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!
Thanks to those outstanding results (more than $14,000 was raised), we have been able to fund 50% of the available places on the UR-Retreat this year providing 35 young women with the opportunity to participate. That is having an impact on community.
One of the highlights of our calendar in 2021 was our Mothers’ Day Morning Tea held at the Karralyka Centre in Ringwood on May 16th. This event is a fairly new event for the Foothills Foundation and has come about over the last couple of years with the addition of a number of new female members to the Foothills Board which we have not previously had. 
In addition to hearing from this panel of legendary women we also raised over $10,000 from ticket sales, our live auction (run by Ray White Croydon’s Auctioneer Jeremy Tyrrell), and our raffle. 
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.
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.
To the Board, Trustees and members of the Foothills Foundation and Charitable Trust,
Like last year, there have been some changes in the composition of the Board, some of which are being formalised in today’s AGM.
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.
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.
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.
This is all good news as the support network continues to grow and refresh and the old reliables keep engaged.
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.
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.