The Waikato-Bay of Plenty Harness Racing Club have welcomed the addition of local businessman Trevor Follows to their committee.
Follows was elected to the committee at the club’s recent Annual General Meeting and Cambridge Raceway chief executive Dave Branch is delighted to have someone of Follows’ experience join the club’s leadership team.
“I am pleased to welcome Trevor to the committee,” Branch said. “His substantial governance and business experience will be a great asset to the club.”
Follows has spent more than a decade in governance roles in a regional and national level and he believes the skills he attained in those roles will benefit the club.
“I have been going down to Cambridge Raceway for a few years on a Thursday night. I am interested and thought I had the skills that could be useful to the club, so I put my name forward,” he said.
“I am originally a farmer, I still have a dairy farm over in Matamata. I was in business in Hamilton for 20 years running service stations.
“From a governance point of view, I was on the board of directors of the New Zealand Automobile Association for 12 years and the last three years I was their national president.
“I am currently a trustee on Trust Waikato.”
Follows said he became interested in harness racing after he followed the urgings of friend, and club Vice President, John Coulam in attending a race meeting at Cambridge Raceway.
“My next door neighbour used to be John Coulam,” Follows said. “I have known him for a while and he just said to me why don’t I come down to harness racing on a Thursday night, and it all grew from there.
“The facilities there are excellent. It’s a nice, enjoyable night out there, you can have dinner and a couple of drinks and it’s a nice atmosphere.”
Follows became a frequent attendee from thereon in and was eventually convinced by Coulam to enter into the ownership ranks after previously dabbling in racing thorougbreds.
“It started off just going down there and enjoying the evening and then John convinced us to go into some syndicates, so currently we are in a number of syndicates with a lot of other people,” he said.
Follows is looking forward to his new role with the club and is excited about contributing to the strategic development and direction of Cambridge Raceway.
“I think it is an interesting time for the club. There are a lot of interesting things happening there at the present moment, such as amalgamations,” he said.
“I would just like to see the club get stronger. There are a lot of challenges out there and I think they have got a good club and they have got a good organisation.” – Cambridge Raceway
