Chair's Report to 2024 Annual General Meeting

Goodbye to one of the good guys

The Trust’s 2023/24 year will forever be cloaked in sadness due to the sudden passing of our friend and fellow Trustee, Roger Loveridge, on 7 February 2024. Roger served as a Trustee of the Bay of Plenty Education Trust for 15 years, including 8 years as Chairman.

Roger was a lovable character, who was true to his word, generous with his time, and a great sharer of wisdom. Education had long held a special place in Roger’s life. In addition to devoting 15 years to the Bay of Plenty Education Trust, he served on school Boards of Trustees for 15 years and operated the Young Enterprise Scheme in the Western Bay of Plenty for 10 years. Perhaps this was Roger’s way of returning the favour for what education had provided him.

Roger’s contribution and dedication to the Bay of Plenty Education Trust will be sorely missed.
Thank you from all of us old friend.

Milestones
On a lighter note, I would like to highlight some of the positive milestones the Trust has accomplished this year. These include:

1. Surpassing the $2,000,000 mark of scholarships awarded since the inception of the Trust’s scholarship initiative. The official amount awarded to date being $2,081,750;

2. Successfully rolling out the third year of our supplementary grants scholarships with $32,000 of supplementary grants being shared between:
a. Graeme Dingle Foundation to assist two Year 10 students in their endeavours to complete their Project K programmes,
b. Blue Light Tauranga and Whakatane to pay for 10 students to attend a life skills programme; and
c. The Western and Eastern BOP House of Science organisations to purchase science kits;

3. Achieving an increase in the public awareness of our supplementary grants scholarships. We received 10 applicants for the 2024 supplementary grants, up from four in 2023;

4. Undertaking ongoing refinements to our investment portfolio and Statement of Investment Policies and Objectives (SIPO);

5. Welcoming Renay Jones onto the Trust (effective from 17 May 2023);

6. Launching a Linkedin page for the Bay of Plenty Education Trust;

Acknowledgements
This year we saw the retirement of John Revington as a Trustee on 17 May 2023, after almost 11 years of service as a Trustee. John was appointed as a Trustee on 1 August 2012. On behalf of the Board, I sincerely thank John for his exemplary service to the Trust, and in particular his service as Chair of the Investment Committee for a number of years. I wish him all the best with his next challenge.

Thank you to our publicity consultant, Monique Balvert-O’Connor, who never ceases to amaze with her ability to track down the Trust’s alumni from all over the World.

Thank you to Tom Beswick and his team at Ingham Mora for their valuable contributions to the Trust over the last year and to Tom and his business partners for allowing us to use their facilities.

Finally, I would like to thank the Trustees for their contributions to the Trust over the course of the last year. You can take pride in knowing that your generous donation of a small amount of your time can be life-changing for our young recipients.

Nick Earl – Chairman
Dated: 21 May 2024 (read at AGM on 22 May 2024)