Foundation's new Chairman

14/8/2009

The Foundation’s fourth Annual General Meeting was held on Monday with the highlights being the reporting of the surge in membership numbers (up 32% to 360) and the resulting increase in surplus revenue (up from $94,228 to $142,548), the growing number of Old Boys ‘found’ – with 7,500 now on the Foundation’s newsletter database, from a starting point of just 500, and the success of the website with 12,000 to 14,000 unique visits per month now recorded.

A new Chairman was also elected along with a new member of the Board of Management.

Greg Strang (1983-87) stood down from the Chair after two years in the role with Lyndon Hope (1984-88) elected to take his place.

The Foundation's new chairman - Lyndon Hope (1984-88)

Lyndon was born in Dunedin and was educated at St Clair Primary and Macandrew Intermediate before attending Otago Boys’. Lyndon has always lived here in Dunedin apart from a year in Christchurch in 1995. He is a second generation family member to attend Otago Boys’ along with many other family members.

After following a career in hospitality, Lyndon began fulltime with Hope & Sons in 1996 and completed his funeral directing qualifications in Wellington in 1999. He is one of the fourth generation of the Hope family to own and manage the business, and he has been a company director since 1999.

As well as his role as a funeral director with the company Lyndon is the Chairman of the Funeral Director’s Association of New Zealand (FDANZ) Public Relations Committee and also chairs the Otago & Southland District of the FDANZ. He is also a member of the Board of Trustees at Silverstream (South) Primary School in Mosgiel, and of the Dunedin Rotary Club.

Lyndon and his wife Liz currently live in Mosgiel where they are raising their two boys Josh (8) and Sam (6). He is a keen golfer playing off a modest handicap when time permits and enjoys watching rugby - especially that played by his sons.

And the Foundation is also pleased to report the election of Mike Christie (1982-86) to the Board of Management.

Mike has recently returned with his family to Dunedin for a second time, following stints working for Cadbury Ltd in Melbourne and most recently Singapore.

After leaving school, Mike completed a B.com at Otago University before joining Cadbury Confectionery in 1991 as a graduate member of the sales force. He then moved into a Dunedin Supply Chain role working for another old boy, Neville Horne (1954-56) in 1992, and subsequently held a number of different Supply Chain roles in Dunedin.

In 1998, Mike and his wife Georgie moved to Melbourne where Mike worked for Cadbury Australia as well as Schweppes Cottee’s for 3½ years ending up as Australia New Zealand Procurement Manager for the combined Cadbury Schweppes business. For personal reasons the family returned to Dunedin in 2002 with Mike taking up his former role of New Zealand Procurement Manager as well as undertaking a technical procurement development role for Cadbury throughout Asia. This culminated in a move to Singapore in 2005, when Cadbury set up a new regional head office, where amongst a variety of roles, Mike became responsible for managing the Cadbury Schweppes Asia Pacific procurement team.

Following an internal restructure of the Asia Pacific business in late 2008, Mike and family, which had grown to include 2 daughters, returned to Dunedin for a second time, with Mike securing a full time role at the Cadbury Dunedin manufacturing operation.

Mike is looking forward to playing the odd game of cricket again for the Cavaliers, as well as getting back to being a more frequent golfer, as it was an expensive past time to play on a regular basis in Singapore.

Since returning from Singapore, Mike has bumped into a number of former school colleagues and is looking forward to reconnecting with those who are still based in Dunedin or around Otago.

We welcome both Lyndon and Mike to their new roles.