John McArthur has devoted his life to volunteering. "I've always had this feeling that if you enjoy doing something, you've got an obligation to share it," says the 72-year-old.
A passionate yachtie for more than 30 years, Mr McArthur gave his free time to teach kids to sail
and for the past four years has been volunteering at the New Zealand National Maritime Museum in the Viaduct Harbour.
He takes the bus from his home in Whangaparaoa twice a week to take school groups out in the museum's scow the Ted Ashby.
"John's just an out-of-the-top-drawer reliable crew member," says the museum's volunteer co-ordinator Richard Pomoroy. "He's always cheerful and he loves to yarn."
Mr McArthur has also volunteered at the Hibiscus Coast Hospice for 10 years, where he does handyman work and writes "life stories".
"We go in with a tape deck and just get them to talk," he says. "They have something they can present to their families to be remembered by, but more importantly, it's a very good therapeutic tool."
The father of six, grandfather of 13 and great-grandfather of one began his life of volunteering as a Catholic missionary in Papua New Guinea in the early 1960s. On his return to New Zealand he set up the Catholic Overseas Volunteer Service.
In the 1970s, Mr McArthur organised parish sponsorship of refugees, whom he helped find accommodation and employment.
In 1984 he took a stand against the Muldoon Government's wage freeze. Mr McArthur, who ran a clock business, thought it "grossly unfair" he was not allowed to pay his workers more, so decided to defy the ruling.
"The Labour Department descended on me like a ton of bricks," he says. "But I refused to buckle."
Within a month, Mr Muldoon had called a snap election and "the whole thing turned to custard, so I got away with it!"
"I did it purely because I felt it was such an injustice," he says.
