The Woodhill Sands Trust was established in 2016 as a charitable trust, by a group from the Auckland equestrian sports community. It is registered under The Charitable Trusts Act and has an Inland Revenue approved income tax exemption.
The Deed of Charitable Trust establishing The Woodhill Sands Trust can be viewed here.
The Woodhill Sands Trust is governed by a group of volunteer Trustees who are business professionals and equestrians and are resourceful, pragmatic and effective in working with limited resources.
Sara is the General Counsel and Company Secretary at NZX. She is an internationally experienced lawyer with a background in corporate, commercial and financial services businesses. Sara is now based on a lifestyle block in Waimauku, where she keeps 4 horses. She has competed in Show Hunter and Show Jumping, and now focuses her efforts in the dressage arena. Sara has joined the trust to give something back to the sport that she loves, and to support the Auckland equestrian community in creating a premium equestrian facility to showcase our sport.
After 34 years working for two multi-national food manufacturing companies, with the last 9 years at CEO level, Ian retired from the corporate world and spent the last 15 years in management and governance roles with a number of smaller entities, not for profits and charitable trusts, which included 4 years as GM of Horse of the Year (HB) Limited and 10 years as a Trustee of major community owned indoor sports and events arena.
Ian lives in Hawke’s Bay. He has a life long interest in horses and equestrian sports and looks forward to contributing with his corporate management and NFP governance experience to Woodhill Sands.
The Trust also employs a Trust Manager along with range of event support staff to assist us during our event days.
Jenette has a strong commercial, operational management and not for profit sector experience as well as being a sport horse owner and local competitor. Jenette works closely with the Trustees, Venue Manager and User Groups on advancing our plan for the development of Woodhill Sands and securing the funding for the execution of this plan. Jenette also supports Trustees in maintaining our key relationships with Auckland Council and ASB, Grant organisations, our sponsors and supporters. Jenette can be reached via e-mail on Jenette@woodhillsands.co.nz
Georgia is an equestrian who has successfully competed up to Grand Prix level. She has a training base in Kumeu where she coaches students of all levels and enjoys supporting these students at shows. Georgia has been on the Show Jumping Waitemata committee for the past 10 years and enjoys being part of the team and giving back to the sport.
In addition to Georgia managing our venue and events, you might also see Georgia at shows during the weekends where she will be overseeing the action or acting as a medic for some of our smaller days.
Louise was a competitive Show Jumping and Show Hunter rider from a young age. She has had a lengthy equestrian career, having been active in the administration of Pony Club, Show Hunter NZ, Show Jumping Waitemata. Her children also rode competitively, and now she have two grandchildren competing at Woodhill. Louise looks after a lot of the event support and Evo Events management for our shows and is often the person responding to your queries through the info@woodhillsands.co.nz email.
The Trust like many sporting organisations is also heavily reliant on a pool of local casual employees from within the local community and substantial volunteer support for events.