Bay of Plenty Community Trust Incorporated

Chair and Trust Manager report

For the year ended 31 March 2014

It is a pleasure and privilege to report on BayTrust’s activities, achievements and highlights for the year to 31 March 2014. The whole year itself has been another highlight, coming as it does on top of superb BayTrust performances in 2013 and 2012.

In the 12 months to 31 March 2014 BayTrust committed a total of $1.940m in grants (2013 $2.546m) to 132 community organisations including $98,289 in Dillon Scholarships (2013 $95,595) to 48 tertiary students with significant disabilities. The total is lower in the 2014 year, because the 2013 total included a grant of $600,000 ($200,000 x 3 years) to the Philips Search & Rescue Trust for the Rotorua-based ‘BayTrust Rescue Helicopter’ service.

The Trust also provided other significant Community support in a variety of ways including heavily-subsidised capacity-building opportunities such as workshops with visiting overseas community development champions, Jim Diers from Seattle and Liz Davies from Canada. These were extremely well received and both speakers provided motivation, practical ideas and great examples of community development at the grass roots level.

BayTrust’s Investments performed well again during the year returning $17.2m (11%) (2013 $17.7m, 12%). The Trust has now well-recovered from the Global Financial Crisis and as a result is planning to raise its granting and other community support measures by around 50% in the new (2014/5) Financial Year.

The Trust’s investment portfolio is well diversified under a Fiduciary Management Agreement with the Russell Investment Group with a spread across a range of asset classes including Australasian and Overseas Equities; and Overseas Fixed Interest. This is designed to achieve the Trust’s goals of maximising the income available for community support over the long term and protecting the real (inflation-adjusted) value of the Trust’s capital.

At year-end actual net Capital was $173m, up from $160m at 31 March 2013.

Other highlights of the BayTrust year include:

• An energised commitment to a fresh and revitalised Strategic Plan. The 2013-16 Plan put greater emphasis on building strategically-important relationships and on more carefully ensuring that the Trust’s various community support mechanisms are delivering long-term value. Trustees are delighted with progress to date and have made relatively minor adjustments to the 2014 revision of the Plan.

• The appointment of Whope-based Steve Napier, to the Trust’s Investment committee. Steve has extensive investment and governance experience including (at the time of his appointment) being a member of the Government Superannuation Fund Authority and Chairing its Investment Committee.

• The Trustees decision to add Private Equity to the Investment Portfolio, with an initial contribution of up to 5% of investments into this mandate. To support the implementation of this decision BayTrust has engaged the services of Auckland-based David Plummer to assist with the planning and scoping of potential investment opportunities.

• The continuation of the BayTrust/Sport BoP CoachForce programme now in its 17th year. The programme aims to get more people (especially young people) more active more often through gaining, training and retaining sports coaches in the Bay. The current three-year agreement commenced on 1 July 2013; providing $1.268m over three years.

• The granting of $666,475 for proactive programmes addressing the needs of Youth, Children and Families. This was through a separate funding process (Henry Duncan Fund 2) with more being given to a smaller number of applicants and multi-year funding provided.

On 1 June 2013 all retiring Trustees (Gregg Brown, Pam Lewis and Jenny Mahoney) were re-appointed by the Minister of Finance for further terms of four years – the first time in the history of the Trust that there were no new appointments.

Jenny (Whakatane) was elected Chair in November 2013 with Kylie Hawker-Green (Taupo) as her Deputy. Jenny paid tribute to the excellent work of her predecessor, Gregg Brown, and his Deputy, Tracy Rea, both of whom were unavailable for re-appointment to those roles.

A big thank you to all Trustees and staff who have worked long and hard over the past 12 months to deliver the Trust’s strategic plan to Bay of Plenty Communities and an even bigger thank you to all BoP community groups and their supporters for their ongoing work in helping make the Bay Strong, Vibrant & Healthy!

Jenny Mahoney
Chair

Bruce W. Cronin
Trust Manager

26 June 2014