The Tindall Foundation staff and trustee team spent two days in Matakana earlier this month putting our heads together at our annual retreat. It was a hugely productive time where we shared ideas and insights, looked at the big picture, discussed new opportunities for the Foundation, explored how we best meet the need throughout New Zealand, and reviewed our work and reflected on what we have learnt from the previous year.
We were very lucky to have two inspiring guests with us on our first day, Bharat and Sally Mehta from London. Bharat is the Chief Executive of Trust for London, a charitable organisation that exists to reduce poverty and inequality in London. The charity funds the voluntary and community sector, and uses expertise and knowledge to support work that tackles poverty and its root causes. Bharat shared his experiences of leading Trust for London and we looked at, and talked about, some of the parallel issues and needs that New Zealand shares with the UK, including housing.
Bharat also offered his feedback and comments on how our Foundation is progressing with our strategy. We were able to use Bharat’s wisdom and experience to help us decide on the most pressing things for us to focus on over the next 12 months.
Sally, his wife talked about her work at the London organisation, Working with Men – an award winning charity supporting positive male activity, engagement and involvement. She talked about the programmes the charity runs to help tackle conflict and knife related incidents in schools and in the community, raising the attainment levels of boys in school, supporting fatherhood and fathers into school programmes, tackling racial violence and issues of identity among young people. It was very interesting to hear about this work.
Over the two days we were able to reflect on all that we have achieved over the past 12 months and the incredible work and successes of the organisations we support. We got the chance to get away from our hectic office environment to look at how we expand our reach across New Zealand and evaluate what we do to ensure our donations really count.
We are incredibly lucky to have such a great group of people on our team at the Tindall Foundation. Everyone is committed to the work we do and to finding news ways and opportunities to contribute to the community so that we help to make New Zealand stronger.