Last month we held our AGM for 2021 and it was great to see so many of our supporters from the community turn up to hear what’s been happening with the Trust this past year. The 2021 year was a year of growth, with multiple trails in various stages of development, and new partnerships forged as we work to expand the trail network in and around Queenstown. During the 2020/21 year, the trails saw 285,858 users hit the Great Ride, which equates to nearly 1.1 million journeys across the network!
It was fantastic to see our collab with the QMTBC come to fruition with the opening of the Hot Rod trail pre-winter. This trail saw over 12,000 descents in its first few months, and we look forward to future collaborations with the QMTBC. We were stoked to progress construction on the 56km Coronet Loop trail, which is due to open in early 2022. We were over the moon to have consent granted for the new trail extension from Arrowtown to Arthurs’ Point and are currently in the planning phase with construction to begin later this summer.
We experienced some significant weather events that resulted in damage to our trails. We are indebted to MBIE for their ‘Extreme Event’ fund which enables us to apply for funding to get these damaged sections fixed as soon as possible. We are also grateful for the ongoing support from QLDC which allowed us to leverage MBIE co-funding of over $225,000 for trail maintenance projects this year.
There were a couple of changes within the Board of Trustees, with Lindsay Williams stepping down after serving 9 years, and sadly the passing of Sir Eion Edgar. As such, we are in the process of recruiting two new Trustees. We were humbled by the continued generosity of the Edgar family as they requested donations to the Trust in lieu of flowers in memory of Sir Eion. This generated over $68,000 in donations which will directly support our ongoing trail maintenance and development.
Our annual Friends of the Trust campaign was a huge success, raising over $148,000. It is heartening to see the growing recognition and appreciation from our community and supporters. We welcomed some new Major Donors, including Pak ‘n Save Queenstown, SkyCity Queenstown, and the Morgridge Family Foundation, as well as new lifetime members Helen & Barry Pannett, and Peter Thompson. We also acknowledged a number of local businesses, our event partners, and our most generous landowners, for their ongoing support. It is due to all this support that we are able to expand and enhance the world-class status of the Queenstown Trail network.
You can read the full report and draft minutes here.
If you enjoy our trails and would like to help us build more, please show your support by becoming a Friend of the Queenstown Trails Trust today. All donations go back into making Queenstown's trails even greater.
