC) have been working on a review of the memberships process at the request of the Boards of both Gumala Aboriginal Corporation (GAC) and Gumala Investments Pty Ltd (GIPL).
The review is particularly focused on the way we assess applications for membership and beneficiary status, as well as the eligibility criteria for becoming a Member and Beneficiary.
This review is ongoing and may not be completed for several more months. However, the Boards recognise that in the meantime, it is important to make potential Members aware of the lengthy process of the review, and that during this time applicants may experience delays in the processing of their applications.
The following flowchart shows how the current membership process works. We acknowledge that at times this may not apply as each applicant will have unique circumstances surrounding their applications.
The flowchart also clearly shows that if the right type of evidence is not provided with initial applications, the delay in processing for an outcome can also take months.
In these cases, GAC staff will contact the applicants to discuss their applications and advise what else is required of them.
If you are still encountering difficulty when you, or someone who you are assisting, are working through the application process, then please feel free to contact us and speak with our Memberships Team or email memberships@gumala.com.au
We thank you for your patience during this time.
How to apply
To apply to become a Gumala Member, please complete the form below and return it to us with a copy of your birth certificate. Applications can be sent to memberships@gumala.com.au.
