AI Chat Search Browse Media On This Day Map Quotations Timeline Research Free Datasets Remembered About Contact

Final signature ends HERO Festival for good

Thu 14 Jan 2010 In: New Zealand Daily News View at NDHA

"At 3:40pm on Tuesday 12 January 2010, at a meeting with fellow former Trustee Richard Kittelty, and in the presence of the solicitor, I had the honour to make the final signature to wrap-up HERO, after a brilliant near-20 year service by HERO and all its supporters to the wider New Zealand gay community," Auckland's HERO Festival's final standing Trustee Mike Binis tells GayNZ.com. The decision to wrap-up Auckland's long-running HERO Festival came at a public meeting of LGBT community stakeholders in March 2009. The remaining $5,620 in the HERO Trust bank account has been given to the AIDS Memorial Quilt Project. This week's signature brings to an end several months of locating and running HERO's Charitable Trust documents through a solicitor. Binis explains the delay: "Nothing could be confirmed until the last of the government required documents for 'wrapping up' a charitable trust had been officially signed. These documents could not be signed until after the finances were dispersed in accordance with the trust criteria and government guidelines, and these actions then verified and signed off by a solicitor. None of this could happen without all the listed Trustees signing off in witness of the solicitor, and then these forms submitted by the solicitor for the final closing documents to be issued back to the Trust via the solicitor. "Coordinating the procurement of these documents and their signing in the presence of the solicitor, with the busy schedules of the last two remaining volunteer Trustees, simultaneously, was a big task," he adds. 'AN ICONIC ERA' ENDS Binis says he's glad in some respects that it took so long for the wheels of red-tape to delay the inevitable. "It allowed the aura of negativity to fade away from a phenomenon that was essentially the most positive movement of gay visibility in New Zealand, and I'm proud to have been a part of it. "At the same time, I am unbelievably relieved to see that it is put to rest peacefully, and finally, and that no-one can harp on any band-wagon regarding HERO anymore. It deserves respect and appreciation, not only for the horizons it paved for the young members of our community who haven't had to deal with the persecution of the time, but also for the founders and those at the leading edge of HERO who took a great chance in New Zealand, and created an iconic era that should never be forgotten." All of the remaining HERO documents will be offered to The Gay   

Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News Staff

First published: Thursday, 14th January 2010 - 10:45am

Rights Information

This page displays a version of a GayNZ.com article that was automatically harvested before the website closed. All of the formatting and images have been removed and some text content may not have been fully captured correctly. The article is provided here for personal research and review and does not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of PrideNZ.com. If you have queries or concerns about this article please email us