About Our Team
Our vision is success for extraordinary young New Zealanders on the national and international stage.
The Adastra Foundation was established in 2007 to provide financial and mentoring support to extraordinary young New Zealanders in their pursuit of excellence.
To date, the Adastra Foundation has awarded over 1000 scholarships and totalling over $2,000,000.
Trustees
Graeme Maw - Chair
After an enthusiastic but innocuous career in junior soccer, badminton and rugby union, Graeme has accrued over 20 years’ experience leading international sports programmes, and developing successful athlete and coach pathways.
These include stints with Queensland Swimming, British and NZ Triathlon, Welsh Rugby Union, UK coaching and Millfield School in England.
Graeme has the distinction of having represented three different nations in support at summer Olympic Games, and been Chef de Mission for Great Britain at the World University Games.
When not supporting others, Graeme can be found riding various bicycles, hiking up or skiing down mountains, or exasperating his family and livestock on their Waikato lifestyle block at Tamahere.
Karen Singers
Karen is passionate about creating opportunities for tamariki and rangatahi; she has been involved with Perry Outdoor Education Trust for a number of years, the last twelve as POET General Manager. POET partners with schools to support teacher facilitated outdoor education programmes in low decile secondary schools. Much of Karen’s work involves managing a range of stakeholder relationships, crucial in meeting their strategic outcomes.
Prior to POET, Karen worked in a role responsible for the distribution of funding to NFP organisations.
Karen has extensive governance experience, including the National COGS committee and currently, Outdoor Education NZ.
Jenna Keane
Jenna was born and raised in Central Otago but has been in the Waikato/Bay of Plenty region for the past 7 years. After 4 years in the event industry as the Secondary School Tough Guy & Gal Challenge she transitioned to roles in both Women and Girls and Youth Engagement at Sport Waikato.
A new opportunity now sees Jenna employed by the NZ Police as the Waikato Physical Education Officer, continuing her passion of both physical activity and community work.
Understanding some of the pressures and expectations youth face in the ever-evolving world of social media and their online image, puts her in a good place to support our youth as they pursue their passions.
Physical activity and sport is an important part of her lifestyle and she continues to play social sport and do CrossFit. Although not musically trained herself, some of her family have followed this pathway and Jenna is excited to be more engaged in the music and arts scene.
Alison Wieringa
Alison, born and raised on a family farm in Walton, has played, coached, and mentored NZ netballers finest.
Coach of New Zealand A, Magic, Northern Force, provincial and age group teams, following a playing career that saw her reach the top level, she has a passion for helping young people strive to achieve. Add in her experience leading Welsh Netball as their National Performance Director, Netball NZ selector, mentoring for Tania Dalton Foundation and judge on the BOP Sports awards panel for 10 years, and she brings a huge range of experience to the Trust.
Having worked in health and sports management roles, she’s well practiced in managing teams, developing leaders, and looking at opportunities for growth.
Music has been part of her life and this role provides the chance to engage in the performing arts arena alongside the sporting scene.
New challenges for Alison see her managing the Mount Maunganui Lifeguard Service, enjoying playing golf alongside her husband, and keeping a track on their two children who live in Sydney and Wanaka.
David Sidwell
David is heavily involved in music education throughout NZ at both secondary and tertiary levels, currently managing the Department of Music & Performing Arts and postgraduate studies in the School of Media Arts at Wintec. He holds a Masters Degree in Arts Management from Central Queensland University and is currently completing a PhD.
David’s involvement in music, education and theatre as director, musical director, composer, orchestrator/arranger and pianist include many successful productions in NZ and Australia; The Rocky Horror Show, Cats, Les Misérables, Oliver starring Richard O’Brien as Fagin, The Phantom of the Opera, Mamma Mia!, Evita, Starlight Express, Mary Poppins, Miss Saigon, Sister Act, Bonnie & Clyde, We Will Rock You, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Chicago.
As an accomplished pianist, David has worked with numerous New Zealand singers, performers, recording artists and featured as the pianist for the New Zealand Film Archive touring road shows.
David has been awarded an honorary institutional medal from Wintec for his forty-year contribution to the arts, as well as a Merit Award from Musical Theatre New Zealand. In 2014 he was honoured with the prestigious ‘Freedom of the City’ award, an accolade bestowed by Hamilton City recognizing David’s services to the arts and culture in the city over the past thirty-five years.
Honey Hireme-Smiler
Honey Hireme-Smiler, Ngati Raukawa, Ngati Haua, Ngati Whakaue. Honey is a dual rugby league / rugby union international who has been an exceptional flag bearer for New Zealand women’s rugby and rugby league.
As a former Black Fern and Kiwi Fern, she brings a career spanning 18 years at international level. Her commitment, passion and dedication to her sports saw her appointed as a Member of the NZ Order of Merit for Services to Sport.
Honey has 10 years experience working within the health and disability sector previously as a community programme manager, and a senior disability sport advisor with the Halberg Foundation. She currently works as a Sky Sport presenter/commentator and has recently been appointed the role of cultural advisor at Hospice Waikato. Honey continues to give back via coaching, mentoring, governance and various ambassador roles, ranging from school and community to representative and international level. Her values for family are strong; she believes that sport has the power to bring people together and create strong foundations for families, teams and communities to grow.
Don't Be Shy. Get In Touch.
If you are interested in working together, send us an inquiry and we will get back to you as soon as we can!
Sponsors
The Adastra Foundation acknowledges the support of:
Our Supporters
Construction Advantage - another awesome partnership for Adastra. Based in Cambridge, these guys are supporting local with these two outstanding young women!
From brief to build - their experienced team manage every aspect of construction. They value honesty, sustainability and innovation and love to work with good people to achieve standout builds 🔨 ... See MoreSee Less
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The Merito and Hill partnership is another important one for Adastra. It’s awesome that these guys share our values and can support us in the way that they do!! Here’s what they had to share about the year ahead ☺️
Cole and Rubi embody everything Adastra is about in everything they do, always reaching ‘to the Stars’.
We love supporting the Adastra Programme as it’s not easy to find an amazing group of people who inspire everyone around them to be a little bit better, each and every day, ultimately making our families, our communities, and our world a better place.
A lot of hard work goes on behind the scenes and the positive impact that both Cole and Rubi have made so far makes us excited for what lies ahead in all areas of their lives.
We consider ourselves very lucky to be inspired by all of the amazing humans on the Adastra programme and are excited to follow the journey of all the Adastra Scholars and will be cheering them on every step of the way! ... See MoreSee Less
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A huge thank you to Callum and Lindy Malcolm for their support of one of our aspiring young people for 2025 🏊🏼
When asked why they were so passionate about being involved they said “Having young kids ourselves we realise how important it is to have fantastic local role models inspiring the younger ones coming through. Swimming is a really accessible and important sport for so many New Zealand kids, like many sports, it requires discipline, dedication and sacrifice - all amazing qualities for our kids to strive for. To inspire the next generation of kiwi swimmers, we need talented young people like Pippa to reach their full potential and inspire so many more! Go Pippa we are rooting for you!” ... See MoreSee Less
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Welcome back to Craig’s Investment Partners for 2025. We are so grateful to have their support again this year 🙏🏽
Their continued efforts to support young people is a reflection of their values around relationship building and how involved they are at the community level.
Craig’s have years of experience and a real personal approach to investing. Reach out to see how they might be able to support your investment journey 💰
Craig’s Tauranga - Sophie Lane, Tania Ellis
Craig’s Hamilton - Linmari Le Roux, Theresa Biladi
Craigs Investment Partners ... See MoreSee Less
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Welcome back to Craig’s Investment Partners for 2025. We are so grateful to have their support again this year 🙏🏽
Their continued efforts to support young people is a reflection of their values around relationship building and how involved they are at the community level.
Craig’s have years of experience and a real personal approach to investing. Reach out to see how they might be able to support your investment journey 💰
Craig’s Tauranga - Sophie Lane, Tania Ellis
Craig’s Hamilton - Linmari Le Roux, Theresa Biladi
Craigs Investment Partners ... See MoreSee Less
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Great results coming in from
Texas.
👏👏NZ team with Lulu Miller 👏👏 ... See MoreSee Less
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When this happens, it's usually because the owner only shared it with a small group of people, changed who can see it or it's been deleted.0 CommentsComment on Facebook
A huge thank you to BDO and their continued partnership with us for 2025🙏🏽
Here’s what the legends at @bdotauranga had to say about their involvement this year…
“At BDO, people are at the heart of everything we do. Connecting with our recipients and following their journey has been incredibly exciting for us. We’ve witnessed the exceptional mentoring and opportunities Adastra’s scholarships provide to our talented rangatahi, and we’re excited to back BDO’s recipient @david_moraaaaaa all the way this year!”
Head to the team at BDO for all your tax, audit, advisory and accounting services. They can help you achieve your personal and business goals 📝 ... See MoreSee Less
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Adastra is excited to announce the @acornfoundationnz as a partner on behalf of the Bill & Eaddy Trust for 2025.
Acorn Foundation is the community foundation for the Western Bay of Plenty and recently took over the Bill & Doris Eaddy Trust, the purpose of which was to support both junior rowers and their coaches.
“After a lot of research, we were connected to Adastra Foundation and were really impressed with the professional nature and wraparound support and guidance that the Adastra scholarships provide to young athletes. “
“We felt the Adastra ethos aligned perfectly with what Bill & Doris Eaddy would have intended to provide funds to committed junior rowers, and we are excited to see how these rowers progress” says the Acorn Foundation.
Thank you @acornfoundationnz ... See MoreSee Less
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Cheering on Adastra alumni Matt Reutsch and Brad Rothwell this afternoon. Go Kiwis!!Your NZ U21 Men’s starting lineup for today’s game against AUS at 2pm 🙌🏻
It’s shaping up to be a warm day here at Lloyd Elsmore and we hope to see as many of you here with your best supporting signs! It’s free to come and watch so get here to watch what’s set to be another close match! 👀
If you can’t make it, tune into Hockey TV at the link below in the comments. ... See MoreSee Less
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