The election of Bill Boyd as Rotary International President for the 2006/7 year, triggered a celebration by Pakuranga Rotary and culminated in deciding about how best the Club could commemorate this appointment.
It was agreed to form a charitable trust and with RIPP Bill’s blessing, it was decided to focus on a basic need for literacy as a suitable focus.
With Bill & wife Lorna’s advice, the Trust found an attractive children’s dictionary published in the United Kingdom by Usborne. Thus in 2008, through the New Zealand publisher Harper Collins, an initial order of 7000 Usborne Illustrated English Dictionaries was placed. To date the Trust has had sales of over 220,000 copies, amounting to a retail value of around $6 million. These dictionaries are distributed by Rotary Clubs throughout New Zealand and some Pacific Islands, to year 4 (8-9 year olds), mostly from lower socio-economic primary schools. Prisons and special needs places have been added to the list over the years.
The current Trustees are Bill & Lorna Boyd for life, Rotarians, Bill Duncan, Tony Fortune, Trish Plowright and Russell Toplis, not forgetting the late Noel Holyoake as initial Chairman & Ross Craig, a founder trustee, who arranged for generous donations to be made from other charitable trusts, enabling the Boyd Trust to access large orders of books at most favourable terms. The Trillian Trust has also generously advanced funds to assist special Trust distributions and publications, as well as the Education First Trust for books in Fiji and recently, the June Gray Charitable Trust in support of new publications.
The first Operations Manager was Rotarian David Wardell, a former primary principal/teacher, who established a programme for the Rotary Clubs and helped promote it throughout the New Zealand Rotary Districts. David was followed by Rotarian Graham Kearns who has continued the service to great effect. He developed an effective website with past Rotarian Richard Crookes, which allows online ordering, streamlining the operations of the Trust. The Trust has also trialled a simple Atlas, plus added a new entrant’s and pre-school book with flashcards called “Rhyming around the Alphabet” with initial sales in excess of 5000 packs.
During the fifteen years the Trust has been in existence the Boyd’s have spent many hours fostering the Trust’s chosen principal object of literacy and have done all they can to establish the Trust as one of New Zealand Rotary’s major and continuing achievements.