About Us

The Te Awa River Ride Charitable Trust is the home of Te Awa! The Trust is led by six Trustees along with our General Manager, all passionate Waikato locals, regular Te Awa users and are committed to realising the Te Awa vision for our Waikato community!

Te Awa began with a lofty vision of Simon Perry – now the Chair of our Te Awa River Ride Charitable Trust.

In 2008, Simon had the idea of opening up more of the Waikato River for the community to enjoy. That idea was a path linking towns in the Waikato community together alongside the Mighty Waikato – Te Awa.

So the Brian Perry Charitable Trust set about building and supporting a team to make it happen.

The first section of Te Awa was opened in Cambridge in 2009 and piece by piece further sections were opened as we sought funds to build more.

The Te Awa River Ride has been generously supported by the Waikato community and local councils of Waikato District, Hamilton City and Waipa. Of recent years we received government investment through NZTA who saw our 65km as a viable commuter link for people moving between the towns of Ngaruawahia, Hamilton and Cambridge.

The Te Awa River Ride continues to be supported by the Brian Perry Charitable Trust and an amazing group of partners below.

Meet the Team

Simon Perry

Chairman

Simon Perry is Chairman of the Brian Perry Charitable Trust, long-time supporters of Te Awa.

Simon is also chair of Hamilton company Perry Group, and loves to spend weekends and holidays riding New Zealand’s amazing trails with wife Marlene.

Alison Ewing

Trustee

Alison Ewing is a former Physiotherapist with an interest in wellbeing, the outdoors and the arts.

Her husband and children are subjected to holidays involving outdoor action and visits to art events.

Alison is interested in projects which make outdoor activities and art accessible to everyone. She is a trustee of MESH Sculpture Hamilton which raises funds for public art in the city and is looking forward to helping add art experiences to the Te Awa trail. As well as going on frequent biking missions, she is involved with Predator Free Tamahere and a local gully restoration project.

Steve Hastie

Trustee

Steve (along with wife Sally) is one of the owners and Operating Manager of Riverside Adventures – a tourism operator offering a range of experiences along Te Awa and other trails.

Steve holds an Advanced Diploma in Travel and Tourism and has travelled extensively. He has held various roles in the airline industry, but has also done everything from delivering ice sculptures in London to driving massive dump-trucks in a coal mine in Australia! He is passionate about constantly improving the products he provides and the user experience along Te Awa.

Andrew Corkill

Trustee

Andrew has a career working across local and central government and not for profit sector. A former General Manager at Sport Waikato, he is now National Partnerships Manager with Sport NZ – so comes with a wealth of knowledge of the sport and rec industry in NZ!

Andrew has three young kids who are part of the Te Awa QA program – seen regularly out on bikes or foot on their local section of Te Awa in Hamilton.

Sarah Ulmer

Trail Manager

A former competitive cyclist, Sarah is passionate about encouraging more people onto bikes through bike friendly towns and great places for communities to ride.

She is also a Board member of the NZ Cycle Trail.

Sarah is a Cambridge local of over twenty years, and a regular user of the Te Awa sections all over the Waikato.

Jennifer Palmer

General Manager

Led by its General Manager Jennifer Palmer, The Brian Perry Charitable Trust continues to provide the operational and management support to the project.

Jen is also a trustee of the Adastra Foundation, the Home of Cycling Charitable Trust, Sport Waikato and Deputy Chair of the RIDE Cycling Festival.

Originally from Ottawa, Canada, Jen is married to Craig with twin daughters. The family are passionate cyclists and you’ll often see Jen and Craig riding on Te Awa, the beautiful Waikato roads or around the Grassroots Trust velodrome!