Our People — Trustees, Founders & Those Who Shaped the Work

Vector Group Charitable Trust (CC45966) — trustees, founders, and people who shaped the work.

Meet the people behind Vector Group — the trustees who hold the work today, those who helped found and carry it before, and friends and collaborators we honour in memoriam. For the Trust’s story and charity details, see About.

Our team

Vector Group — direction and magnitude, together.

Current trustees

Founding and past trustees

People who held trustee office in the Vector Group lineage.

Rest in love — in memoriam

These are people we carry in our hearts — inspirations, collaborators, and legends who helped form Vector Group’s kaupapa through connection, care, and community. From the Hibiscus Coast and Pāpāmoa through Daisy’s Inc, Godfuel, Vector Group Holdings, and Te Puke connector and kai resilience work, their imprint is still here.

Trish Ives

In memoriam. Trish walked with Stephen and Tracey through the Pāpāmoa years — a decade when our family lived in that community before Te Puke. She was not a bystander to the social sector there; she was in it — the quiet fabric of connection, care, and practical help that makes a place feel like people have each other’s backs.

We still feel her influence in how we try to serve Te Puke, the Western Bay, and the wider rohe: belonging first, collaboration without show, and love that shows up as work. Thank you, Trish. We carry you with us.

Owen Mania Takuira-Ngaropo

In memoriam. Owen was the visionary gardener of The Rock Pāpāmoa Community Gardens — and meeting him in 2011 shifted Stephen’s conversation forever, in the same year Vector Group was established. The kai kaupapa did not begin that day; it reaches back before 2000 through Daisy’s Inc, Godfuel, and Vector Group Holdings. Owen gave it a living centre: soil, hands, and people feeding people.

His vision was simple and radical — a garden where whānau could gather, learn, grow food, and share with those who needed it. Belonging grew beside the kai. That spirit flowed into our food forests, Samoa install, Kai Resilience education, community fridges and freezer, pātaka kai, and youth programmes at Jellicoe and Oxford Streets. When COVID pressed hard, networks of trust Owen helped plant still fed Te Puke.

Owen, your garden is not finished. It lives on in Troppo, Grow Te Puke, Crop Swap, and every pantry we still advance. See: Aroha in Action: Our Pātaka Kai is Open. Moe mai rā.

John Stewart

In memoriam. John Stewart was Steve Fawcett’s best friend — a man who had a huge impact on Steve’s life and on Vector Group’s story. John was far superior in wisdom and mental agility than anyone Steve has ever met — the kind of mind that could open up deep conversations without ever tipping into conflict. You could go places with John that most friendships never reach. Steve misses that.

He was a true testament to someone who gave all to the homeless and those in need. John would stop for that one — the person others walked past — and meet them with the same seriousness and care he brought to everyone else. That example shaped how Steve thinks about service, presence, and who deserves dignity.

John also contributed financially to the beginnings of youth development in Te Puke, backing the work when it was still taking shape. And together they attended an Auckland spirit-possession conference that was wild in the best way — mentally, emotionally, and belief-challenging in equal measure. Insane, stretching, unforgettable: the sort of shared journey only a friendship like that could hold.

He was far too young to lose. We honour John with aroha and carry his wisdom, his stop-for-that-one heart, and his support forward in everything we do for rangatahi and for people on the margins.

Ed Pollard

In memoriam. Ed was an elder with a soft steadiness — a trustee of Youth Te Puke Trust and a voice on Vector Group’s early youth and community panel, where rangatahi, trustees, and many cultures sat at the same table. You felt he had already given decades to young people in Te Puke, and still had more to give.

His path crossed ours through CACTUS at Te Puke High School and the wider youth ecosystem — chaplaincy, mentoring, breakfasts after hard training blocks, and the simple belief that rangatahi deserve places to belong. A 2018 Community Hub letter still records that shared work.

Ed, we remember your wisdom, your calm, and your love for young people. You helped ground our mission when it was still finding its feet. Rest well.

Dahl Gurdit-Singh

In memoriam. Dahl was with us in a season of becoming — an early trustee who helped carry Vector Group through reformation and adaptation before the refreshed charitable trust deed of April 2017. Trust minutes record his resignation on 21 March 2017; the remaining trustees honoured that transition with care.

His time sat alongside the energy of CACTUS and the dreaming of The Loft youth hub — fitness, events, and practical programmes for rangatahi. He helped us reform what already existed — from Daisy’s Inc and Vector Group Holdings into the Trust we still serve under today.

Dahl, thank you for walking that bridge with us. We remember your contribution with gratitude and aroha.

Juliet Lloyd

In memoriam. Juliet journeyed alongside Vector Group for a significant season and left a lasting mark on how we think about non-violent communication with children. Her family’s generational story — raising tamariki without corporal punishment, generation after generation — stood as a living proof of what is possible when whānau choose respect, connection, and exceptional care.

We remember Juliet for that example, and for the warmth she brought to our path. Some lessons arrive as theory; hers arrived as love made practice. Thank you, Juliet.

Gillian McBride

In memoriam · 1960–2026. Gillian McBride was a beautiful soul who deeply impacted our journey — a dear friend to Stephen and Tracey. She was one of those people who made life better simply by being in it — a huge heart, love that was never complicated or measured; she just loved people, and loved them well.

If you knew Gillian, you felt it: welcome, valued, and cared for. Whether a chat, a laugh, a hug, or time together, she had a way of making people feel seen. She cared deeply about her whānau, her friends, and everyone who crossed her path — sharing her warmth freely, never expecting anything in return.

Beloved wife of Trevor; cherished mother of Karma, Sam, Grant, Grace, and Ezra; treasured Ima to Lincoln, Ida, and Otis. Forever loved, forever remembered. We smile when we think of her — the laughs, the conversations, and all the little moments that made Gillian who she was. Rest easy, beautiful lady. Thank you, Gillian, for your friendship, your kindness, and the love you shared with so many of us. Vector Group Charitable Trust — with aroha for Gillian’s whānau.

René Girard

In memoriam · 1923–2015. We never sat at René Girard’s table — yet his words sat at ours. This French theologian and anthropologist shaped Vector Group’s trust philosophy long before Te Puke, and still does.

His insight into mimetic desire and the scapegoat mechanism named something we see in communities everywhere: how fear can turn on one person to buy temporary peace — and why that cycle must be broken. He pointed us toward mercy, reconciliation, and non-violent ways of holding conflict.

We honour him by living that thread: refuse easy blame, protect the vulnerable, build belonging without sacrificing anyone. Thank you, René, for a philosophy that feels like love with its eyes open.

Vector Group Charitable Trust · CC45966 · Envisioning Sustainable Communities Creatively · Te Puke, Bay of Plenty