TE AUTE TRUST BOARD 

REMARKS TO TE RUNANGANUI, PIHOPATANGA O AOTEAROA

WELLINGTON, 8 AUGUST 2015 

STEPHEN JACOBI

CHAIRMAN/HEMANA 

It’s a pleasure to have this opportunity to address this Runanganui in the second year of my term as Hemana o Te Poari o Te Aute.

In doing so I am very conscious of the responsibility placed on the shoulders of both me and my fellow Trustees to care for and nurture these two taonga o te Haahi Mihinare, Te Aute me Hukarere.

I am grateful for the work of all Trustees and in particular my good friend and colleague Maui Tongahau who as Hemana of the Te Aute Proprietors’ Board has spent many days this past year on Trust business in Hawke’s Bay. 

I would like to express my appreciation to Pihopa John Gray who played a key role in finding a workable solution to the problems of the two kura.

And to Pihopa Brown I want to express my deep respect and gratitude for the confidence he has placed in me personally for my role at Te Aute.

When we met in Gisborne two years ago, God decided to do a new thing at Te Aute and Hukarere. 

It was Whaea Win George, the Chaplain of Hukarere, who reminded me of this when we first met with the Hukarere whanau.

These schools belong to God, she said, and she was right.

Our task as Trustees, acting on behalf of the haahi, is to make these schools and hostels fitting places in which rangatahi can live, learn and grow in both tikanga and whakapono – places which honour God, places where our students are cared for and nurtured and prepared for discipleship.

We did not know, at least not fully, when we met in Gisborne - for the ways of God are mysterious - just how hard this job was going to be. 

As Trustees of the St John’s College Trust Board we thought we had done our homework in the extensive due diligence process we carried out in 2013. 

But on taking office, following your invitation to us, we discovered that the situation of the Trust was even more precarious than we thought. 

Standing before you today I can say I have little doubt that had you not resolved to appoint the St John’s Trustees as Te Aute Trustees – overcoming what I know were deeply held reservations on the part of some – had you not entered fully into this new thing God was about to do – these two schools would have been closed by now. 

Two years later, the situation at Te Aute and Hukarere remains fragile, but the schools are open, the financial issues surrounding the Trust have been stabilised and Trustees are determined to do what is necessary to ensure the schools expand and flourish. 

Whenever I have met with Te Aute or Hukarere whanau I have asked them to judge us not by what we say, but by what we do.

I make the same request of you at this Runanganui today.

You have before you our formal report for adoption.  Allow me to highlight just a few points.

First, we have reformed the Trust’s governance structure. 

We have appointed to the Te Aute Trust Board two mana whenua representatives from Ngai Te Whatu-i-apiti – Mr Robin Hape and Dr James Graham – who sit alongside us as we make decisions about the Trust. 

We have appointed farm committees headed by locally-based farming experts to advise on the management of our two farms.

We have established the Te Aute Proprietors’ Board with representatives from both school communities, which operates under delegated authority, to oversee the management of the hostels and the schools’ special character as unambiguously Maori and unambiguously mihinare.

This new governane structure has allowed Trustees to focus on improving the performance of the Trust’s commercial and farming operations and on resolving a number of other issues that have plagued the Trust for many years. 

Second, we have removed the debt burden, which earlier overshadowed the Trust and which effectively starved the hostels of adequate funding.

A new funding facility was established with the St John’s College Trust Board – the facility is interest free and only repayable in 2024.

As at 31 December 2014 this facility had provided the Trust with funding of $10.9 million.  Today the figure stands at $11.5 million. 

Of this funding, $9.4 million was utilised to extinguish the BNZ debt, eliminating high interest charges, and allowing Trustees to govern and manage the assets of the Trust as they see fit. 

Third, we have stabilised the Trust’s farming operations.

The removal of the debt within each farming operation, along with the investment in additional stock and other improvements has significantly increased the productivity of each farm, with these now generating small surpluses in 2014 and expected to contribute $250,000 of funding to the hostels in 2015 (subject of course to that diary pay-out!). 

At the same time the Trust has been trying to resolve a protracted legal dispute in respect to seeking clear title to the Ngawapurua Diary Farm gifted to the Trust by the late Mr Hohepa “Doc” Tatere.  

At the time of writing, orders of the Maori Land Court have been issued and we hope to shortly see the Ngawapurua farm vested in the joint ownership of the Trust (with a ⁴/₅^th share) and the Waiapu Board of Diocesan Trustees (with a ¹/₅^th share) in accordance with the wishes of Doc Tatere.

Unfortunately the Trust was ultimately unsuccessful in its attempts also to secure the ownership of a second farming enterprise also originally bequeathed by Doc Tatere. 

These farm revenues and the leases from other Trust-owned lands provide a funding stream to the schools and hostels, which we hope can be increased in the future.

Fourth, we have re-invested in the hostels at both schools.

While structurally sound, the hostel properties are in need of significant maintenance and refurbishment. 

Significant deferred maintenance work has already been undertaken, a number of health and safety issues have been rectified and plans for the refurbishment and longer-term redevelopment of the two sites are now well advanced.

We estimate these works will cost around $2.4 million.

The Hukarere site presents us with some particular challenges.

We have completed a major review of the buildings on the site and how they might be upgraded and the refurbishment work should commence shortly. 

We are behind schedule with the construction of the chapel, which we know would fulfill a long held dream of the Hukarere community.

We have confirmed the site for the chapel and have sought architects’ proposals, but Trustees will need to move ahead prudently and only when convinced of the longer-term viability of the school. 

In that respect the size of the school roll (at 70, with 49 in the hostel) remains a concern as does the need to resolve some outstanding legal issues with our hostel staff. 

Fifth, the Trust and Proprietors’ Board have taken a keen interest in upholding the special character of both Hukarere me Te Aute.

To this end the Trust has increased the special character budgets for each school to ensure the Chaplains have the resources available to them, as well as allowing for the employment of expert Reo teachers. 

The consequence of all this careful governance and management on the part of Trustees is that at 31 December 2014 the Trust had equity of $9.4 million.  

This equity is principally represented by the value of the Te Aute and Ngawapurua farms, the Trust’s leasehold lands and value of livestock stock as at year-end. 

The Trust generated a small surplus in 2014 benefiting from the improved performance of the farms offsetting the operating losses of the hostels. 

Even so there remains a significant amount of expenditure required to rectify the historical issues facing the Trust.

The future while significantly brighter is by no means secure.

During the balance of 2015 and in 2016 the Trust will continue to progress its plans to improve the facilities of each hostel to ensure there is a continuation in the growth of boarders at the two schools, currently 126 against a budget of 135.  

We hope the combined roll will climb to 175 in 2016.

We also hope to resolve the last of the legal issues facing the Trust and focus on continuing to build the endowments to ensure the financial stability and viability of the schools.

As well as these many things done, there are things not done.

We have not completed a strategic plan for which we ask your forbearance. 

The reason we have not done so is because of the magnitude of the challenges before the Trust, which make effective planning difficult.

Instead we seek your endorsement of six high level strategic goals to guide the work of the Trust over the next three years.

These strategic goals are as follows: 

1    To establish effective governance practices to ensure there remains appropriate and balanced focus on both the Trust’s educational and commercial activities

2    To build strong working relationships with Mana Whenua and the Colleges’ respective Boards of Trustees

3    To enhance the special character of both Colleges

4    To stabilise the financial sustainability of the Colleges by investing in and improving the financial performance of the Trust’s commercial activities

5    To maintain, improve and reinvest in the hostel infrastructure

6    To resolve the Trust’s outstanding legal issues .

The Te Aute Trustees are profoundly grateful for work of all those associated with the schools, especially the Boards of Trustees, ably chaired by Evelyn Taumanu and Moana Jackson, the two Tumuaki Lelie Pearcey and Shane Hiha and their staff, and the members of the Proprietors’ Board, the Board’s employees, consultants and advisors, especially Grant Hope and his team at Trust Management  who, with Trustees, are continuing to deal effectively with some very difficult, sensitive and complex matters.

I wish to make a special acknowledgement of Mr Moana Jackson who is stepping down as Hemana of the Te Aute College Board of Trustees. 

Having been involved for the past six years Moana has steered Te Aute College through some turbulent times and has been instrumental in the educational improvement achieved by the College and assisting the Trustees resolve a number of difficult issues.

I also thank whanau for their trust in us and for sending their mokopuna to Hukarere me Te Aute and congratulate all students for their hard work.  You are the best advertisements for the Colleges.

In this regard, Trustees noted with great pleasure the continued and improving achievement of the students’ results in 2014 NCEA results and celebrated the success of Parekura Pewhairangi, who achieved the highest scholarship marks in te reo throughout Aotearoa.

This is the promise, the future and the hope of Te Aute me Hukarere – this is the reason why we as Pihopatanga and all three tikanga of Te Haahi Mihinare have come together through the St John’s College Trust in support of these schools.

When we met two years ago in Gisborne, we did not know exactly what God was asking us to do.

But we took inspiration from the whakatauki – ka pu te ruha, ka hao te rangatahi.

If we can hold onto this inspiration, and hold fast to the encouragement we receive from the rangatahi at Te Aute me Hukarere, we can be faithful to God’s call and we can deliver at these two iconic schools something unique and precious in God’s sight.

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