SOUTH WAIRARAPA REBUS CLUB
PHIL HOLDEN – LION FOUNDATION
Our speaker was Phil Holden of Greytown. Before he left Auckland for the South Wairarapa, Phil was Chief Executive of the Lion Foundation, charged with responsibility for overseeing the distribution and application of over $30 million per year of pokie machine profits to needy charities. The Lion Foundation is one of New Zealand’s oldest Charitable Trusts. Since 1988 they have returned over $850 million back to the community, supporting thousands of good causes all around New Zealand from Northland to Bluff, east coast to west, rural and urban.
The Lion Foundation has venues and gaming machines across the country and consistently returns millions of dollars into the local communities through Lion’s Regional Grants Committees which are intended to ensure that local people make local decisions about local funding.
In 1983 the Lange government introduced legislation to make gaming machines available for charitable purposes only. The Lion Foundation was set up to organise community grants from gaming machine proceeds. The grants were divided into four categories: sport, health, education and community. A very good system was put in place of how the grants were to be managed. This was highly regulated by the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
One example of how the funds were used is the support provided to young musicians to get started. A competition was organised involving songwriting and composing. National winners were assisted by members of the music industry and other assistance was provided to help the musicians get started in their careers.
Another projec
t involved swimming. The Foundation gave major support to a scheme in Auckland to give free swimming lessons to children who needed them. It included buying buses to transport the children to the swimming pool. It was instigated by Sir John Walker’s trust. This finished up having an enormous effect on the children involved as they were not used to succeeding and teachers reported excellent results afterwards of children who now realised they could succeed in life. Attendance at school and achievement generally improved enormously.
The Lion Foundation Young Enterprise scheme is a programme run in schools for senior students about business opportunities, enterprise and entrepeneurship. Participants had to develop a product, present it and market it. It took the form of a regional and national competition.
These are just a few of the projects supported by the Lion Foundation. They realise problem gaming is an issue but the other side of the coin is the huge amount of benefit to the community from the gaming machine proceeds.
On a different topic Phil was also CEO of NZ Rugby League for three years – at the time of the 2015 ANZAC match in Brisbane. That day there was a heavy emphasis on the Australian role at Gallipolli even though it was an ANZAC anniversary. Phil spoke to the New Zealand contingent about exactly what happened and what a significant event it was. He had studied a lot on the history of Gallipolli.
We now look forward to our Christmas lunch and have many interesting speakers lined up to enjoy next year – more details later.
Anyone who would like more information on our Rebus Club and our various interest groups are very welcome to contact Margaret Griffiths on 306-8102.
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