Tuesday, September 18, 2007

BUDDLE FINDLAY TAKES TOP PRIZE

Buddle Findlay has won the 2007 National Business Review Awards for Sponsorship of the Arts. The Prime Minster, Rt. Hon. Helen Clark, presented the Overall Winner prize to the law firm at a black tie gala last Wednesday night.

Bookman Beattie apologises for not getting this posted sooner, but it is such great news for the literary community that it is still worth posting at this late stage.

Sargeson Trust
Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellowship

“The Sargeson Centre is almost a story-book fantasy of a writer’s garret. Climbing the wooden steps to the doorway is like physically entering your imagination. Time here doesn’t exist. Hours and days and months go by and the only marker is the changing colour of the Virginia creeper that frames the window. Mid-morning, sunlight shines through the vine leaves...so intensely that they glow. The day ends, and it’s been lived in a haze...in this magical solitude that makes the writing possible.”
Emily Perkins Fellowship Diary 2006 (Emily Perkins, right)

Now in its tenth year the Sargeson Trust has provided accommodation and stipends for twenty New Zealand writers including Catherine Chidgey, Kapka Kassabova, Charlotte Grimshaw, Chad Taylor and Toa Fraser.

The Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellowship is a national literary fellowship offered annually in partnership with The Frank Sargeson Trust. The fellowship provides the opportunity each year for an outstanding published New Zealand writer to write full-time in residence at the Sargeson Centre in Princes St adjacent to Albert Park with an annual stipend of $40,000.

Michael Dineen of Buddle Findlay describes their association with the Trust as having “delivered dividends for all involved not only the writers, poets and playwrights but also the Trustees, Buddle Findlay partners, clients and suppliers.

We are also proud that the Prime Minister, Helen Clark has described it as “a model corporate sponsorship of the arts”

The long term commitment to the Sargeson Fellowship has brought a number of business benefits to the firm.

It has increased the firm’s brand awareness and national profile with a programme of publicity and marketing activities throughout the year. This has generated a constant flow of positive media coverage and publicity from past and present authors, their publications and successes.

This has enhanced Buddle Findlay’s reputation with clients, students and law graduates, and the business community as a whole, positively associating Buddle Findlay as a supporter of the arts.

Authors as they mature and continue to write and publish new material with leading international publishers such as Penguin and Random House also provided the opportunity to place the Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellowship brand on these books as a stamp of approval, highlighting their Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellowship “status”

A related benefit has been that they have become a major sponsor of the Auckland Writers & Readers Festival which also raises the profile of the firm as a top tier law firm in Auckland

Association with the Trust and the university has provided an exclusive setting for entertaining clients at special occasions such as the Government House receptions (hosted by the Governor-General) and the Buddle Findlay events associated with the Auckland Writers & Readers Festival


Pic left shows Gordon McLauchlan, Barbara Clarke, Kevin Ireland and Shonma Koea celebrating the anniversary of Buddle Finlay's sponsorship
Christine Cole Catley the of Chair, Sargeson Trust says of the Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellowship,

It is the most sought after and talked about. Certainly we have been emulated by others seeking to assist the arts. The Buddle Findlay-Sargeson Trust partnership is acknowledged both as continuing to set an example and to lead in the undoubted environmental changes now under way, the exciting new ways of looking at and acknowledging the importance of the arts".

Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellows

2006 Emily Perkins
2005 Fiona Samuel, Peter Cox
2004 Karyn Hay, Craig Marriner
2003 Toa Fraser, Debra Daley
2002 Riemke Ensing, Denis Baker
2001 Vivienne Plumb, Chad Taylor
2000 Sue Reidy, James Brown, Charlotte Grimshaw
1999 Tina Shaw, Kapka Kassabova
1998 Catherine Chidgey, Sarah Quigley
1997 Shonagh Koea, Diane Brown

Sponsorship Value
$100,000 – Exclusive of time invested by partners, support and marketing staff

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