Meetings are held at the Te Awa Lifecare Woolshed, 1866 Cambridge Road, Cambridge, from 10am for 10.30 until 12.00 noon on the second Friday of each month.
Friday May 10th, 2024 - Max Rashbrooke
-The previous Labour government was committed to reducing poverty and economic inequality, but struggled to make progress post Covid. The new National-led government is rhetorically committed to reducing poverty, but seems to be leaning heavily on welfare-to-work policies to achieve that goal. So where are we: how significant are our levels of poverty and economic inequality, how have they changed in recent years, and what can we expect.
I write about two of the biggest issues in the modern world – democratic renewal and economic inequality – and their potential to shape our societies for better or worse.
New Zealand based but globally engaged, I carry out original research and bring it to a wide audience through my books, my collaborations with artists and data visualisation experts, and public lectures including my TED.com talk on upgrading democracy, which has had 1.5m views.
My writing and commentary appears in outlets such as the Guardian and Prospect magazine, and I write a fortnightly column for Stuff, New Zealand’s largest news site.
Threaded through everything I do is a profound belief that for societies to flourish, everyone needs their fair share of a country’s wealth and the opportunity to fully participate, as an equal, in the democratic process.
Friday May 24th, 2024 - Momentum Waikato, Simon Wickham and Gus Sharp - Targeted Philanthropy -
Momentum Waikato Community Foundation and its Transformational Project - Waikato Regional Theatre.
The CEO of Momentum Simon Wickham will provide an overview of Momentum, its regional objectives, its increasingly significant role in the philanthropic sector in the Waikato and the innovative ways it is going about that.
Then the General Manager of the Waikato Regional Theatre Gus Sharp will outline the objectives of Momentum’s Leading Transformational Project- the $75m Waikato Regional Theatre, its stunning international design and progress to date.
Simon Wickham is the former Chief Executive of Yachting New Zealand and is a selector of New Zealand Olympic Team for the Paris Olympics later this year. Very familiar with high performance, he has selected every Olympics and Commonwealth Games Team since the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games. Simon also served on the NZ Olympic Committee’s Board as Deputy Chair and on High Performance Sport New Zealand’s Board. Before moving to a landlocked home in Tamahere, Simon was an active sailor and has competed in the Sydney Hobart yacht race and New Zealand’s toughest yacht race, the 2-man Round North Island Yacht race.
He lives locally with his wife and son - they’re regulars at Cambridge Football Club where his son plays and his wife and he co-manage a local team. He’s accumulated 20 plus years’ experience as a CEO in a variety of sectors including law, accountancy, stadia, retail and hospitality and sport management. He’s trained at world leading business schools like Stanford University and now enjoys applying what he’s learned along the way to help others through his own consultancy business LeadWell (www.LeadWell.nz), where he supports other leaders and their organisations with strategy, culture and leadership development to shift the dial to higher performance at their pace.
He is speaking to us in his new role as CEO of our local community foundation, Momentum Waikato. Simon will share more about Momentum Waikato’s work growing a culture of generosity in the Waikato and how they connect generous people with great causes via purpose and place-based funds and signature projects like the Waikato Regional Theatre.
The Theatre General Manager, Gus Sharp will speak to us in more detail about the transformational Theatre project due to open in 2025.
Gus is an experienced arts and entertainment professional and a recent arrival to Hamilton, having moved up from Wellington with his wife and two boys to take the GM position at the Waikato Regional Theatre. Gus began his career as a lawyer before moving into major events and venue management and he’s never been happier. Gus has significant experience in live events of all shapes and sizes, from street festivals to Rugby tours and everything in between.
Friday June 14th, 2024 - Ben Skeen - There still is hope – educating youth for a bright future
Ben joined St Paul’s Collegiate School as Headmaster in May 2021 from Auckland Grammar School.
Educated at St Peter’s College in Auckland, Ben graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce majoring in HR and Economics and a Bachelor of Arts majoring in NZ History with a minor in Political Studies, along with a graduate diploma in teaching from the University of Auckland.
He held a variety of leadership and management positions at Auckland Grammar, including Associate Headmaster, Associate Dean, Dean, Assistant Boarding Housemaster, and Master in Charge of Student Leadership Programmes. He was awarded a Woolf Fisher Fellowship for excellence in education and leadership.
In 2009, he initiated and led a flagship programme – a month-long biennial service programme for Auckland Grammar students. He was a teacher of history and social studies. Master in Charge of rugby for five years and Assistant Coach of Auckland Grammar First XV rugby team for eight seasons.
Outside of work, Ben was contracted to NZ Rugby’s high-performance match official squad, where for 12 of his 15 years with the squad, he provided refereeing services to World Rugby. After officiating 70 test matches and travelling the world numerous times, Ben retired from refereeing at the end of 2019.
Friday July 12th, 2024 - Fiona Sussman - Award Winning New Zealand Fiction writer
Growing up in a publisher's clicking here home in South Africa meant that I fell in love with language and the written word at an early age. Our house was always filled with manuscripts, books and colourful authors. This was during the apartheid era, and witnessing the brutal regime at work sensitised me to the issues of injustice and racial prejudice – experiences which would inform much of my early writing.
After school, I completed a BA in English Literature at the University of the Witwatersrand; however, the untimely death of my father from a terminal illness saw me change direction and pursue a career in medicine.
In 1989 I emigrated from South Africa to New Zealand, where I completed my medical degree and went on to work as a family doctor.
While I found practising medicine immensely satisfying, I still hankered after the literary world of my childhood. Finally, the call to write became too great. I hung up my stethoscope, returned to university to do a Master of Creative Writing and began to write in earnest.
Most of my days are spent writing, mentoring new writers and speaking at events. I have also been involved, alongside my husband, in establishing a charitable surgical service in Auckland to assist those who have fallen between the cracks in our health system.
Learn more about Fiona by clicking here.
Friday 9th August, 2024 - Emeritus Professor Roberta Farrell - Fire and Ice: Antarctica and Tales of Research from Mount Erebus and the Heroic Era Historic Huts
By the Antarctic Treaty, Antarctica is dedicated to peace and science. It is also the coldest, driest, windiest continent on the planet.
The talk will describe what it is like as a scientist to be privileged to work on the Ice.
The lecture will discuss the work of Emeritus Professor Roy Daniel, whose research started on Mount Erebus in 1980 and the current research of his wife, Emeritus Professor Roberta Farrell, who has focused on Antarctic fungi, studies which initiated by evaluating the deterioration of the historic huts of the Heroic Period of exploration, the British National Antarctic Expedition (1901-04) and Terra Nova British Antarctic Expedition (1910-13) led by Robert F. Scott; and the British Antarctic Expedition led by Ernest Shackleton (1907-09)).
When these expeditions ended and relief ships arrived, a rapid exodus allowed only essential items to be returned to England. The huts and thousands of items were left behind and though the extreme polar environment protected them from rapid decay, it has not from significant biological and non-biological deterioration. The resulting findings led to the ‘hunt for decay fungi’ in pristine areas of Antarctica, with surprising results.
Roberta’s research has had impact in biotechnology, specifically in the areas of enzymes, fungi, bio-control, and bio-remediation, the latter, in collaboration with Ngaio Awa, was featured in the documentary "The Green Chain" as well as in Māori Television’s “Project Matauranga“.
Roberta and Roy have 4 children, 7 grandchildren, are now retired from The University of Waikato, and have enjoyed a wonderful life together.
Friday August 23rd, 2024 - SPECIAL PARTNERSHIP HISTORY LECTURE - Richard von Sturmer - Walking with Rocks - Dreaming with Rivers - My Year in the Waikato
Richard von Sturmer is a New Zealand writer. He was born on Auckland’s North Shore in 1957. His recent books are the acclaimed memoir, This Explains Everything (Atuanui Press, 2016), Postcard Stories (Titus Books, 2019), Resonating Distances (Titus Books, 2022) and the recently published Walking with Rocks, Dreaming with Rivers: My Year in the Waikato (Titus Books, 2023). He is well-known for writing the lyrics of ‘There is No Depression in New Zealand,’ which has become the country’s alternate national anthem.
In 2020 he was the University of Waikato’s writer in residence. During his residency he explored the Waikato region, writing on its towns and geographic features. The result is now a book, Walking with Rocks, Dreaming with Rivers: My Year in the Waikato.
‘This beautiful object, this dream set down on paper, is travel writing regained, and put to rights. The first person invested in it is the reader. You are about to go on a journey. You are in good hands: great travel writing picks you up and swings you along like luggage.’ – Steve Braunias
‘An extraordinary meditation on settings across the Waikato – museums where he’s the only visitor, lifestyle blocks where “you can feel history evaporating,” lakes where the only images reflected are clouds.’ – Tracey Slaughter
Friday October 11th, 2024 - Professor Russell Snell - Centre for Brain Research
Professor Russell Snell was Born in Fielding and raised in South Otago. He studied Physics at Otago and completed a PhD in Genetics in Cardiff Wales in 1993. His research interest is in identifying the genetic basis of disease and also the use of genetics for improving New Zealand’s economy through cow and goat milk production. Russell has a diverse range of research areas but they have a single underlying theme of utilising genetic tools including whole genome sequencing to identify disease mechanism and the development of therapies.
An area of focus has been the long term project with the Minds For Minds group including Dr Jessie Jacobsen and Prof Klaus Lehnert discovering genes and mutations in people with Autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders. This project has been very successful with many families benefiting from a definitive diagnoses and personal explanation for the cause of the condition.
Fragile X is a very common condition that often has autism as a co-occurring characteristic. The Cure Kids funding for Russell’s group is for the making of a sheep model of Fragile X to facilitate the testing of therapies. Russell has had extensive experience making and utilising sheep models with a unique very successful Huntington’s sheep line being used by many international groups and drug companies for therapeutic testing. The Fragile X sheep line will also be made available to the large number of investigators working on potential therapies. This work will bridge the gap between testing treatments in mouse studies which unfortunately have not translated into a successful therapies and trials in people with the condition. The Cure Kids funding will establish the line and subsequent funding will be sought with international collaborators to advance the use of the animals.
Friday October 25th, 2024 - SPECIAL PARTNERSHIP HISTORY LECTURE - Dr Warren Gumbley - Archeologist - Title of Talk TBC
Warren Gumbley has worked as an archaeologist for over 40 years and has a Ph.D. from the Australian National University. His principal areas of research interest are: The adaptation of Polynesian horticulture to Aotearoa/New Zealand, the development of pā, the archaeology of mission stations, and the archaeology of the Waikato Land War of 1863-1864.
“Archaeology deals with the physical remains of what people have been doing, and often that’s associated with day-to-day activities: how people made a living, how they grew their crops, how they fished for eel, how they went about processing their food to eat and storing it, and what sort of houses they lived in,” said Warren.
Friday November 8th, 2024 - Dr Marnie Lloydd - Armed Conflict, the International Red Cross and Humanitarian Dilemmas: My Experiences
What role is there for law in the pain and madness of wars? What role is there for a neutral humanitarian organisation in the face of the dire protection needs of civilians? What is it like to be a New Zealander discussing such issues with the affected populations and the warring parties in countries like Afghanistan, Sri Lanka or the DRC?
Dr Marnie Lloydd specialises in international law related to armed conflict, forced migration, counterterrorism and foreign fighting, human rights and humanitarian law and policy.
Marnie’s current academic role at Te Herenga Waka | Victoria University of Wellington, builds on her extensive prior experience as a Delegate and Legal Adviser with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), representing the ICRC in Ethiopia, Sri Lanka, Chad, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as at the Geneva headquarters where she advised on international law and institutional humanitarian policy in support of the ICRC's activities in the Middle East.
Marnie has taught and spoken on issues of international humanitarian law and the humanitarian sector, foreign fighting, arms control and humanitarian affairs with diverse audiences around the world, including UN staff, diplomats, military legal advisers, and non-state armed groups. In 2022, she was awarded VUW's student association's supreme award of 'Lecturer of the Year' for her teaching. Marnie was also recognised as a Women Leader in Law by the Borrin Foundation in 2022, and has been selected as a Global Scholar with Harvard Law School's Institute of Global Law and Policy in 2018 & 2022. In addition to her teaching and research, she engages actively with Government, media and civil society. She is Associate-Director of the New Zealand Centre for Public Law and serves on NZ's IHL Committee, NZ’s Inter-governmental Working Group on Lethal Autonomous Weapons, and as Co-Chair of ANZSIL's International Peace & Security Interest Group.