The Telecommunications Users Association of New Zealand (TUANZ) has announced it will cut its event staff to focus on its core work, advocacy for telecommunications customers.

In an update on the TUANZ blog, chief executive Paul Brislen says sponsorship of events has traditionally been a big part of the organisation’s income, but the market has been ‘trending downward for some time’.

"People just don’t have the time to attend a lot of events any more,” Brislen says, "and there are a lot of events out there.

"We’ve decided to outsource the management of any future events, which unfortunately means we don’t need a team of people to run them in-house any longer.”

The four-person team will remain with TUANZ for the next few weeks.

"This year’s been a tough one for them but they’ve faced up to the challenges and the dawning reality with a huge amount of grace. My hat is off to them.”

TUANZ was recently turned down for funding from InternetNZ in a bid to secure a grant for a research team.

Brislen says this was ‘absolutely their right’, and that TUANZ hasn’t given up on the goal, engaging in talks with Universities and Statistics New Zealand about how to proceed.

"We have reduced our costs to be in line with membership fees and that means we can carry on operating within the new budget for the foreseeable future.

"With members’ continued support we can carry on fighting the good fight.”