Bendigo Bank Contribution

Bendigo Bank Contribution

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

UR Retreat

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

President’s Report 2023

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

Merry Christmas from the Foothills Foundation

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.

AFL Finals Lunch another great success

AFL Finals Lunch another great success

The annual AFL Finals Charity Lunch was well attended on Thursday 19 September 2019 at the Karralyka Centre who again did a great job looking after the 120 people in attendance.

This year’s event was again excellently facilitated by Bruce Eva with a panel of three outstanding guests in Melbourne’s champion ruckman Max Gawn and Lauren Pierce (who also recently won the 2019 VFLW Best and Fairest) and the wonderful former St Kilda and Brisbane player and media personality, Gilbert McAdam. They each had great stories to tell and a bit more was added given the close associations that Gilbert and Bruce had with the St Kilda Football Club and Danny Frawley whose memorial service was on the day before the lunch.

Not unexpectedly, this led to some reflections on the issue of mental health and how each of our guests perceived the challenges in their own worlds. They all also shared some humorous and some inspiring stories of life in elite sport and the communities in which they have lived.

Raffles and auctions were well supported and enabled us to make a significant donation to Biala Ringwood who provide respite support for parents with children with additional needs.

A special thanks and congratulations to Grant and Nick Brookes of Warranbrooke for your auction success winning the signed Max Gawn footy jumper – well done.

Thanks to everyone who supported the event by attending or donating a raffle prize or auction item or making a donation. Special thanks too to Daryl Stevens, Jim Dean, Paul McPherson and the rest of the Board and volunteers for making the event happen and for your continued support for the Foothills Foundation and the work that we do in “Improving the lives of disadvantaged people in our community” of Maroondah, Yarra Ranges and surrounds.

Thanks also for the continued and generous sponsorship of Bendigo Community Bank Morroolbark.