Robinson awarded CD life membership

Blair Robinson has been made a life member of the Central Districts Cricket Association.

A former long-serving board member, Robinson was given life membership at CD’S annual meeting in Palmerston North on Sunday.

A Napier lawyer, Robinson is CD’S honorary solicitor, a former board chairman and also has a long involvement with Hawke’s Bay cricket.

Robinson said cricket had been his passion his whole life.

‘‘It’s been a love,’’ he said. ‘‘It certainly hasn’t been a chore for me at all.

‘‘As I look back at my time involved when I came on in 2003, CD was leading the way at that stage, going from a management model to a governance model and we were one of the first associations to do that.’’

Then board members Robinson, David Townend, Viv Stephens and John Fluker were all instrumental in changing CD from a management committee to a board and all four are now life members.

Robinson said his highlights include the restructure in 2010-11 and CD’S philosophy of developing their own.

In other matters, Toni Grant of

Nelson was appointed to the board and Manawatu¯ ’s Robert Anderson was reappointed.

The rest of the CD board is: Greg Stretch (Marlborough), Simon Porter (Auckland), Simon Wilson (Wellington), Catherine Rossiter-stead (Wairarapa), chairman Mike Devonshire (Hawke’s Bay) and Dean Murphy, who is formerly of Manawatu¯ and is now the chief executive of New Zealand Golf.

Jock Sutherland of Nelson, also a life member, was named as the new patron, replacing Vern Chettleburgh, who died last year.

On the financial side of things, CD announced a $20,299 surplus, a good turnaround from last year’s $1229 deficit

CD are still working on getting their charitable trust up to $1 million. It is up to $767,783 of accumulated funds.

The trust had a surplus for the year of $41,395, a big improvement from the $132,446 loss last year. There was just $10,000 given out by the trust this year.