Bec Tonkin | The Foothills Foundation

Bendigo Bank Contribution

by Bec Tonkin | Nov 16, 2023 | News

One of the great contributors to the work that we do at the Foothills Foundation is our major sponsor, Bendigo Community Bank Mooroolbark.

They have been a sponsor of the Foundation and an active participant in our fundraising events for over 15 years.

We are just one of the charities and other good causes that Bendigo Community Bank Mooroolbark supports and we are extremely grateful for that support.

It really does make a difference to our grant recipients – people living with disadvantage in our community in Melbourne’s outer east.

Last year, we were delighted to be invited to take part in the Bank’s 20th anniversary which was a great celebration of their connection and contribution to community.

Thank you for your continued support, Bendigo Community Bank Mooroolbark.

UR Retreat

by Bec Tonkin | Nov 16, 2023 | Events, News

The Foothills Foundation is a proud supporter of the UR Retreat which is a 4 day camp for teenage girls aged 13-15. Many of the girls have been put forward by their schools who feel they would benefit from the camp which focuses on self esteem, leadership skills, positive body image, and many other life skills and topics that are so important in this day and age.

This amazing camp has been put together and run by the local charity Bridge Builders. Each year they host between 50-70 young women. The UR Retreat is planned and executed by an experienced team of volunteer leaders, who use their skills and knowledge to create a caring and nurturing environment where the young people feel safe, loved, and free of judgement so they can begin their journey of development and discovering their value. Along with our leadership team, the UR Retreat also provides a range of inspirational speakers and educational workshop facilitators to give the girls a wide range of skills, to learn how to live their life to their full potential, and bounce back from setbacks.

President Tamara Lloyd was privileged to attend, and hand out achievement medals to the girls, at the Sponsors Dinner at the Toolangi camp on 27th September. She commented “it was so wonderful to meet many of the girls on the night and chat to them about the positive experiences they’d been having on the camp and all the beautiful friendships they’d made. It was particularly great to hear how much more confident they felt in themselves, and how they felt they were more ready to take on the challenges of life after being on the camp”.

We want to congratulate the UR Retreat leadership team, headed up by Bonnie Knight, who have done an amazing job again this year. This year we contributed $5000 toward the camp and we look forward to again sponsoring the camp in 2024!

President’s Report 2023

by Bec Tonkin | Nov 16, 2023 | News

To the Board, Trustees, members, and followers of the Foothills Foundation, it has been my pleasure
to be the present of the foundation this past year and here is my report.

The Board
A continuing goal of the foundation is to continue to grow the board and to develop board members
into new roles to gain experience in such roles, as well as to continue to diversify the board. Our goal
is to grow the board to 12 members this year.

This year has been no exception, with myself and Tamarra taking on roles of President and Vice
President. Peter has kindly always been available to help guide and offer his previously gained
knowledge as President. Lauren, Colleen, Tegan and Martin have also added so much experience and
value to their roles on the board throughout the year, I thank you all.

We have also gained an amazing new board member, in bringing on board Charles, he has bought
new skills, enthusiasm and access to his network for events, it has been a pleasure watching him join
in and develop this foundation.

We have carried out some amazing and discussion provoking strategic planning meetings this year,
which have shown the diversity in our board. It has been exciting to gain a good understanding of
where this current board sees this foundation going and the goals we would like to achieve, both in
the foundation team and out in the community.

The Events
Our Annual Golf Day went well, lower numbers than previously seen but still a successful event. The
Team put in a lot of collaborated hard work and made the day fun for all, even if the weather didn’t
play ball.

The Mother’s Day High Tea went very well indeed with a good amount of money being raised. We
were fortunate enough to have some high-end auction items donated and bid on which really gave
the profit margin from this event a great boost.

We did find this year a little more challenging to get people to purchase tickets and we discussed that
this appeared to be a ripple effect from Covid and the fact that the continual increases in interest
rates have made people a little anxious and less likely to spend on events like these.
The Team pulled together an amazing event all the same and as usual the Foundation and the
individuals we give grants out to, have benefitted from the dedication and hard work put into this
event.

We sadly had to cancel the AFL Lunch this year as we did not get enough interest or ticket sales.

Sponsorship
We are delighted that Bendigo Community Bank Mooroolbark has continued their commitment to
the Foundation by renewing sponsorship. Their generosity and support in challenging times is
fantastic, especially when our normal fund-raising activities have not all proceeded this year. Tamarra
and Peter with the bank and have secured sponsorship moving into this next year also, great work
team and once again Thank You to Bendigo Community Bank Mooroolbark.

One of our goals is to develop our ongoing business sponsorship income, this has gone around in
circles a little with some differing opinions on price point, what is considered “Value” for a business
to want to support the foundation and how to promote this out. The board will be reviewing and
finalizing this soon, so we can get this live and accessible on the new website.

Grants
We have continued to step up this year to support community needs in these ongoing tough times.
We have had grant applications from a variety of people with some very interesting and heartfelt
requests. I have been proud to be involved in masking some of these decisions and in us as a board
discussing how much more we would like to do.

We have discussed coming up with some community based project grants, which would be a larger
sum of money and allow us to assist with bigger projects in our community that will provide to a
larger amount of people. I am looking forward to watching how this idea develops and what projects
we will be able to support.

The Grants committee have done a great job in responding quickly and appropriately to grant
applications, ensuring we can assist those people when they need it.
Thank you, Tegan, Lauren and Mandy.

Donations
The Foothills was very grateful in receiving a donation this year of $90’000 from The Committee of
Management from Abbeyfield, facilitated by Peter Feeney. These funds will massively assist the
foundation to keep providing grants, both to individuals and community projects. We as a committee
thank Peter and his team for this donation.

Closing Thoughts
This year has been a fantastic experience to be President of this Foundation, I have learnt a lot more
about how things are run, what we can achieve as a team and how much good work we do out in the
community, that is very much required.

As many of you know this has been a tough year for me personally with medical issues arising
suddenly that took my time away from the Foundation and then I had a pre-booked trip to the UK to
see my family after a long 5 years away from them all, this again took me away from being involved
in the foundation’s running’s for a further 6 weeks.

I would like to thank you all for your support during the first half of the year, especially when things
were tough, you all rallied round and helped take over the running of the Foundation in my absence,
you also called and messaged me to check in on myself and my family and that meant a great deal.
With the above still going on and other priorities I need to address this year coming I will be stepping
down as President today and look forward to supporting whoever takes over the reins.

I believe this year was again another tough one out in the world with the financial changes
happening, but I believe we have done some marvelous work providing the grants that we have,
running the events that we could and carrying out the planning sessions required to ensure the
foundation continues to develop and grow for years to come. I have seen it as a privilege to be
involved in the above-mentioned things.

Many Thanks
Natalie Hallett
President of The Foothills Foundation

Merry Christmas from the Foothills Foundation

by Bec Tonkin | Dec 24, 2020 | Events

This year’s Christmas Rendezvous really was a time to rejoice as we were at last allowed to gather in numbers and you really could feel the joy in the room. It was great to see so many familiar faces along to enjoy the evening.

Members of the White family once again graced us with their presence and presented the Clinton White Award for outstanding community service. This year, it was another very worthy recipient in current Board member Paul McPherson who has been a foundation stalwart for decades and also serves local and regional communities in a myriad of other ways. Congratulations, Paul.

Also honoured with induction as a life member was Steve Atchison who has also been a great servant and former Treasurer of the Foundation for many years. Steve has a long standing local business Branchline and he is always there at our events pitching in donations or as a helper on the day. Another deserved honour — congratulations, Steve.

During this year, the Foundation joined with the Wheelton Group in a special partnership to help a young family with serious challenges. The mum, Jodie, came along and told her story and what a difference the support provided made to her and her two daughters.

$2,000 grants were made to the Kindness Community, Helping hand and Southern Cross Kids Camps and some of the recipients of grants during the year were also on hand to tell their stories.

It has been a tough year. For the Foundation, that meant that we couldn’t run any of our fund raising events. Thanks to the hard work and foresight of previous Committees and particularly leader like Daryl Stevens, Paul McPherson and Tony Wright, the Foundation has a sound financial footing. So not only was the Foundation able to get through the pandemic OK, it was also able to do more to help those in need in the community.

Thanks must go to the Grants Committee of Bruce Stewart, Tegan Rose and Mandy Maguire for the great job they have done throughout the year.

Thanks also to Mr Fox for looking after everyone and providing great food and service yet again.

Finally, the Board extends thanks to all who have supported the Foothills Foundation all the way back to when it was the Footmen Club. That thanks especially goes to our premium sponsors, Bendigo Community Bank Mooroolbark. We sincerely hope that you all have a wonderful Christmas and New Year and that we get to see more of you in 2021 when we can run our events again.

2019 AGM and President’s Report

by Bec Tonkin | Oct 13, 2019 | Events, Grants, Membership, News, Sponsorship

On Tuesday, 1 October 2019, the Foothills Foundation held its Annual General Meeting at which the election of office holders and Board members for the 2019/2020 year was conducted with the following outcomes:

Peter Maguire – President
Bruce Stewart – Secretary
Martin Lane – Treasurer
Lauren Gordon – Board Member
Paul McPherson – Board Member
Tamara Lloyd – Board Member
Tegan Rose – Board Member
Tony Wright – Board Member

The President’s Report

To the Board, Trustees and members of the Foothills Foundation and Charitable Trust,

It has been my pleasure to serve as President of the Foothills Foundation in the first year under that name. I am pleased to present this report, my second as President for consideration at this year’s AGM.

Last year, I commented on the 2017/18 year as a year of renewal – a combination of continuing to do what we do well, valuing the traditions and taking the Foundation forward in a number of areas to assure future sustainability.

This year that process of renewal has continued with the formal transition to the new entity of the Foothills Foundation and the associated rebranding that is still in progress.

Like last year, there have been some changes in the composition of the Board, some of which are being formalised in today’s AGM.

Jim Dean elected to formally stand down from the Board so as to concentrate his contributions on supporting Daryl Stephens in managing events. While I personally miss Jim’s intelligent and informed contributions to Board considerations, he makes a terrific contribution to events with his organisational skills and we look forward to him continuing his valued association with the Foundation.

Tamara Lloyd, owner of Ray White Croydon informally joined the Board earlier this year and has formally nominated for appointment at this AGM. Tamara is a fantastic addition and is already making a significant contribution in a number of areas. She is enjoying the Mediterranean at the moment so cannot be with us today.

This year, Daryl Stephens, a Foundation champion who has worked so hard to serve the local community through the Foundation and to secure a viable future for the Foundation has elected to stand down from the Board. Daryl will still be working with us on events especially the Tour de France Dinner and the AFL Finals Lunch which are his passion. He has made and continues to make a fantastic contribution to the Foundation and by extension the local community. He is a Foundation legend and we probably would not be here today without his determination to make the Foundation sustainable. Thank you Daryl and we look forward to our new relationship with you.

The rest of the Board has continued to faithfully serve the interests of the Foundation in their various capacities as other commitments have allowed.

Sponsorship and donations

Bendigo Bank Mooroolbark affirmed their position as our premium sponsor signing off on a new consolidated sponsorship offering which increased their support to $7,000 for the year for which we are very grateful. We are in discussions with them about how we can work together even better to the mutual benefit of both parties.

It is also appropriate to acknowledge the continued contributions of McPherson Media Group, Remington Wright, Branchline, HR Dept Ringwood, Ridgeline HR and Millar Merrigan and others who support multiple events in significant ways as well as those who get behind individual events of interest to them.

Once again, the Rice Meal has supported the Foundation – this year with a donation of $2,920, their biggest to date from an event that continues to grow each year.

The Lord Mayor’s Fund donated $2,738.

Plus a new source of support – the generous donation of $2,500 made by the Count Charitable Foundation via Hayes Girling Financial is also much appreciated. Thanks to Tegan Rose for facilitating that.

Additional thanks to the Karralyka Centre and Yering Meadows Golf Club for the special considerations we receive with our events.

Events

Once again, there have been the traditional fundraising events – the Golf Day last November, the Tour de France Dinner in June and the AFL Finals Lunch just a couple of weeks ago – and all have been fabulous successes, drawing over 100 registrations on each occasion.

This year, following on from ”An Evening with Libbi Gorr” last year, we had our first High Tea event “An Afternoon with Jo Stanley” which was a terrific afternoon, albeit that we did not quite get the numbers that we would like.

An attempt was made to run an additional event in the form of a Wine Tasting Dinner proposed by Nick Whitwell who generously donates a selection of wines for each event. This is something that might be reconsidered in the future.

The 2018 Christmas Rendezvous was again a terrific event that was well attended. Long term Foundation Friend Peter Feeney was recognised for his excellent record of community service as the year’s recipient of the Clinton White Award.

Thanks to Daryl Stephens, Paul McPherson and Jim Dean in particular for your efforts in bringing these events together and everyone who pitches in on the day.

Thanks also to those who have sponsored events through taking tables, golf sponsorships and donations of raffle prizes and auction items.

Grants and awards

In the 12 months leading up to the AGM, the Foundation has made grants totalling $20,600.

At the Christmas Rendezvous celebration in December 2018, four grants of $1,500 each were given to local community service groups Anglicare, Southern Cross Kids Camps, the Eastern Domestic Violence Service, Croydon Uniting Church Helping Hand Food Bank.

Further organisation grants or donations were given during the year to Spectrum Journeys, Holy Fools, Maroondah Community Assist for the Winter Food Drive, Foothills Community Care and Biala Ringwood.

We continue to work with EACH and in different ways with IOOB on individual grants and this year we have seen the relationship with Anchor growing in a grants partner context as well.

We have also started meeting with community representatives from local councils to extend our grants reach in the community and that is already bearing fruit (eg the connection to the Carer’s Exercise Group at Aquahub).

I especially want to commend Bruce for the fabulous work that he continues to do as Secretary and Grants Coordinator. Thanks also to Tegan Rose who has substituted for Bruce as Secretary at times and is now joining him on the new Grants sub-Committee along with new volunteer, Mandy Maguire.

Marketing and Communications

Over the course of the year, work on the website has continued – thanks to Pasquale Piccioli of Footprint web for his work in transitioning the site to the new Foothills Foundation branding and URL as well as for looking after the website for us. Thanks to Mel for helping out with artwork as well.

GRV Print has continued to support the Foundation with printing of flyers for events.

Section Technologies who has helped us to grow our facebook presence and with setting up email accounts. Nicola Willemsen from Virtual-Realty has also helped out with graphic artwork for event flyers and Steve Browney from SSG Signage is now helping out with pull-up banners. Karralyka assisted with artwork for the AFL lunch.

This is all good news as the support network continues to grow and refresh and the old reliables keep engaged.

To all of these generous contributors, please accept our thanks and we hope to continue the relationship in the years ahead.

We have had multiple issues of Footnotes go out electronically via Mailchimp and we have a new email facility using Microsoft’s free NFP offering. Both of these are works in progress and we will aim to fully embed them in the Foundation’s operations in the year ahead. We now also have name badges courtesy of Tamara Lloyd’s efforts.

A new sub-Committee is being established to work on Community Connection (including marketing, sponsorship and membership) in the year ahead.

With the resources that we have in place now, we are much better equipped to grow the Foundation’s footprint than has been the case for many years.

Inclusivity

The work on making the Foundation more representative of and more engaging for the broader community that we serve has continued this year.

The change in name, the High Tea event, the addition of new Board members who add both gender and generational diversity and the inclusion of a female guest in the AFL lunch are all positive steps in achieving greater community inclusivity.

Conclusion

It has been a massive year for the Foundation and it has been a privilege to play a part in that.

I believe that we have achieved a lot together in recent years and that we have a terrific platform now to take the Foundation forward positively in what is a challenging environment for charities today.

We now have the infrastructure in place. We have a broader representative people base. In combination, these assets will help to grow the footprint with both fund raising and grant giving. I see this foundation as empowering us to firmly establish the Foothills Foundation as a valued community partner who “Improves the lives of disadvantaged people in our community” of Maroondah, Yarra Ranges and surrounds.

Thank you to the Board and members of the Foundation for all of your contributions in time, talent, networks and companionship and your trust in and support for me in my second year as President.

I look forward to continuing to serve the Foundation in any way that I am able to in the years ahead.

Yours sincerely,

Peter Maguire

President

« Older Entries