2023 Annual Celebration

 Advance Ashburton Community Foundation is 20 years old this year and as part of our Annual Celebration of Philanthropy, we launched our new Advance Ashburton Child & Youth Fund!
This new community fund will build our capacity to support local causes for the education, health, and wellbeing of our most precious treasures - our young people aged 0 - 18 years.
As a tribute to this new fund, our celebrations last night had a focus on children and youth. Thank you to our wonderful sponsors - Forsyth Barr and Argyle Welsh Finnigan for helping us stage such a wonderful event!
The celebrations opened with an outstanding performance by Ashburton College student, Isabel Wang, who is now off to contest the National Young Performer Awards - Performing Arts Competitions Association of NZ. Good luck, Isabel!
Lorna Humm was announced as the inaugural recipient of the Jan Early Memorial Scholarship! Lorna is a practicing veterinary surgeon, and has commenced her governance journey within the deer industry having been recently appointed to the Chair of Provelco and the Chair of the Canterbury West Coast Deer Association. She is committed to agriculture within the District as a farming partner and in a leadership position at VetEnt Riverside. It is her hope to expand her governance and leadership roles to the wider community. Congratulations, Lorna!
Local legend and champion for our youth in Mid Canterbury, Lisa Anderson, shared her story about the work of the Mid Canterbury Youth Charitable Trust. Through the work of 24-7YouthWork in Ashburton schools, the Mid Canterbury Boxing Academy, and Life Dance Academy, hundreds of Mid Canterbury youth are being supported to be the best versions of themselves.
Our keynote speaker was Nathan Wallis, Neuroscience Educator & Director of X-Factor Education. Nathan gave an captivating and informative presentation about the importance of the first 1000 days of a child's life.

Art Auction 2023

In April 2023, Advance Ashburton held an auction of the paintings from the ALT collection as well as a number of generously donated by members of the community. A large crowd attended the event at the Ashburton Society of Arts Short Street Studio where all sixty-three lots sold under the hammer of auctioneer, Hamish Niles. This yielded a significant boost to the Arts Fund with $38,000 raised from the auction. 
The Ashburton Arts Fund was established by Advance Ashburton in 2016 with an initial donation of $1,000 from the Ashburton District Council. Held in perpetuity by Advance Ashburton, the income generated by the fund will be distributed through grants to support art and artists in the Ashburton District. 
Renowned artist, author, and illustrator, David Elliot, is the Ambassador of the Ashburton Arts Fund and was the special guest on auction night. Elliot was born and raised in Ashburton. After graduating from Canterbury Art School in 1976, he worked both as a designer and teacher before becoming a full-time writer and illustrator in 1998. He has since gained international recognition in this field and has won many awards. 
The potential of the Arts Fund to support local artists is welcomed by David Elliot. He has had first-hand experience of the difficulties faced by those working in the visual arts. "Finance is always a problem, especially for those just starting out in their careers, so I wholeheartedly support the Ashburton Arts Fund and its objective to support individuals and projects in its artistic community," said Elliot. "Over the years, I have watched the township grow substantially in vibrancy and diversity. Initiatives like the Ashburton Arts Fund can only continue to enhance that growth and through it, the quality of life for all."

Thank you for joining us. 

​Annual Celebration
Before a large audience at the Event Centre, Mary Ross, Chairperson of the Foundation, welcomed the community to our Annual Celebration and announced that in the last 12 months more than $823,000 had been distributed to worthy organisations in our community.
Entertained by members of the Phoenix Choir from Ashburton College, and guest speakers Dr Don Elder of the Family Help Trust and Sir Ian Taylor of the Animation Research Ltd, a highlight of the evening was the announcement of the 2022 Leaders Scholarships this year awarded to Liz McMillan and Janine Holland.

Ashburton College Alumni Fund Launch 

At the launch, from left, Peter Gluyas, Mayor Neil Brown, Ashburton College Head girl Jorja Roulston and Head Boy Jack Brown, Advance Ashburton Chair Mary Ross, and Ashburton College Principal Ross Preece
Ashburton College Alumni Fund
The launch of the new Ashburton College Alumni Fund with Advance Ashburton was held on Tuesday September 13, with members of the Alumni Board, the mayor and councillors, College principal and staff, past and present students, Board members from Advance Ashburton and members of the community.
At the launch of this new partnership between the Alumni and Advance Ashburton Peter Gluyas, chair of the Ashburton College Alumni Board explained, “We want to make a difference to the lives of students who have a certain aptitude but need a helping hand to get there.”

Thank you for joining us ... ...

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Last Thursday night over 350 people attended the Advance Ashburton Community Foundation’s Annual Celebration of Philanthropy held at the Ashburton Trust Event Centre,

The evening commenced with a wonderful performance by the Ashburton College Rising Phoenix choir.  Sandi Wood, Executive Officer for the Foundation, welcomed everyone and gave an insight into the world of Community Foundations.

“All of this is made possible thanks to the generosity of the Foundations donors, who choose to give through Advance Ashburton to the causes they are passionate about. This unique way of giving allows the original gift to continue to give benefits to the community now, and for generations to come”, explains Executive Officer Sandi Wood.

Trevor Croy, chairman of Advance Ashburton gave an update of the Foundation’s performance during the year, “the Foundation has distributed $590,000 to worthy causes in our community for the year ending 31st March 2019” Trevor said.

As we know the future is unknown, but there is much we can do to ensure the success of our community, and learning about what to expect and being nimble about change becomes more and more important. 

This year’s theme was future focused, with keynote speaker Professor Paul Spoonley, a distinguished professor from Massey University, giving us an insight into the statistics of what the next 10 years will hold – including an aging population; where Ashburton and surrounding areas can expect 30% of our population to be aged 65 or more, and our median age being 38.6.  Declining fertility, with lower birth rates and delayed births; with the attitude more common of ‘one and done’, or none.

The professor was quick to advise that our district was a great example of forward thinking, with decisions made years ago holding us in good stead for success. The Professor left the audience to ponder on how best we can attract our younger generation back to the community after they have sought the big wide world, including job availability, affordable accommodation, cultural attractions and access to outdoor activities. Please click here to download Professor Spoonley’s slides. 

Other guest speakers included Ross Preece with an overview on how education is changing, and Dr Jared Corbett, a previous scholarship recipient gave us an update as to where his life choices have taken him. 

We would like to thank our speakers, Distinguished Professor Paul Spoonley, Ross Preece and Dr Jared Corbett, for taking the time to join us at our celebration.  We would also like to thank our many guests, and our event sponsors, Argyle Welsh Finnigan, Forsyth Barr and the Ashburton Trust Events Centre, for helping us to make this event a great success.​

Thank you to all who attended ...

Advance Ashburton Community Foundation Annual Celebration 2018.

Thursday 8th November 2018, 5:30pm-7:30pm at the Ashburton Trust Events Centre

​Thank you to our guest speaker's Dr Lucy Hone, Hollie Woodhouse, Hayden Kuyf and Ross Preece for joining us at this year's Annual Celebration of Philanthropy.

After a wonderful cultural start to the evening with a performance from the Ashburton College Kapa Haka group, our Executive Officer, Sandi Wood expressed a warm welcome to the audience of over 380 attendees.  “The reason Advance Ashburton exists is to encourage and support projects that transform and help make the district a better place to live.  Our donors choose to give through Advance Ashburton to the causes they are most passionate about.  Through this strategic form of giving we are seeing positive transformation in our community”.

Deputy Chair, Mary Ross, shared with the audience an update on how the Foundation has performed in the last financial year. “2018 has been a good year, during which Advance Ashburton has had continued growth in grants to the District, an increase in number and value of scholarships, an investment portfolio which has shown excellent returns, and funds under management and promised that have increased.  We cannot do this without donors.  To both current and future donors who have indicated their intentions for years to come, we thank you.  Your commitment to the goal of making the District a better place is truly appreciated.”

Through the generosity shown by our donors, Advance Ashburton was able to continue support of the Kohanga at Ashburton College.  Guest speaker Ross Preece, Principal of Ashburton College, gave an update via video of the Kohanga at Ashburton College.

A new initiative funded by Advance Ashburton is the commencement of learning disability assessments being completed in Ashburton at a newly established office of Seabrook Mckenzie.  Our guest speaker Hayden Kuyf gave us an insight into his journey living with a specific learning disability, and how his experience with Seabrook McKenzie transformed his life. “Having a Seabrook Centre here in Ashburton would be a great asset to the Mid Canterbury Community and will help people gain access to valuable resources to diagnose their learning difficulties and prepare a strategy to deal with this and improve it over time.  It would be more obtainable for those whose parents can’t juggle getting their children through to Christchurch who need that extra support and reassurance that their child can still achieve and be a valuable member of the community.”

Hollie Woodhouse inspired the audience with stories of her most recent adventure across Greenland, and how this adventurous side of her all began when she was lucky enough to receive a scholarship from Advance Ashburton to attend an Outward-Bound course. 

Our keynote speaker, Dr Lucy Hone, through her academic studies and personal experience, inspired us to consider how we can promote resilience in ourselves and others. "Unwanted and unexpected change is often forced upon us ... while we cannot control our life circumstances, we can control our response.  Resilience comes from both the way in which we choose to think, and the way in which we choose to act.  We need to choose where we focus our attention, understand that struggle is a part of life and decide – is this helping or harming me?”

We thank our event sponsors; Ashburton Trust Events Centre, Argyle Welsh Finnigan and Forsyth Barr.

A huge Thank You to our guest speakers for making this a truly inspiring evening and illustrating how generosity can make an impact on people’s lives in our community.