Taranaki Electricity Trust meets for first time after election

The Taranaki Electricity Trust (TET) board met last week for the first time since the recent trustee election.

TET chair Alan Jamieson said it was great to welcome the three new trustees to the table, but also acknowledged the service given by the two trustees, Rick Coplestone and Karen Schumacher, who were not returned to their seats in the election.

Speaking after the meeting, Alan said he is looking forward to the next three years.

"It is going to be like a new trust going forward in a way, with three new trustees we are certainly going to have some new views and even aspirations for how the trust can best help the community."

He says he invited the three new trustees to share some of the issues they had campaigned on, and to raise any questions they had regarding the trust.

Alan says issues raised included Māori representation, the option of rotating the role of chair across the two wards, the process of appointing a new trustee, if required, mid-term and how funding should be attributed in the post Covid months and years.

A workshop has been arranged for trustees to discuss these topics on July 8.

"Trustees have also been invited to add any other items to the workshop agenda if they wish, so we will have plenty to discuss in that workshop."

After a brief welcome, trustees were immediately getting on with business as usual, says Alan, with plenty of the agenda for the first meeting.

The impact of Covid-19 was clear, he says, with several grant recipients successfully seeking extensions to the time they have to utilise their grants after many projects had to pause during the lockdown period, with some events completely cancelled as a result.

Richard Jordan, of the Inglewood Development Trust, was present for part of the meeting, and spoke to trustees about an application the trust had put in for a grant. Trustees agreed to grant $69,400 to the Inglewood Development Trust for the operating costs of Fun Ho, Fritz Reuter Gallery, Inglewood Information Centre, Inglewood Heritage Centre and Moa Mail.

Trustees also granted $60,000 to Inglewood Fitness Club for the purchase of gym equipment and $46,187 to the Stratford Community House Trust for a range of organisational costs as well as soundproofing of the rooms to allow for more privacy.

Funding applications from New Plymouth Emergency Shelter Trust and Rapid Relief Team NZ Ltd were both declined, while an application from TET Athletics Taranaki was deferred to the July meeting.