'A substantial amount of money': Jetty fundraiser reaches its goal

All 787 planks on the restored Governors Bay jetty have now been sponsored, marking the end of an eight-year fundraising campaign.

Said Jetty Restoration Trust secretary Louisa Eades: “It’s a real honour to have them all sponsored, knowing each one is a supporter of the jetty.”

Over the past eight years, the Sponsor a Plank campaign for the Banks Peninsula jetty has raised more than $300,000.

Each donor has a plaque on their plank with a message of their choosing, many in memory of loved ones or written as notes to their children.

One long-standing Governors Bay family, the Talbots, sponsored 16 planks, with each plaque telling part of their family story.

“There’s a lot of emotion there on that jetty,” Eades said.

There are still 75 unsponsored planks on the approach to the jetty, reserved for business sponsorships.

These cost $2000 each, compared with $600 for individual planks.

The community trust rebuilt the jetty in 2023 at a cost of $3.8 million, more than a decade after it was damaged in the February 22, 2011 earthquake and closed.

The cost of the repairs was covered by $1.25m raised by the trust, a $250,000 grant from the Lotteries Commission and a $1.75m grant from the city council.

The city council sold the jetty to the trust for $1 in 2016, and in 2022 it agreed to a $1.5m loan to cover any shortfall until the remaining funds could be raised.

Once the loan is repaid, ownership will return to the council for the same price. The current loan balance sits at $265,000, plus 4% interest.

Eades said she was involved in a working bee recently when someone asked about sponsoring a plank.

“I said, ‘well, you’d better hurry up because there’s only one left’.

“As I was starting to do the tax receipts and stuff, it suddenly dawned on me, this will be the last few tax receipts I do for the sponsored planks.”

The trust will be continuing jetty timber sales and attracting donations for the remaining 75 planks.

Eades said it was bittersweet to reach the end of the campaign, which had been a cornerstone of the jetty’s fundraising for almost a decade.

The idea for the campaign came from trust member Simon Mortlock, who had seen a similar initiative using sponsored bricks at the Redcliffs Community Shed. It launched in 2017.

“A huge thanks to everyone. It goes to show how big the team effort was – hundreds of people donating a substantial amount of money,” Eades said.

“It really did make a big difference to getting the job done.”