ECT farewelling chairman who achieved a lot in six years

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Opinion

Eastland Community Trust is farewelling a good chairman who was the right man for the times, after the council chose not to reappoint Richard Brooking to ECT — instead appointing former mayor and retiring Eastland Group director John Clarke to the trust.

Mr Brooking joined ECT in 2009 and became chairman on the retirement of Gary Alexander the following year.

At the time there was a growing concern that ECT was not investing as much as it should in the community. It had increased its capital base very successfully since its inception in 1993 as Eastland Energy Community Trust — especially since it bought Gisborne’s port from the District Council in 2003 — but so many causes in the region were in need of investment that would improve the lot of the trust’s beneficiaries.

Mr Brooking has led the transformation of ECT into the major benefactor for the district that it is today.

Under his chairmanship, annual ECT grants for community initiatives have climbed from hundreds of thousands of dollars a year (and a low of $60,000 in 2008) to about $6 million a year now. ECT has also continued to grow its capital base, and has greatly expanded investments outside the Eastland Group to about 20 percent of its assets.

Mr Brooking’s background in the public service, in voluntary community leadership roles and as chairman of a number of local and national organisations brought helpful knowledge of the “machinery of government”, and the impacts of policy-making and community investment on regions.

More than that, he is a consumate consensus-builder with a passion for the proper recognition of this region’s unique heritage — and for fostering understanding as well as greater prosperity. He is also a gentleman.

In deciding not to reappoint Mr Brooking, it seems the councillors have determined that six years as chairman is a good stint and it was time for fresh leadership. Interestingly, the Mayor was not involved in the decision as he sits on the trust. Many of those councillors have also spent 15 or more years in their seats.