Governor-General Dame Patsy Reddy and Gordon Cumming at Government House.
Governor-General Dame Patsy Reddy and Gordon Cumming at Government House.
Gordon Cumming, the man behind the scenes of the Independent Collective and their beer brewing enterprise Change Maker, was given one of three awards at the Wellington Down Syndrome Association's Frances Clarke Memorial Awards yesterday at Government House.
Gordon was awarded the Outstanding Community Contribution Award, recognising his ability in helping transform the lives of people with disabilities by thinking outside the square, for his team work and determination.
Gordon believes in providing a hand up for the special needs community - not a handout.
He has been instrumental in assisting the Independence Collective develop a beer brewing micro enterprise called Change Maker based out of Kāpiti.
The Independence Collective are a group of people with intellectual disabilities who came together to create a business and become financially independent.
"For all five of us it's an incredible adventure, an amazing journey and a huge learning curve.
"Everything we do is always a learning process."
He was nominated by Neville Pugh who is part of the Wellington Down Syndrome Association and is one of the guys from the Independent Collective behind the Change Maker beer brewing success.
Cameron Stichbury, Nathan Martin, Janie Tutton and Neville Pugh are the faces behind the Independence Collective, but Gordon provides the behind the scenes support they need to run the business.
He works together with the four to make decisions on taste, branding, labelling, ordering and is often the taxi driver too.
"It's a real honour for me being nominated for the award, but it's all about those four individuals.
"It's like anything, any job is what you make of it, so this is fun [making beer] but it's also challenging."
With no business background, Gordon and his four guys are learning how to run a business as they do it.
"Everything we do is always a learning process.
"Things like doing Beervana where you have 16,000 people come through, that was tough last year, and it will be tough again this year."
The award is one of many exciting things happening for Gordon and the Independent Collective at the moment.
They have also been nominated for the Attitude Employee and Entrepreneur Award at the Attitude Awards, their beer branding by Milk has been nominated for a number of Best Design Awards, they're releasing two new products - a cider and non-alcoholic ginger beer by Good George, and are also off to Beervana next month.
"It's a really exciting time at the moment.
"This award was a total surprise, but we all loved going into Government House and meeting the Governor-General."
Governor-General Dame Patsy Reddy hosts the awards and this year they were presented by director general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield.
"Meeting Ashley Bloomfield has to be anyone's highlight in New Zealand right now.
"He's just a really chill guy and he's like a little rock star at the moment.
"He also walked away with a box of beers to try."
The awards were instituted in January 1990 in memory of a special little girl, Frances Clarke.
She was born in 1985 with Down syndrome and died four years later from leukaemia.
The other award winners were Ava Saba from Masterton in the 8-16 Year Category for her dance success, and Michael Holdsworth in the 16 and Above Category for his work in the IHC library and for continuing to excel in many areas of his life.
"The best part for all of us is the absolutely amazing individuals that we've met along the way.
