April
27th.
The Willows Cricket Club under the guidance of Judge John
Hansen and Mike Dormer organised a wonderful Dinner and Auction evening on April
2nd at the Christchurch Casino to raise money for Mark’s trust.
The event had John Morrison as the host, Belinda Colling,
Jeremy Coney and myself as speakers relating humorous or embarrassing moments
from our sports careers.
Belinda was wonderful and outlined how she did not think
anything was embarrassing, however a number of things might well be funny and
all were opportunities to learn a little more about oneself or other people.
It was a great insight into Belinda and she impressed
everybody with her honesty, humour and ability to communicate with others.
An impressive young lady – no doubts.
I have heard Jerry talk often – in fact he talks far too
much – but I have to say this was one of his very best performances.
How he made his failure to swim across a 10-metre pool while at primary
school sound so funny had to be heard to be believed.
He had the teacher diving in to save him – quite
unnecessarily he suggested – and how he saved his dignity with his peers was
incredibly imaginative to say the least.
His talent as a speaker is rare and if you have the chance
to listen to him it is an opportunity you should not miss.
The auction followed the speakers and the available items
were incredible – all Mike Dormers doing.
There was huge interest in Colin Mead’s All Black jersey,
a Don Bradman cricket book signed by him, Shaun Pollock’s ODI shirt,
Tendulkar’s Cricket shirt and many other items.
I have never seen such a display of valuable cricket items
before. Mike did an amazing job of
encouraging all sorts of people to provide these articles – and we thank all
of them very much.
Mark’s brother Tim was showing interest in a number of
items – which would have amused Mark – but was unsuccessful, much to his
mother and father’s relief.
Judge John and Mike Dormer handed to the Murray Parker
(Marks father) a cheque for $40,000 – a fantastic effort.
The Trust’s thanks also goes to the Christchurch Casino
who provided the facility and the dinner as part of their contribution to the
Trust.
Other trust related activities coming up is the Masters
Games that are based in Timaru each year will have the Mark Parker Memorial
Trust as the recipient Trust for funds raised and the Trust thanks them very
much for their efforts.
We are still in negotiations with the University of Otago
about a scholarship partnership and hopefully we will have more news on that
front over the next month or two.
The Trust apologises for not having this aspect tidied up
and for not having made any scholarship grants at this stage but will continue
talks with the University and attempt to raise more funds and will make public
the successful recipients as soon as appropriate.
The trust is due to meet (by teleconference) over the next
month and will let you know relevant decisions that result from that meeting.
Hope the year is going well for you and thanks for your support.
The Trust has had a slightly quieter month after the hectic
action of the last few months.
The trustees have had a meeting and are delighted to report
we have approx $85K in the fund with prospects of another 10K to come from the
auction in Winchester and perhaps 5K from the cricket weekend in Timaru.
Over Labour weekend a cricket tournament was held with the
beneficiaries being South Canterbury Cricket Association and our Trust.
The weather wasn’t that kind but all seemed to enjoy the
weekend.
The funniest story from the weekend might have been that
after a heavy night of frivolity and the auction, a senior member of the
visiting Onslow club decided very responsibly to take a taxi back to his hotel.
In jumped four of the visitors and just after getting
comfortable the taxis stopped and when asked why the driver replied that they
had arrived – about 50 metres from where they had spent most of the evening.
The saddest story is that the chief organiser of the
weekend and South Canterbury cricketing employee and true cricketing stalwart,
Graeme Blanchard had a brain haemorrhage on the Tuesday evening.
Blanch is in Christchurch hospital in a critical situation.
Blanch has done wonderful things for cricket in the area
and is well known around the country for being inventive and a massive lover of
and worker for cricket.
Everone who knows him will be sending all the best vibes
possible.
The four teams that played in the tournament were Otago,
Onslow, South Canterbury and a North Canterbury team.
The speakers at the dinner were Glenn Turner, Anton Oliver,
Anna Rowberry and John Morrison was the MC.
Many thanks to them all for giving up their time – very
much appreciated.
The relationship between the Trust and the University of Otago is developing well and we should have more information about a possible relationship in the next newsletter – we hope!
The cricket in Winchester was a great success with a lot of
people meeting and sharing stories and tales of life and life with (or without)
Mark.
The Sunday of English Bank holiday was spent playing
6-a-side at the St Cross Cricket Club’s ground.
The ground actually has two grounds divided by a hedge
which was continually over hit by those young man and women who took part in the
tournament.
In the end teams had to be balloted out, as there was not
enough places for all those teams that wanted to play.
Everybody that was there knew Mark and all said the same
supportive things about Mark.
I had a great chat to the Groundsman who had been at the St
Cross Club for many years and he told me how he thought Mark was the best player
to come to the club and perhaps the league. He also said how Mark always had time to talk to people and
how he loved talking to Mark about pitches, grounds and cricket in general.
So typical of Mark to have time for everyone else.
On the Monday the 11-a-side game (New Zealand V England)
was played at the local Winchester College Ground, which was the home ground for
the Nawab of Pataudi, Douglas Jardine and other great English players.
It is a fantastic ground and something New Zealand does not
have in any great numbers. The
pitch was great and very flat and while the ground had the inevitable English
slope it was very smooth and reasonably fast.
The Pavilion was magnificent for a college and had great sized dressing
rooms and plenty of room for meals for the players and associated staff.
Something that very few 1st Class grounds in NZ have, much less Colleges.
In England they still play a lot of club level one day
games where the team batting first bats for as long as they wish and the second
side tries (or doesn’t) to get the runs required.
NZ batted first and Tim (Mark’s younger brother) opened with another of Marks friend’s
- our team was made up mainly of Marks friend’s all of
whom were not feeling that great after a few big nights.
We ended up making 260 something with Tim batting very well
for 67, Murray playing as he used to (well nearly) making 50 something not out
and myself making 57. (I think Mark
and his Nanna were looking after us).
The English team was the St Cross first team minus the
Onslow players (2) who were playing for us.
We declared for 5 wickets and had faced 62 overs.
St Cross then batted and were 18 short and 8 wickets down
when time ran out. We bowled 52
overs plus 32 wides which probably best sums up our bowling effort.
By the end of the game we had 5 ‘movers’ in the field with the rest
of us imitating traffic policeman.
We did have St Cross 60 odd for 5, which was a mixture of
good luck on our part and dreadful bad luck on theirs.
The trophy was presented to the NZ side mainly because we
had travelled the greater distances.
On the Sunday night an auction was held where approximately
£5K was raised from the auctioning of sporting gear kindly supplied by people
like Anton Oliver, Simon Mailing, Glenn Turner, the Hurricanes, Chiefs, Blues,
Highlanders and Crusaders Super 12 Rugby Franchises. Stephen Fleming had also given a number of items for auction
as had English Soccer clubs and other groups.
The Trust is very grateful to all those people and
organisations who generously gave items to support the Trust.
A wonderful effort by all concerned with about 100 of Marks
friends coming down from London (a number are now a lot poorer) and some
travelling from New Zealand, which was a wonderful effort and greatly
appreciated by Murray, Verna and family.
While the weekend was tough for Mark’s family, it will be
incredibly important for them all in years to come as they will be able to
include more of Mark’s life in their discussions and thoughts now that they
have experienced where he was and meet more of his friends.
Another fundraising ‘activity’ that some of Marks
friends have completed was a running race that friends could ‘bet’ on as to
who would come first second third and fourth and what times they would run for
400m.
Apparently there were plenty of laughs and ‘Emma’ won
and donated her £250 to the trust and so £750 was raised.
Between now and the next newsletter the MPM Trust will hold
a meeting and so we will be able to bring you more accurately up to date with
how much the Trust has raised and how the Scholarships process is proceeding.
Thanks for visiting the site.
Over the last month the Trust has had more offers of
cricket matches to raise money for the Trust, which is all very supportive,
thoughtful and overwhelming.
There appears to be an opportunity for a game in
Christchurch with a dinner afterwards where items might be auctioned.
All very much in the early stages yet and will keep you
updated with progress.
Murray, Verna, Tim, Katherine and myself are heading away
to Winchester (UK) to take part in 2 days of cricket (organised by Mark’s
Club) that will enable us to meet more of Marks friends and see where he played
his cricket and is another stage of putting all of Marks puzzle together.
In Winchester there appears to be one sacred ground where
it is difficult to play games of cricket but for these days the ground has been
made available.
Matt Perry-Lewis (Mark’s captain) and his team of helpers
are doing a fine job and seem to have most things in place.
We are taking over a load of sporting items to be auctioned
including one of Anton’s All Black jerseys and some All Black gear from Simon
Mailing, plus Highlanders, Hurricanes, Crusaders and Chiefs Super 12 gear,
various items of clothing of Stephen Fleming’s and some America’s Cup
memorabilia.
Huge thanks to all who have kindly donated items.
The Events will be as outline in Newsletter 1 below with
the major functions being a 6-a-side on Bank Holiday Sunday and the Invitational
game (11 a side) on the Monday with the Auction Dinner on the Sunday night.
A special mention should be made of one of the Trustees of
the Trust, Anna Rowberry for her and her teams wonderful performance in winning
the World Netball Championships in Jamaica.
Netball is good viewing and with great skills on show it really was tense
and exciting. I don’t think there
is any game like Netball for keeping the viewers tense and on the edge of their
seat.
Anna’s family have been long time friend of Marks family
with Brenda (also an International Netballer) going to The School of Physical
Education at Otago University with Murray and Verna.
The Trust’s relationship with Unicol at the University of
Otago is still very positive and will update you all when we hear more.
While all we hear about in the news is bad things, there
are a lot of good people out there doing a lot of great things for other people
and the members of the MPMTrust are very thankful to all those who have
supported the objectives of the Trust.
We will continue to keep you all updated with progress with the next newsletter focusing on how the cricket match went and how life will have confirmed once again that while mentally we might know more about cricket than when we played – the body will have an all impacting say as to whether we can do what we want!
July
2003.
June and early July have seen a bit of activity within the trust with Mark’s mates having had a very successful Ball that raised $5.400 for the Trust.
The place was sold out and everyone had a great time apparently and a big thanks to Sam Howard and his team for their efforts – I am sure Mark would have been sour at not being there!
Tim Parker won the major prize of a Sky Dive which has yet to be taken up!!!!
Mark’s sister Sarah and Daisy’s efforts in the London Marathon look like raising about $22,000 plus (depending on currency fluctuations) – again a fantastic effort from them.
The August cricket match is looming in Winchester and everything seems to be in place for that occasion.
I do not know what Murray is doing in preparation for his cricketing rebirth but I (John Parker) am certainly leaving nothing to chance and doing know practice at all in case I waste a good shot knowing I haven’t got many left!
A short newsletter this time the next one will be longer I promise.
June
2003.
Welcome to the first newsletter and to the web site of Marks Memorial Trust.
Through this newsletter process we will attempt to keep you up to date with the activities of the Trust so that you have the satisfaction of knowing that at least something positive is happening.
Speaking of positive:
Sunday
24th August
The Sunday will be a 6 a side tournament played by 12
teams. It will be
group stages and then qualifiers for the semi's and
then the final. in total
There will be 25 games - so plenty of cricket to be
played by all!
We have a marquee booked for the day that will serve
refreshments
throughout. The catering will be provided by Greens
wine bar (which is the
bar that we all drink in town). They are very used to catering for
'Occasions ‘ so we are delighted that they are going
to help out. At the
moment it appears that it will be easier to hold a BBQ
and this will run
from the afternoon all the way through to the evening.
Once the final has finished there will be an auction held in the marquee.
Business sponsors are being identified and approached
at this very
moment.
Celebration and laughter will go on into the night!!
Monday 25th August
Will be an all day game played at the Winchester
college ground starting at
11.00. The teams will be a NZ select XI vs. St. Cross
to be captained by
John and myself.
The Queen inn will be providing the food for the day,
which is located just
next to the ground. It will be open all day/evening to
provide drinks for us
all.
At this stage it is proposed that most of the funds
raised for the day will go towards Marks Trust fund.
·
Sam Howard and team are organising a ‘Ball’ in
Taupo (NZ – 1st June 5pm Taupo Yacht Club) to raise funds for the
Trust. They are expecting a full
house of 200 people and tickets are going out as we speak. The demand is excellent and confident of a good night.
If interested Sam’s email is Sam.Howard@fnzc.co.nz
for two reasons one is tickets are going quickly and it is nearly June 1.
·
Onslow Cricket Club raised about $3000.00 from an
auction, which went to the Trust fund. Well
done to them.
·
Vic Brown and team raised $10,000 plus for the trust
with the ‘Walk with the All Blacks’ in Timaru.
Fantastic effort Browny and thanks to Anton, Simon Maling and Tony Brown
for being present and all those Timaru businesses that supported the day -
fantastic.
·
Trustees are about to visit/approach local trusts for
donations.
·
Local business people (local meaning all over NZ) will
be approached in the hope of assisting with the funding.
·
Discussions are taking place with Otago University
(Unicol) about links between the Trust and the University re scholarships.
Will keep you up to date with those discussions.
We will be setting up a section where Marks friends can
keep in contact with each other as well as any messages or details of upcoming
events whether they relate to the trust or not. We hope this will develop into a point where you know Marks
mates will go if they want to tell everyone about something or contact someone.
This will probably work with you entering information online which will then be
posted to a message board available for anyone to view.
It could also contain facts of when you are all away or on holiday and
contact details if appropriate. More
on that later when it is all set up.
That is all for No1.