BayTrust Covid 19 Update

As you will all be aware the impacts of Coronavirus are beginning to be felt far and wide and already having a significant impact on our BOP communities. 

As much as possible BayTrust wants to assure its grantees and partners that we are committed to business as usual providing appropriate support throughout this period of heightened risk and uncertainty. Our obligations to the community are that we will continue to make grants and keep within our current agreements.

BayTrust places the safety and wellbeing of its Trustees, employees, partners and community organisations as the highest priority. Monitoring advice from Government, we have decided to implement some common-sense guidelines to help mitigate the risks of COVID-19. These include:

• Suspending overseas travel for work purposes
• Restricting non-essential work travel outside the Bay of Plenty area
• Following best practice around self-isolation and safe distancing (due to either earlier travel or potential contact with someone who may be at risk)
• Being selective around attending or hosting large public hui or events
• Using video-conferencing where possible for meetings.We would encourage other organisations with public and community facing services to be implementing similar protocols, as an intentional collective commitment to reducing the possibility of COVID-19 transmission is vital to reducing its impact.

BayTrust staff have the ability to work remotely from home and are well placed to continue on in a business as usual manner.

As can be expected our investment portfolio is also experiencing significant impacts and we are working closely with our investment advisors to minimise these impacts and to also ensure we keep an eye out on opportunities when they arise. 

At this stage the impacts on our grants budget for next year is still being worked through, however there are some areas where there will be an immediate impact, primarily on our events funding, as many of these are no longer being held. We will update the community on the confirmed changes over the next few weeks.

If you have would any further information on any of the above or are significantly impacted by COVID-19 and would like to speak to a staff member, please don’t hesitate to call 07 578 6546.