The NTCA (Northland Tree Climber's Association) will have (grey with black lettering) Agathis Fund tee shirts available for sale ($35.00) at the Pakaraka Tree Climbers Gathering this weekend. All funds raised will go towards the fund.
The Agathis Fund is an NTCA initiative, administered by Joe Cooper and Troy Alderton. All money contributed to the Agathis Fund is held in trust by the NTCA. The fund is designed to be accessible to all members of the New Zealand tree climbing community not just NTCA members.
Here's a hypothetical example showing how the Agathis Fund might be able to help. Let's say a Christchurch tree climber is critically injured and needs to be flown to Auckland for specialist care. No problem, everything is covered by ACC. But what about his family, who might want to be close to their loved one in his hour of need. They want to get to Auckland too, but cannot afford the flights - enter the Agathis Fund!
We are sure you can all think of times (some recently) where the tree climbing community wanted to show 'it cared' but a facility was not in place to manage fund raising in a timely manner as proposed by the NTCA with the Agathis Fund.
This is a fantastic scheme and shows real community, self-help initiative by the NTCA - make sure you are wearing one of the Agathis Fund tee shirts sometime soon.
Rossy Ross from Pro Climb with assistance from Drew Bristow of DB Tree will also conduct the ever popular "Rigging with the Port-A-Wrap' workshop at the Pakaraka Gathering. The workshop fee is $40 and all proceeds will go into the Agathis Fund, thanks to Drew and Rossy!
As an ongoing fundraiser the NTCA has Agathis Fund chainsaw lanyards for sale through reputable arb retailers nationwide with all proceeds going towards the cause. The Agathis Fund lanyards are a distinctive purple color - if you have one on your harness everyone will know you have contributed to the fund!