MOTAT Aviation Hall
The second edition of the Te Kiwi Māia Charity Dinner landed a fitting venue: amongst the aircraft of the MOTAT Aviation Hall.
The event is the major fundraising activity for Te Kiwi Māia (The Courageous Kiwi), a charity whose mission is to care for the wellbeing of New Zealand’s first responders, Defence Force personnel, and their families.
It's amazing, the scene was already set for us because of the aviation feel. The police were really excited when they saw the Eagle there!
Rebecca Nelson, Co-founder, Te Kiwi Māia Charitable Trust
Having outgrown their first venue, the charity opted for the MOTAT Aviation Hall when a last-minute change left them without a venue around six weeks before the event.
“MOTAT came to the party and were just amazing to work with. It holds a lot of people which is great, as we had grown to 240 guests. And it was so simple decoration-wise, all we did was organise the table centrepieces, and that was it.”
Guests were welcomed in for drinks and canapés in the first section of the aviation museum, with entertainment from the Royal New Zealand Navy Band. Then Nelson sang them through to the main area for dinner. Guests were served a three-course meal by caterers Montana Group.
“We're very lucky to have them as a sponsor, Montana's fantastic,” Nelson says. “They're so polished. They had a whole mobile kitchen out the back; they set it up amazingly.”
Given a tight timeline between the venue closing to the public at 4pm and opening for the evening function, auction items and centrepieces were brought into the venue’s Green Room from 2pm. “Then it was like, go, team go!”
The on-site AV team and additional crew were brought in to finalise the stage, lighting and sound.
“We had an auction table and also a photo wall and we used the GalaBid platform for our live, New Zealand-wide auction.”
Drag queen Anita Wigl’it, and former All Black Ian Jones did star turns as auction item presenters, and overall the event has raised $155,000 for the charity.
Guests absolutely loved it; some of them had never been in the MOTAT Aviation Hall before, so they were blown away by it. It was an incredible space to use and the communication with the venue and the staff was really good.
Rebecca Nelson, Co-founder, Te Kiwi Māia Charitable Trust
“It’s close to the city and there's so much parking, and taxis could get there easily. Plus we had the space to have first responder vehicles lined up outside, so people were hit straight away with the ‘why’.
“We're really grateful that ACVE were able to help us in that tricky situation and get it across the line. The feedback was that we upped the event from the year before, which was cool. We always want to do better. Next year we want to double it!”
