Congratulations to Mary Potter Hospice’s Annual Award Winners

October 28th, 2022

The Annual Awards were presented at our recent Annual Celebration to various Mary Potter Hospice volunteers, staff and supporters to say thank you to those special people and groups who support the vital work of the Hospice.

They have been selected – with great difficulty – from the many nominations put forward by our Hospice staff. Congratulations to all awardees and thank you for helping us make Hospice happen!

Volunteer Awards

Donna Patrick
Donna has been a regular and long serving volunteer at the Hospice Thorndon Shop, since it opened in 2014.

Her key role is to look after the donated books. She sorts, prices and maintains the stock – not an easy task when many of the customers are experts when it comes to buying and selling books and only too happy to say whether something is over- or under-priced. Donna has gone above and beyond for the Thorndon shop, putting in huge additional volunteer hours at times when the shop was between managers or assistant managers.

Mary Hart
Mary started volunteering at the Miramar store in early 2019 and it soon became evident that she was committed to helping the store raise as much money as possible every moment that it was open.

In particular, since COVID, Mary’s unwavering drive to continue to improve the store’s performance has helped energise other volunteers at the shop. At the end of 2021 when we were between managers, Mary helped with running the store, even convincing her family members to pitch in as well. Mary’s input has helped create a very welcoming store for people to visit and shop in.

Julia Hall
Julia is an incredible volunteer having served the hospice and its patients since 1983 – almost 40 years.  Julia started volunteering when Mary Potter Hospice was on the ground floor of Wakefield Hospital and some of the nurses were the nuns of the ‘Little Company of Mary’. Over the decades, Julia has spent time sitting with patients, sometimes overnight, and taking patients on outings. She now serves lunch to patients every other Sunday.

Julia has seen most things in her time – birthdays, weddings, and much more. She says that she has learnt to be flexible, to have an open mind, plenty of time and no agenda from the moment you enter the Hospice to the moment you leave.

Tony de Joux
Tony recently retired, having volunteered for 18 years. He joined the Hospitality team doing lunch service. He was also a fabulous barman delivering drinks to patients who wanted something a little stronger than a cup of tea.

Tony helped out for a time in the day unit as a driver and was a valued member of the health and safety team, attending meetings and providing an essential link to volunteers and advocating for them.

Tony was a well-loved member of the volunteer family, and staff and volunteers alike miss his positive presence.

Kiwi Express SUB60
For over seven years, every week this courier company has picked up flowers donated by our wonderful florist Susan Joe from her Khandallah base and dropped them into IPU. This is their first pick up every Monday morning and the flowers are dropped off early so our volunteer florists can make up the floral displays.

They do this free of charge, as their contribution and support to Mary Potter Hospice. The admin support team whom we liaise with especially during the COVID lockdown levels are always so friendly. These flowers bring so much joy to our patients, whānau and staff.

Fundraising Awards

Ian Crabtree Charitable Trust
The first award is to the Ian Crabtree Charitable Trust. This incredible trust has been supporting the hospice since 2001, and in that time they have donated $1,240,000 to the Hospice.

Just this year they gave the largest single donation ever received by the hospice, apart from bequests or apartments donations, when they donated the lion’s share of the cost of replacing the Inpatient Unit roof.

Mike and Gay O’Sullivan
Mike is not just a donor, he served as a volunteer for 10 years doing the meal service in the inpatient unit. It was Mike’s foresight that conceived of the idea of building the apartments on the vacant site next to the hospice building.

Mike and Gay’s generosity provided the seed funding to enable the apartments to be constructed, and they are now fully rented out. The rental income helps contribute to the funding of hospice services.

Paddy Brow Charitable Trust
The Paddy Brow Charitable Trust was established by Paddy Brow prior to her death in 2006 to continue support of her favoured charities. The Trustees are her children.

Paddy was a member of the Kāpiti Hospice Appeal Committee, and personally donated $100,000 for the building of the Kāpiti Unit.  Both she and her husband Tom were cared for by Mary Potter Hospice. 

Since 2008, the Trust has donated generously to the Hospice through annual grants, and also donations for specific projects, including a grant for Te Whare Rānui. 

Judgeford Women’s Golf Group
Organised by Brenda Callear, this group has been meeting since 2007 and really know how to put the fun into fundraising. They even managed to meet and play through COVID.

Over the years they have raised an amazing $11,023.20. Included in this is a $900 contribution towards the renovation of this building.

Brenda and her team enjoy a round of golf or two at Judgeford followed by a long lunch. Brenda has had experience with Hospice and is a passionate supporter.

Health Partner Awards

Kāpiti District Nursing Service
This team was nominated by our Kāpiti community staff. The relationship between the Hospice and the District Nursing Service is collegial and respectful. The nurses talk daily to coordinate care for patients in Kāpiti.

They also meet regularly every fortnight face-to-face and always share a laugh together, which helps cements the relationship.

Cat Coogan
Cat is an Occupational Health Nurse at Wellington Hospital and has been invaluable helping Mary Potter Hospice with advice, support and information during our COVID response – and she continues to support us now. 

There have been many times when we’ve called on Cat to share her specialist knowledge to help us make the right decisions to keep our patients, staff and volunteers safe during COVID.

Long Service Awards

Each year we give out awards to staff and volunteers who have reached the milestone of working at the Hospice for 25 years.
Christine Cameron (25+ year Volunteer)
Janet Turnbull (25+ year service – staff)

Te Whetū Award

Goes to our Hospice@Home team. Enhanced Hospice@Home is a special service we provide in response to an increasing number of our patients wanting to live and die at home, surrounded by their loved ones and in a familiar environment.

While Mary Potter Hospice has always supported people to live out their lives at home, this service has enabled us to greatly extend our home visiting hours – and to provide the needed staff and equipment to fully support our patients.

Created in 2018, Enhanced Hospice@Home is not funded by Government. 100% of the cost of the programme falls on the generous Wellington community.