Our Club and Charitable Trust have experienced another very successful and rewarding year. Our Lexus North Shore lunches were exceptional and in keeping with our objectives of both delivering and promoting excellence. The Boardroom functions were well attended and provided a great opportunity for networking and for our members who hosted the functions, to promote their business and services.
The Hayes Knight sponsored Emerging Talent evening is scheduled for late October 2011 and the Judges were delighted with the quality of applicants. We will be rewarding an outstanding group of young emerging talent winners, many of whom I have no doubt will go on to be future winners of the AIMES Awards.
Our flagship event for 2011 will be the AIMES Awards evening and presentation to be held at the Bruce Mason Centre on Saturday, 29 October. Once again we have a very special evening of entertainment with the recognition and rewarding of excellence bound to be the highlight. Our Judges, Chaired by Simon Lamb, were excited and humbled by the numbers of high quality applicants and have again performed with superb judgment, to come up with amazing winners in each category.  We will be making cash grants in excess of $100,000 in the Emerging Talent and AIMES categories.
It is worth reflecting on the objectives of the North Harbour Club and to take a “rain check” on how we scored in achieving these objectives. Objective 1 is to promote the North Harbour region. I give ourselves a top pass mark here. We made submissions to the Auckland Plan both directly and through the Committee for Auckland on whose board I sit as a Club representative. We engaged in regular meetings with the Mayor of Auckland City, Len Brown, and were able to influence components of the Plan to the benefit of this region. It has been particularly pleasing to me, to see the draft Auckland Plan making provision for ferry services to both Takapuna and Browns Bay. Our promotion of North Harbour will continue through these forums and our Patron, Peter Menzies has personally funded some of this work. Thanks to you Peter for this and for all you do for the Club in your capacity as Patron.
Objective 2 is to provide the networking framework for North Shore businesses to prosper and we do this through all of our events and activities. A pass mark again.
Objective 3, and our primary objective, is to raise funds to present cash grants to reward the youth of this mighty region, who can demonstrate outstanding ability in their chosen areas of Art, IT, Innovation and Science, Music, Education, Sport and Service to the Community. We have had outstanding success here with our events all contributing good cash surpluses; our loyal sponsors continuing with their support; the donations from the Business Excellence Network breakfasts run by David Schnauer, Catherine and Malcolm Gray; our generously donated auction items proving something of a bonus, and the donations “in kind” which I will recognise in my thanks below. We have been able to keep our cash grants to the winners at exceptionally high levels and our cash balances on deposit continue to grow. Despite the challenging economic conditions, the “business” of the Club continues to grow and prosper with our membership base expanding.
Such positive outcomes are not achieved without the commitment, substantial time input and skills of many and I wish to acknowledge some very special people and organisations who go beyond the calls of duty. Firstly my fellow Trustees and the Judges, Chairman Simon Lamb, Andrea Davies, Mike Stanley, Sue Stanaway and Henry Duncan. Trustees John Bishop and Greg Ward retired during the year and we were pleased to welcome well-known North Shore solicitor, Gary Simpson.  Henry Duncan has stepped down from the judging panel and his sporting knowledge “place” has been filled by Mike Stanley. My sincere thanks to you all. You make my job easy. I simply front up, and all the work is done!
John Bishop, along with our founding President the late Ross Finlayson, was the promoter of the Club and  as a founding member and Trustee deserves our special thanks and recognition.
Thanks to all ongoing sponsors, detailed on the inside front cover with a special thanks for Lexus of North Shore, Bruce Mason Centre, Spencer on Byron and North Harbour Stadium whose combined contributions ensure we deliver excellent events. These events, together with our publications and printed material are the external “face” of the Club. The high standard and professional image we are able to present would not be possible without the work and skills  of Aidan Bennett and his team at Benefitz. Outstanding; the Club is indebted to you Aidan, Michelle and all the Benefitz team. Aidan runs sidesaddle with fellow Trustee Gary Monk in delivering our major events and activities and all Trustees breathed a sigh of relief when Gary agreed to stand again for another year. Special thanks Gary.
Our General Manager, Catherine Lidgard, really has stepped up to the plate and delivered excellence. With the input and support from Vice President, Matthew Bellingham and his Hayes Knight team our systems, financial controls and presentation have been overhauled and greatly improved, greatly assisting Catherine in her management of the Club’s business.
What a year, what results and what a great Club we have! I have been heard to say often that the Club, it’s membership base and related friendships, its status and reach, have helped me immensely in my business and private life here on the Shore. My term as President will conclude at next year’s AGM meaning this will be my last President’s Message for Northside. It has been a great honour and privilege to serve and one of the most satisfying and rewarding roles I have been lucky enough to experience. Creation of excellence; that is what we have achieved and will continue to do and how good is that!!
Enjoy Northside and see you continue to support the objectives of this Club of excellence. 

Peter Wall
President
North Harbour Club & Charitable Trust
peter@mapgroup.co.nz

Catherine Lidgard

General Manager North Harbour Club

As we draw towards the end of 2011, it’s a great opportunity to reflect on the past year. It’s certainly been a busy one, but I guess we say that every year and wonder at where the time has gone and how quickly Christmas seems to be here again – life certainly doesn’t get any less busy for us does it?
I can definitely say that this year has been a lot of fun! We have had some really exciting lunches starting with the Gordon Tietjens lunch, which was MC’d by the hilarious Eric Rush and didn’t they make quite the double-act? Then we tried something completely different and had our inaugural ‘fashion lunch’, one for the ladies and hosted by April Ieremia, which was fantastic and an enormous amount of fun to organise with Trustee Sue Stanaway (it was good to see some guys there too – thanks guys!). Previous AIMES winners Melissa Ingram and Joe Bergin were fabulous models for us too. Next up was the Prime Minister who impressed us all with his ability to speak for half an hour to over 400 people giving us an array of facts and figures with no notes at all – he was very entertaining as was Mike Hosking our MC and Murray McCully who spoke prior to the PM. We were also given a sneak preview of the menu designed especially for the Rugby World Cup at the Stadium. Lastly, we had another first in bringing you the live recording of Ian Jones’ Rugby Centre at the Bruce Mason Centre, just two days before the kick-off of the Rugby World Cup – this was incredibly entertaining and a lot of fun – the show went to air that evening and a number of you featured.
The Club is unashamedly about rewarding and celebrating excellence and in doing so we strive to host ‘excellent’ lunches with ‘excellent’ speakers – we are so fortunate to have such a range of interesting speakers and MC’s right here in our own backyard who are interested and supportive of what we are about and are happy to assist us.
Boardroom functions were held by both Massey University and the Millennium Institute of Sport and Health. These were a great opportunity to mix and mingle with fellow members in a relaxed environment and have a look at both of these organisation’s wonderful facilities.
Our main focus, the AIMES Awards, have, again, been a privilege to be a part of. This year's winners were once again an outstanding group of young people whom I am fortunate to get to know as they go through the process. They are a credit to their region and their families and deserve all the support and encouragement we can give them in their pursuits. In the many years that I have been involved in the AIMES process it never ceases to amaze me, both the quality and number of applications we receive – each year there are new faces and names to add to our list of winners and each year they are incredible – what an amazing depth of talent this region fosters.
This year’s AIMES Awards dinner was particularly special as we showcased a number of our previous AIMES winners (dating back to 1998) to entertain us. It was great to see just how far these performers had come since their awards – they are all world-class.  The dinner was MC’d by Club Ambassadors Shane Cortese and Cam Calkoen, which proved to be a fantastic combo and Mark Dennison did a wonderful job as Musical Director.
It was great to have the Mayor of Auckland City, Len Brown and his wife Shan at the AIMES Dinner, it’s been an interesting time of change for the Auckland region and we’ve been keen to ensure we contribute and are involved as much as we can be.
We have recently set up a Facebook page for our AIMES winners to communicate with each other and they are all very keen to do so. It’s been great to be in contact with them and watch as they all connect in with each other – this is something we’d like to foster going forward as they are our ‘Alumni’ and the best endorsement of what we do.
Our Membership is ever-growing. In fact there are applications from new members presented to the Trustees at each of their meetings.  We currently sit at approximately 140 members and each of our members are integral to the continued growth and development of the North Harbour Club.
I’d also like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the ongoing commitment and support of all of our sponsors. Almost all of them have pledged their support again this year and many have been with us for a number of years. Given the rough ride the economy has provided over the past few years this is significant and very much appreciated. It is great to have such a stable foundation of support, which means that we can continue to support and foster the young people of our region. Thank you.
I’m excitedly looking forward to 2012. We have a great team of Trustees who are passionate about the future of the club and its direction. They are incredibly supportive of me in this role and I thank them for this support, advice, time and energy, in all that we do it is a team effort.
We are busy putting together the events programme as I write and it’s shaping up to be as much fun as 2011! Do bring your guests along and support our events and your club. These are our major fundraising activities and of course you will be in good company with great food and wine!
The Club is in a great place – I’m sure you will join me in saying that I am proud of what we are and what we do – it’s a wonderful thing the North Harbour Club.

Catherine Lidgard
General Manager
North Harbour Club & Charitable Trust
Email: catherine@northharbourclub.co.nz n

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