Putting a stake in the future here

Originally published in The Coromandel Informer, Tuesday, 20 January 2026.

When you live on the Coromandel, you can get to know some remarkably inspiring characters with fascinating life stories, who are future oriented and working generously in their communities.

One of them is Geoff Balme, pictured above, who is now a ‘Fund Champion’ for the Mercury Bay Future Fund initiated by Peter Farmer in partnership with the Momentum Waikato Community Foundation.

As a local chartered accountant, Geoff is a strong supporter of Peter and Momentum’s efforts to attract donations and ‘gifts in Wills’ to the endowment funds they’ve set up for the Coromandel. From the outset of this project reported in The Informer over recent months, Geoff’s thoughtful passion and commitment to the future of Whitianga has been to the fore.

Geoff is also an accomplished and enthusiastic luger, and the Informer talked to him soon after his return from attending meetings in Europe as Treasurer of the International Luge Federation (more on that later).

His daughter Amy is now running his Accountancy by Design business, so Geoff and his wife Debbie are able to put more time into community projects and the future of this place they call home - it is what motivates them every day.

Limited future for towns relying only on taxes and rates

When recently listening to Mike Hosking’s radio show, Geoff heard a guest commenting on local government reform and the proposed doing away of regional councils. As an accountant, Geoff is wired to query how the possible cost savings can be achieved without losing the quality of civic service in a remote location like Mercury Bay, pictured below.

The unnerving news for Geoff was that by 2040 the amount of tax the Government will collect will only be sufficient to pay for the nation’s health and pension bills.

“The sobering future is that there won’t be enough tax or rates revenue to pay for the community services we rely on,“ says Geoff.

“What we don’t already receive from local and central government, now comes from community groups, and their membership is getting older, they are not renewing themselves.

“The costs of essential services will keep rising and everything non-essential, that provides our quality of lifestyle, will have to come from elsewhere, and 2040 is not far away!

“With that economic outlook, I ask myself how are we going to pay for the services we value, that build communities, that attract people to come and live here and invest in a future for those coming after them, that make for a healthy and productive lifestyle?”

Which is why Geoff is supporting Momentum Waikato’s Coromandel Future Funds - because it makes it easier for you and your family to leave a lasting legacy that supports our local communities.

Six Coromandel Future Funds have been set up. Five mapped as per the Council’s Wards - Thames, Whangamatā, Tairua-Pāuanui, Mercury Bay and Coromandel-Colville - and one to cover the whole Peninsula.

If you want to know more about contributing to these Funds, or setting up your own ‘Named Fund’ to support local charities, please contact Geoff via gbalme@xtra.co.nz.

Off to Canada and into the Olympics

Here’s Geoff Balme’s story in his own words…

“I have always chosen service. When I left school, I loved hockey, so became treasurer of the local hockey club.

“Then I left New Zealand for Canada in the 1980s, as I got a job working for Price Waterhouse in Calgary, the home of the 1988 Olympic Winter Games. A work colleague was related to a champion luge rider, and he came looking for volunteers for the luge organising team, so I got involved, four years before the Games.

“They started building a luge track, so being part of that forward planning and loving winter sports, I decided to compete, but I didn’t make it.

“I continued being a luge volunteer after the Games, and in 1989 I entered in the World Luge Championships in Germany.

“We came back to New Zealand after that, and I bought some large sleds with me and started a ‘Luges on Wheels’ programme.

“That’s what we used to do in the summertime when I was living in Canada. We would take the runners off the blade base of the sleds and put wheels on. We would ride down the hills on sleds.

“We tried this in New Zealand and the popularity and expertise grew. We had a girl from Hamilton represent New Zealand in the 1999 and 2002 Olympics, the only Olympian in luge we have ever had at the main Games. That was a huge achievement, but ‘Luges on Wheels’ was not sustainable.

“About that time we were regularly going to the South Island, as we were keen on the winter sports. We had a mutual friend near Arrowtown who had moved from the Waikato to the Maniototo, as it is the ‘Centre of Curling’. 

“By then I was involved with the New Zealand Olympic Committee, and the curling guys told me that Naseby hosts New Zealand‘s sole natural ice luge track, the only one in the Southern Hemisphere.

“They were excited about a new idea – a curling rink at Naseby. So we did that, and opened the Southern Hemisphere’s only dedicated, year-round, international-standard indoor curling rink there.

“In 2012, the International Olympic Committee started the Winter Youth Olympics. A boy from Dunedin went to that first one in Austria, in 2020 a boy from Wanaka and a girl from Dunedin went to Switzerland, and in 2024 we had a girl from Naseby compete.

“There is a boy, Luka, from Christchurch, with family in Naseby, who goes over each winter and coaches in a programme run by the International Luge Association.

“I am Treasurer of the International Luge Federation, it is great to see the sport develop here and be involved internationally.”