Guy Ryan

 
Guest Speaker at our meeting on Tuesday evening at Remuera Golf Club was Guy Ryan.
 
Guy was Young New Zealand of the year in 2015 and is the CEO of the Inspiring Stories Trust.
 
Guy gave us a little of his background. He comes from Granity on the West Coast. He commented that growing up on the West Coast was character building, something seconded by past president Brian McMath himself a coaster. He then attended Otago University fully partaking in the social activities that were available at that institution.
It seems he was a bit of a tear away! Guy was one of half a dozen students at his high school who went to university from an initial starting group of 120.
 
As Guy progressed through the University he started to wonder if there was more to life than simply getting pissed at the weekend. By the time Guy graduated he had reformed to become a doer and a bit of an idealist. In his last year University he made a film “carving the future” about young New Zealanders concerned with climate change. That film became a finalist in the BBC best newcomer award in the European wild screen film Festival and was named best short film at the Colorado film Festival.
 
Leaving university guy founded the Inspiring Stories Trust which provides opportunities and advice to budding young entrepreneurs in New Zealand. Guy is in effect at the forefront of social entrepreneurship.
The inspiring stories trust has dealt with about 5000 young New Zealanders through partnerships, programs and workshops with the intention of realising the full potential of those people so that they can help change the world.

The trusts programs include Festival for the future, the accelerator program, the live the dream program and a new program for young people in provincial New Zealand. The last program has been set up as Guy saw a gap that rural youth were falling into. Most of not all of the programs targeted at young people focus on those in urban environments leaving youth in the rural environment to fend for themselves.
 
Consequently programs being set up in the West Coast, the East Coast Bay of Plenty and in the far North.
 
The inspiring stories trust does not come cheap. When it started in 2011 it was 100% grant funded. In 2014 one third of its turnover came from grants the rest came from ticket sales and events and the remainder came through partnerships with various entities including Akina, KPMG various councils and tertiary institutions and the Ministry of youth development.
 
In 2015 the Ministry of Youth Development committed $500,000 to the trust as a one-off grant.
 
This ground has now come to an end so Guy is out there looking or funding again. As well as grants the trust has set up Inspiring Speakers a boutique speakers bureau giving access to event organisers to the top young achievers who can speak it conferences and events and graduation ceremonies. The booking fee for these people provides a source of income for Inspiring Stories Trust.
Another source of incom Minnelli for the Trust is millennial talent a speciali recruitment agency that helps business find and place top talent. The fee for successful placements again goes to the inspiring stories trust to help with funding it.
 
Finally the other program that helps fund the inspiring stories trust is Inner Creative Works which works with organisations to provide strategy and creative services. Again these generated go to support the trust.
 
Guys address showed how creative the youth of New Zealand are and how indeed they are helping themselves including get funding to assist them achieve their goals.
 
Guy has done a lot to foster that talent and hopefully will continue to do so.