Big weekend for young leaders in Auckland

The weekend of 28-29 May 2011 was a significant and action-packed time for many members of the Asia:NZ Young Leaders Network in Auckland. During these two days network members from around New Zealand were involved in the Steering Committee meeting, attending or performing in ‘Miss Saigon’, a mini-cluster meeting and, finally, a fundraiser event.

Asia:NZ provided the opportunity for Cantabrian young leaders to travel north to connect with other members after cancelling the Christchurch cluster meeting earlier in the year as a result of the earthquake.

The steering committee’s weekend began with an informal catch-up dinner at Khao Thai Restaurant, where Vanessa Lee and the committee members welcomed new Auckland representative Corey Wallace to the committee.

The formalities began on Saturday with a meeting from 9-3pm at Asia:NZ’s Auckland office. The committee of Anita, Daniel, Alex, Nedra, Chris, Esther, Madhu and Corey, felt privileged to have Asia:NZ director Dr. Richard Grant in attendance, as well as Vanessa and Mel.

 First on the agenda was a discussion of recent activity in the various clusters. This was followed by a presentation by Simon Telfer of ‘Springboard’, a New Zealand social enterprise which promotes age diversity in governance, and particularly encourages the taking-up of governance and leadership roles by under-45s. The committee then discussed the network’s strategic plan 2011-2014. After lunch Wilson Chau dropped by for a short presentation on the Schools Outreach Project. The afternoon agenda included reviewing some of the plans for the network for the next year, including leadership week, the reunion in 2012 and offshore activities.

On Saturday evening 30 young leaders gathered for drinks and networking before heading off to see Christiana Zhu perform the lead female role of Kim in the musical ‘Miss Saigon’.

On Sunday a brunch and mini-cluster meeting were held with ten Christchurch young leaders to talk about the network in general and, in particular, ways in which to re-energise the Christchurch cluster in the post-quake period.

After this meeting the attendees took a wander around Britomart where a fundraiser for Christchurch ‘Britomart Block Benefit’ was taking place. Auckland committee member and architect Alex Lee had built a model of the Christchurch Cathedral out of lego for this event. Alex was interviewed by another young leader, TV3 reporter Kim Choe, about her work. 

For more info on ‘Springboard’ refer to: http://www.springboardnz.org