2018 Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellows
The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Board has announced the 2018 Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellowships.
The Fellowships help New Zealanders from all walks of life to travel overseas, research topics of significance and
return with inspiration and experience that benefits their careers, communities and stakeholders.
The 16 Fellowships for 2018 cover a range of sectors including health and wellbeing issues in New Zealand such as
effective communication, better water quality, affordable housing and better service delivery. Other topics include
sport and recreation, and historical research.
The 2018 Winston Churchill McNeish Writers’ Fellowship is awarded to Mia Gaudin who will travel to Mexico and California
to research the lives of Sandra Bogart and Marion Gran for a novel that explores themes of identity, travel, feminism,
family, joy and loss. The Winston Churchill McNeish Writers’ Fellowship was established in 2012 by Sir James and Lady
McNeish to encourage promising writers and journalists to travel and live in other cultures. The awarding of the 2018
Fellowship to Ms Gaudin is particularly poignant, given Sir James’ passing in late 2016.
Trust Chair, Dr Bronwyn Smits congratulated all recipients.
“Collectively, a wealth of valuable experiences and knowledge will come back to New Zealand. We look forward to hearing
more about how their learnings will be applied for the betterment of our society,” Dr Smits said.
The Trust was established in 1965 by an Act of Parliament. The NZ Government contributed funds, but nearly five times as
much again was raised by public donation, such was the interest in memorialising Sir Winston Churchill’s legacy. The
Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Board gratefully acknowledges the patronage of the Governor- General, Her Excellency
The Right Honourable Dame Patsy Reddy, DNZM, QSO.
2018 Winston Churchill Fellowship Recipients
• Jenny Beesley (Riverton) for travel to Canada to experience the Canadian resident doctor training in wilderness and high altitude
medicine and identify what would address New Zealand needs.
• Anton Blank (Auckland) for travel to Taiwan and the United Kingdom to meet with diversity, multiculturalism and unconscious bias
experts to inform the development of resources and training for use in New Zealand.
• Richard Davies (Auckland) for travel to the United Kingdom to visit and observe general practice medical clinics providing services to
the homeless and other vulnerable groups to inform the delivery of medical services to vulnerable groups in New Zealand.
• Stuart Farrant (Wellington) for travel to Germany, Denmark, Sweden and USA to research urban water management policy, technical
innovations and funding mechanisms which have supported mitigating the environmental impacts of urban land development
to inform the management of New Zealand urban storm water to address the degradation of water quality in streams,
rivers, lakes and coastal waters.
• Ian McDonald (Auckland) for travel to the United States to study communications and operations management in the Baseball industry
to inform the development of Baseball New Zealand.
• Shona McElroy (Auckland) for travel to the USA and Canada to investigate how the latest technologies - such as augmented reality, the
internet of things and artificial intelligence - and inclusive and participatory design methodologies are being applied
to address social and environmental challenges.
• Gillian McKee (Auckland) for travel to the United Kingdom to learn from speech, language and communication professionals addressing
the speech, language and communication needs of children, adolescents and adults who are involved with care and
protection, justice, mental health or behaviour services to inform the delivery of these services in New Zealand.
• Jimmy McLauchlan (Dunedin) for travel to Sydney to study world-leading iCBT therapies and explore their possible adaptations to inform
the implementation of effective delivery of e-therapy to whānau and community mental health patients in New Zealand.
• Andrew Prescott (Whanganui) for travel to the USA, Canada, and England to look at models of care utilising paramedics in a hospital
based role to inform discussion and debate on extending the scope of paramedic roles in New Zealand.
• Ursula Rack (Christchurch) for travel to USA and United Kingdom to investigate the preservation of their Antarctic histories and
identify practices that may be utilised in Aotearoa New Zealand.
• Olivia Stapleton (Wellington) for travel to USA to research specialised mood and behaviour tracking IT applications for mobile devices
to inform the design and delivery of a mood tracking application for smart phones to help women in the NZ community with
perinatal depression.
• Carolyn Stobbs (Lower Hutt) for travel to the United Kingdom to work with a leading intellectual disability training and development
agency to gain knowledge and skills that would further develop IHC’s Community Advocacy Work Programme in New Zealand.
• Anthony Tedeschi (Wellington) for travel to the United Kingdom to undertake archival research as part of a study on the book collector
Alexander Horsburgh Turnbull (1868–1918).
• Nathan Watson (Wellington) for travel to Canada and USA to study models of prevention focused outdoor recreation (land based) public
safety to inform practice in New Zealand.
• Claire Woolley (Auckland) for travel to the USA and Canada to identify models used to deliver affordable housing outcomes for Native
Hawaiian, Native American and First Nations peoples that could be tailored for affordable housing projects for Māori in
New Zealand.
2018 Winston Churchill McNeish Writers Fellowship Recipient
• Mia Gaudin (Wellington) for travel to Mexico and California to research the lives of Sandra Bogart and Marion Gran for a novel
that explores themes of identity, travel, feminism, family, joy and loss.
More information on the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust is at:
and