Two New NZAF Trust Board Members Announced

Two New NZAF Trust Board Members Announced

At its AGM today, the New Zealand AIDS Foundation (NZAF) announced that the two successful candidates in the NZAF Trust Board elections were Andrew Sweet and Christian Bimbola Ogbah. Four candidates were in the running for two Trust Board positions which are elected by the membership of the NZAF.

A total of 56 ballots were received in the election, most were returned through secure online voting and two by traditional postal ballot. Sweet was the clear front runner with a total of 37 votes while Ogbah gained 27 votes, Vaughan Meneses 21 votes and Daniel Eakins received 19 votes.

Ogbah is joining the Board for the first time and will serve with Sweet who has been on the Board for the last two years. They will join Alastair Cameron who will continue to serve as Board Chair and Dr Paul Bohmer as Deputy Board Chair, Kathryn Leafe and Kaine Thompson. Hamish Allardice is standing down from today after serving on the Board for four years and Cherry Sonderer will stand down in February after two years on the Board.

Cameron paid tribute to the Allardice’s humour and dedicated focus on the communities the NZAF serves. He also acknowledged the high level of skill and knowledge that Sonderer has brought to the financial management of the NZAF.

It was the first AGM for Shaun Robinson, NZAF Executive Director, who started in his role at the NZAF in January. Robinson focussed strongly on the financial challenges facing the NZAF as well as changes in the HIV epidemic. “While the NZAF’s baseline governmental funding has not been affected, there has been no inflation-linked increase so by 2013, the real-term decrease could be equivalent to $1,000,000” Robinson said.

Robinson also hinted that the number of new HIV diagnoses for gay and bisexual men may be better in 2011. “While it’s too soon to say for sure, early signs are that the epidemic is slowing down. We’re very hopeful that our efforts are having an effect, especially as we now know that there were 95 new diagnoses in 2010 for gay and bisexual men – the highest number on record.”

ENDS

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