At a meeting of Sounds’ Resident Associations hosted by the Guardians of the Sounds in Havelock in May 2002, Guardians chairman Pete Beech outlined his thoughts on future co-operation between associations, as taken from the minutes of the meeting, as follows:

He anticipated the following:

• Working to set up a network throughout the Sounds for a sharing of information to facilitate people and areas getting to know each other better. The Guardians were prepared to facilitate these but required Associations to reciprocate.
• The Guardians continuing as a lobby group with an effective network with Council, Government Ministers etc., while at present the Residents’ Associations were able to identify their problems in their own area but currently did not have the infrastructure to sort those problems out. The Guardians wanted to involve the community more and for the community to support them.
• The long term goal is to achieve a full system of Integrated Management but first step was to organize the community so that when Integrated Management is achieved community interests will be represented.
• While the Sounds areas would be represented on Councils’ Sounds Advisory Group the community still had to provide input to their selected representatives. He suggested that the best way of achieving this was to have three meetings a year to provide the opportunity for communities to give direction to those representatives and to receive feedback from them.

It had also been suggested by Council that the Guardians work with them to put out a newsletter for Sounds residents.