Christchurch Black Tie Charity Evening

Third time’s the charm: Christchurch Black Tie Charity Evening fundraising for Nurse Maude Hospice set sights on being bigger in October 2015

Tickets now available at www.nursemaudeblacktie.co.nz for this major event planned by Hospice New Zealand and business group BNI NZ

Christchurch – Monday August 10th, 2015– Tickets are now on sale for the Nurse Maude Black Tie Charity Evening taking place at the Rydges Latimer Square on October 10th 2015. It is the third year the event has taken place and organisers expect this year’s entertaining, fine dining, fundraising festivities will be bigger and better than ever. Last year over $18,000 was raised.

Event co-organiser and one of the Christchurch Director Consultants for BNI NZ, Alison Poulter, says the fundraiser has fast become a major event on the Christchurch calendar and hopes are high for this year’s night to raise a record amount. “I think realistically the venue can hold about 250 and if we can get close to that I’ll be very happy,” Alison says. “As for the amount that could be raised, that depends on who the spenders are in the room and what we secure as auction items – I’d like to see over $25,000.”

Alison says local businesses have been very generous with donations of goods and services to be auctioned in the past and her team are working hard on getting big ticket items for the night.

Who is MC for the night?

The MC is Brendan Reilly, who did the first event in 2013. He has connections at RadioWorks working at The Breeze and is a tutor for CPIT Broadcasting School. Alison notes his great personality and experience will be the perfect fit for leading the night.

Who is the auctioneer?

Mark O’Loughlin has been with the event from the start. He knows Brendan well and together they have an entertaining banter.

Last year’s event raised more than $18,000 for Nurse Maude Hospice. Sue Bramwell, the General Manager of Marketing at Nurse Maude, says the significant donations raised by BNI NZ add considerably to the organisation’s other fundraising efforts, supporting the Nurse Maude Hospice to provide hospice palliative care and support free of charge to patients and their families in the Canterbury region.

“Our partnership with BNI NZ has been enormously successful over the years,” Sue says. “This has become formalised with our signature fundraising event the Nurse Maude Black Tie Charity evening and the exceptional result in years past is due to the huge effort BNI NZ committed to this event.”

Graham Southwell, National Director for BNI NZ, says the collaborative event will come to be seen as a great example of a strategic relationship between a business and a community organisation. “We will have more announcements on partners on board for this event - so the event is going to be unique in that it is an example of co-operation between a number of businesses all coming together to put on an event for the Christchurch hospice," Southwell notes.

As in previous years a number of other businesses will provide an exceptional array of goods and services to be auctioned on the night. Tickets for the fine dining fundraiser are now available at www.nursemaudeblacktie.co.nz

About BNI

BNI New Zealand, established in 1999, is the country’s largest structured business networking organisation for small to medium businesses. With over 2,600 members and 120 groups around the country, from January 2014-2015 locally these groups generated over $69 million in business.

As a business community, BNI helps create business opportunities through a structured system of referrals and reciprocity, based on trust and giving. Business owners from all types of industries (only one trade representative per group) meet weekly. They build sustainable relationships with other businesses, develop new networks and take BNI’s underlying philosophy of ‘Givers Gain’ to grow their businesses. www.bni.co.nz

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