Why does no-one want to discuss invoices created by DVML commercial manager Guy Hedderwick on his extensive travels, except for Dunedin campaigner Bev Butler? Who signed them off? Neville Frost (DVML finance manager) and Darren Burden (ex DVML chief executive). Why is Hedderwick at Adelaide working part-time for DVML when there’s an empty, brand new multimillion-dollar stadium sinking into the mire at Dunedin? Doesn’t Hedderwick also work for the Otago Rugby Football Union (ORFU)? What’s really happening?
![Bev Butler [odt.co.nz] 2](https://dunedinstadium.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/bev-butler-odt-co-nz-2.jpg)
This morning we have seen media reaction to Bev Butler’s investigation into Guy Hedderwick’s expenses using the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act (LGOIMA) to obtain invoices —we have also seen Otago Daily Times reporting various replies it has sought from the local burghers about this.
Some invoices show stays in five-star hotel rooms costing up to US$300 per night. There is a swathe of rib-eye steaks and expensive bottles of wine attending Hedderwick’s travel across the world and domestic.
█ What did Butler say in her Media Release to upset DVML finance manager Neville Frost (ex ORFU)? Find out below.
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### ODT Online Sat, 22 Mar 2014
DVML head slams Butler’s allegations
By Chris Morris
Allegations of inappropriate spending by a former manager at Forsyth Barr Stadium have prompted an angry retort from the company running the venue. The claims came from former Stop the Stadium president Bev Butler in response to invoices and other documents released to her by Dunedin Venues Management Ltd, which runs the stadium. The material showed DVML’s former commercial manager, Guy Hedderwick, had accrued nearly $80,000 in travel costs and expenses while taking 51 work-related trips since 2010.
Read more
### ODT Online Sat, 22 Mar 2014
Company threatening to charge for OIA answers
By Chris Morris
The company running Dunedin’s Forsyth Barr Stadium is threatening to charge for future responses to official information requests after being inundated with questions from stadium critic Bev Butler. The move by Dunedin Venues Management Ltd was immediately slammed by Ms Butler yesterday, who said it was ”an attempt to keep me off their trail”.
Read more
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█ MEDIA RELEASE Sunday 23 March 2014
By Bev Butler
MONEY FOR JAM…..FIG JAM
Ratepayers of Dunedin will once again be amazed with the news that they have paid over $80,000 for the activities of the “departed” commercial manager of DVML, Guy Hedderwick, to travel the world leading the life of Riley with little noticeable benefit.
Readers of some newspapers will have learned recently that Dunedin Venues Management Ltd (DVML), the Dunedin City Council owned company that runs the stadium, paid out over $54,000 in entitlements to former chief executive David Davies when he returned to Wales, and just on $30,000 when CEO Darren Burden left to run the Christchurch stadium after a year’s work with DVML. The amounts and details of any “entitlements” paid to DVML’s commercial manager were refused on the basis of Mr Hedderwick’s privacy after the DVML board chairman, Canterbury resident, Sir John Hansen was advised by DVML staff that Mr Hedderwick’s privacy outweighed public interest.
While these details remain hidden, what has surfaced is just what it has cost Dunedin ratepayers to keep Mr Hedderwick in the manner to which he clearly has become accustomed.
Mr Hedderwick left Dunedin around August of 2013 to pursue a role with DVML in Adelaide similar to the one he had in Dunedin; with arrangements in place that see DVML continuing to employ Mr Hedderwick and meet his expenses while he pursues his role of attracting acts and sponsors to the stadium. His efforts have been almost totally in vain. The only act to appear at the stadium since Mr Hedderwick has been living in Adelaide has been an Australian based franchised Abba look-alike band, Bjorn Again, who in their previous visit to Dunedin appeared at the Regent Theatre. The act attracted 3500 people to the stadium. It was reported at the time that while a similar event the year before had attracted twice this number, DVML were “pleased” at this response. The rationale for this pleasure is hard to fathom.
But the cost of Mr Hedderwick’s “work” has been, in contrast to his work achievements, simply staggering. The facts behind Mr Hedderwick’s spending have been revealed after constant requests for information by Bev Butler to Neville Frost, financial manager of DVML. The information has had to be teased out over a significant period of time, but now is starting to be revealed in some sunlight.
Mr Hedderwick’s travel, in his quest for acts and sponsors for the stadium, has taken him to:
● Italy
● Singapore
● USA
● Brisbane
● Gold Coast
● Sydney
● Melbourne
● Adelaide
● Auckland
● Wellington
● Christchurch
● Napier
● New Plymouth
● Rotorua
● Hamilton
The vast number of these visits has been listed as “seeking potential sponsors”. Sufficient to say that few new sponsors for the stadium have been notified by DVML or DCC. Mr Hedderwick also seems keen on attending “conferences” around the world. There is no indication or record of any significant contributions that Mr Hedderwick has made to such conferences, nor of any benefit whatsoever to DVML for such attendances.
But it is in Mr Hedderwick’s spending that some light shines upon what appears to be a lavish lifestyle endorsed and approved by Mr Neville Frost and Mr Darren Burden. It is neither reasonable nor justifiable for expenditure down to chewing gum and shaving gear at one end of the spending paradigm, to the luxury of five-star hotels and pursuit of fine wines – an interest of Mr Hedderwick according to his Facebook page* – that really takes the cake.
Mr Hedderwick has visited many of the above destinations on several occasions. The list supplied by Mr Frost for Mr Hedderwick’s travel outside Dunedin numbers 55 trips. However, there appear to be numerous invoices missing from the almost 300 invoices already supplied. Some invoices are for trips not actually listed; and some invoices are for five-star hotel bills (including The Hilton, The Sheraton, and Radisson Resort Gold Coast for as much as $US300 per night in some instances) and rental cars, but no flights to get to the destination. Yet other invoices include expensive meals, blocks of chocolate, boy’s t-shirts, hat and gloves.
With the recent Dunedin City Council announcement of a review of the governance and management of DVML, it would well be advised, in the interests of Dunedin ratepayers, for the council to include a full investigation of all the DVML finances especially the excessive personal expenditure of the DVML management.
Contact for further information:
Bev Butler
Ph (03) 477 6861
[ends]
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*The Facebook page is in dispute, only because Neville Frost went to the wrong page. We refer our readers to Hedderwick’s recent writing (February 2014) for International Association of Venue Managers (IAVM):
### venuenet.iavm.org Mon, Feb 10, 2014 07:15 PM
I am number 9344728427550
By Guy Hedderwick, AEVP
I am number 9344728427550 or at least that is what my loyalty rewards card at my local food store says I am. I presume that large scale food stores issue customers with loyalty cards so they can reward them for their loyalty. I also imagine that it is a great way to collect buying habit information of individual customers so they can target them with relevant advertising, know exactly what products customers buy, when they buy them, monitor their buying patterns and treat them as individuals. […] We live in a small village outside Adelaide […] I am a Million dollar customer […] I wonder how I would be treated as a million dollar customer if I walked into your business.
Venues, along with their teams and ticket providers, have huge amounts of personal data and should understand the emotional reasons guest [sic] attend their events. I don’t really expect my local food store to know me by name, but I do expect to be treated with the dignity “my spend” should demand. There is a huge discussion about big data and the use thereof. How understanding buying patterns and buyer behaviour can be used to sell tickets, merchandise, seat upgrade and improve the customer experience. […] People no longer buy products or services, they buy experiences. We sell the live experience but we need to understand people’s motivations for coming, their behaviours and touch points in order to make the experience truly personal. Then I will happily part with my hard earned dollars. At the end of the day, entertainment and sport (along with good wine) is what makes life worth living.
I am not number 9344728427550, I am Guy Hedderwick and I want to feel like a million dollar customer.
Read full article
● Guy Hedderwick at LinkdIn
● Guy Hedderwick at Twitter @GuyHedd
● Guy Hedderwick (GuyHedd) at Facebook
█ Guy Hedderwick is now General Manager of Arena Stadium Management Pty Ltd (ASM). He took up the appointment at the privately owned Adelaide Arena in 2013. ASM is Adelaide Arena’s new management company formed by joint owners Scouts Stadium Incorporated and Savethearena Pty Ltd. (Link)
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Related Post and Comments:
5.3.14 Stadium: Mayor Cull stuck in his rut, ‘going forward’
4.3.14 Bev Butler: Guy Hedderwick’s departure package (LGOIMA)
24.1.14 Stadium: It came to pass… [stadium review]
30.11.13 DVML in disarray
14.11.11 DVML, Guy, wth ?
26.9.11 Donations – the quest for clarification
26.9.11 Private sector funding (donations) to stadium construction
12.9.11 Stadium: Private sector funding
9.2.11 DCC and DCHL, was there ever any doubt?
5.11.10 International connections
16.2.10 Owing $45.5 million in private sector funding
5.2.10 Commercial manager Guy Hedderwick on stadium sponsorship
For more, enter *dvml*, *hedderwick*, *burden*, *davies*, or *stadium* in the search box at right.
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
What if? Dunedin... 
Comments in reply to today’s ODT news, copied from Bev Butler: Guy Hedderwick’s departure package (LGOIMA):
Anonymous
March 22, 2014 at 10:18 am
DVML appears to have had a certain spokesperson for the naughty team advising on how to bully into submission those who question them. Another prime example of the boys have been gaming the system since this whole fugly movement infected local organisations like DCC and ORC.
All the above tells me is DVML has an awful lot to hide and Bev is on the right track. If the politics keep getting hotter it might not be possible for even the good old ODT to run interference.
****
Hype O’Thermia
March 22, 2014 at 11:53 am
Anonymous – DVML has a lot to hide or (alt.explanation) has its income and expenditure bills and receipts arranged in shoe boxes and a couple of supermarket bags. Being unable to readily extract the info B Butler asks for is a symptom of endemic shambles / worse. If people come to the conclusion that the true answer is “worse” is that’s Bev’s fault?
****
Mike [reply to Hype O’Thermia]
March 22, 2014 at 1:04 pm
I think that “has a lot to hide” probably nails it – they’re losing millions of dollars more than the projected budget made by basically the same group of people (Burden/Hedderwick et al) when he worked for CST. It must be obvious to them why there’s a difference but they seem unable or unwilling to share it with us …. maybe all these junkets to the US to go to visit other people’s stadiums cost more than they’d originally budgeted for.
Invoice for “boy’s t-shirts”. I knew a woman who in her early 20s was so slim she bought kids’ clothes for herself because they fitted well and were cheaper than adult versions of the same thing. Mr Hedderwick’s exhausting travel and energetic pursuit of sponsors must have been dangerous to his health. To go from the bloated-looking chubby-chops in his photos, to needing boys’ sizes in clothing is quite shocking.
Wonderfully glib, Hype O’Thermia. As always.
You are a treasure.
I loved Hype’s post too. Very funny. Humour in the form of satire is powerful.
Good satire, Hype. More, please.
I still can’t fathom why DVML would pay for someone to be their agent in Adelaide (rather than say Melbourne or Sydney), it’s a nice place, but not exactly the centre of Aussie entertainment – maybe they were paying him to be there because he wants to be there for his own reasons (rather than DVML’s), or maybe they just wanted him to be as far away as possible – I can’t think of any obvious business reason for them to have an Adelaide agent.
I would note however that I’m pretty sure that Hedderwick was in charge of the whole private fundraising thing, where they took out a giant $50m loan and then funneled money from the luxury seating in the stadium to pay it off – now it would seem (as Bev told us a week or so ago) that this money that Hedderwick raised that was supposed to fund the stadium’s capital cost is now going to fund DVML’s day to day operations, including his own round the world junkets.
Great comment, Mike.
The DCC from top down better be reading this and linked threads.
More to come.
The IVAM comment by Guy Hedderwick, reprinted here, speaks volumes about Hedderwick the Man. We get an insight into his twisted, self-absorbed values,subsequently reflected in his actions as Commercial Manager of DVML.
He talks bullshit and so he lives it. It is all about me, me, me. Americans would call him a jerk. But he is worse than that.
The ODT know his background. David Loughrey, a few years ago, was allowed to background his career in South Africa….all accessible on the internet. His subsequent employment by Farry says a lot. He was obviously considered ideal for the job here!
That is why these kind of people seem to land on their feet, irrespective of the damage they create.
It takes good people to stand up and get rid of them.
Gidday,Liz. Long time no sea,but just checked your sight.That Guy guy is a bit of a rooster,aint he.Burns a bit of doh rooting out contacts and guess he feels shagged at enda day and wants 5 star hotels and a few bottles of good plonk. Beer drinker meself.
I like a guy who says on the house but not fuckin mine.
Gus, straight onto it mate. Let’s have you here when Hedderwick’s back in town. Last time he came over looked after his pal from Adelaide Terry Davies (got top job at stadium) doing recce before he starts the job. Stay tuned.
Thanks Liz. Love to meet Guy and Terry if they is keen. Geez. Both in Adelaide. What a coincidence. Probably bumped into each other in rundle mall. Great place in town to meat people.
Wonder if guy can give terry some tips on getting more events to come to the stadium.
General Manager at Adelaide Arena
Bonzer. News of Hedderwick’s (other) position at Adelaide is found at his Facebook page under Employment – (currently) “General Manager, Adelaide Arena”. He has been living and working in Adelaide for around 6-7 months.
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█ Properly, Guy Hedderwick is General Manager of Arena Stadium Management Pty Ltd. (Adelaide Arena)
I found a PDF online that confirms this:
Click to access Agenda%20-%20Asset%20Management%20Committee%20-%2021%20October%202013-1.pdf
City of Charles Sturt (CCS), Adelaide
Agenda for the meeting of the Asset Management Committee held on Monday 21 October 2013
[page 86] CCS Commercial and Other Property Portfolio:-
Arena Stadium Management Pty Ltd (“ASM” -Adelaide Arena new management company formed by joint owners Scouts Stadium Incorporated and Savethearena Pty Ltd) and Toogood Reserve, Beverley:
A meeting was held with the newly appointed Mr Guy Hedderwick, General Manager and Council’s Manager Open Space, Recreation and Property and Property Liaison Officer on 5 September 2013. Further discussions are ongoing to resolve terms and conditions for a proposed new Licence Agreement based on Toogood Reserve use only by Arena visitors with no Council maintenance to be undertaken on the external grounds areas of the Adelaide Arena.
Tips? Yeah right, Gus.
How long can Hedderwick stay in his ‘part-time’ DVML job at Adders, given he’s ‘part’ of the stadium review the DCC’s doing now, if not ‘part’ of ORFU.
Can’t tell me DVML can afford his Pinot for no return any longer.
Although, it might be that our turkey Mayor Dave Cull has dropped a line into a summary for the Council’s annual plan to keep Hedderwick in the manner he’s become accustomed, you’ll love it — “The level of ratepayer funding established in the 2013/14 Annual Plan of $9.125 million for the 2014/15 year remains in the draft budgets. Options for providing additional ratepayer funding will be presented to the Council at the same time as the review.”
You see the problem Gus. Dunedin people are NEVER going to get off the hook for that stadium. Because we have dullard slobs like Hedderwick (he knows the stadium will never work but hey it’s fun to use those DVML credit cards in the meantime) — or Cull (a toy for the Tartan Mafia to get rich off public funds) that thinks he can make that bloody stadium “work”.
It will never happen even by bleeding dry every individual in town along with their cat and dog. Grand Theft, Serious Fraud, Gus. What do you get for that if these sods go before the Bench ?
Well done Bev, get the DIA to investigate the double dipping by Hedderwick.
If the DIA come out with the right answer then great, if not it will be three strikes against the DIA and perhaps we will get someone in there with teeth.
”Ms Butler’s personal and ill-informed attacks on members of our company are disgraceful and speak to her complete lack of personal integrity,” he said in the statement.
Barnaby is right in his opinion at ODT Online. DVML finance manager Neville Frost, in his position of the organisation, wrote the above in a statement and a lawyer should be offering their support and services to Bev Butler to a seek a defamation case.
Clearly people who are heads of these Dunedin organisations believe it appropriate to bully those who seek answers and transparency. It is time they faced the consequences of their flawed position towards those whose right it is to ask questions. On the matter of personal integrity, there should not be one consideration for Laurie Mains and another for everyone else.
Barnaby’s comment:
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/296085/dvml-head-slams-butlers-allegations#comment-54816
”Ms Butler’s personal and ill-informed attacks on members of our company are disgraceful and speak to her complete lack of personal integrity”
The unfortunate Neville Frost can’t tell Bev Butler from his own reflection. It must make shaving very difficult.
He also has difficulty telling his gob from his arsehole.
A clue, Nev: the one closest to one’s feet is generally regarded as the appropriate orifice for shit to come out of. To be on the safe side wipe both carefully.
And don’t kiss anyone who isn’t kinky that way.
Quite clearly when someone puts personal effects like t shirts, shaving gear and chewing gum on the company credit card, something is very wrong.
I am not interested in the DVML CEO Mark 3 left to sort things out.
Sorry DCC and DCHL l am expecting something from you. You know what to do. Act.
Neville Frost has said Hedderwick used two DVML-supplied credit cards. The invoices show four credit cards used. What now, Neville?
Given Frost and Burden’s no questions asked authorisation of Hedderwick’s liberal use of the credit cards,one might question their own use. After all, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander(s).
Or is this too going to be left to private citizens to ask?
Another question. Why was the appointment of a new DVML CEO left till after the stadium review? Do we take it
that the so-called restructuring is a once over lightly affair? What if it is considered wiser to bring DVMLinhouse? Do we then have to pay Davies out? We can no longer have this outlaw outfit operating as an untouchable entity. This is a sham anyhow as the council set up the DVML cesspit itself. The same goes for the CST cesspit. Look at where these cesspits have taken us.
Yes Peter, everything leads back to Dunedin City Council – and the fact it, the council, must be shut down and commissioners brought in.
Each day that DCC operates means more and more ratepayer dollars that go to DCC’s unauthorised and authorised spending — see poor public consultation methods exemplified by lack of detailed budget information to back DCC’s pre-planned and perverse directions. Classic tick-box corruption lacking any fiduciary duty as required under the LGA. What does it mean to be conservative and prudent with public funds? The DCC has no idea what that question means yet it has a legal obligation to exactly know that and BE that.
The “stadium project” is clearly NOT the council’s conservative and prudent use of public funds. With the draft Annual Plan the council has signalled it intends to bring MORE ratepayer funding to the stadium.
This is downright THEFT from The People.
Elizabeth, until the government amend legislation to avoid ratepayers being responsible for any or all excesses by councils, there will be no commissioner appointed. The DCC is amoral and profligate, but the system is geared to higher pay for executives, more staff and higher costs to be met by the ratepayer. Even if interest rates rise as they must inevitably, all new Zealand property owners and renters will be forced to pay for any excesses.
The only solution is a ratepayer revolt in a large city.
“The only solution is a ratepayer revolt in a large city.”
Don’t I know it, John.
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My comment as yet unpublished at ODT Online:
White collar crime at a council near you
new
Submitted by ej kerr on Mon, 24/03/2014 – 7:08pm.
The old pre-election frights to beneficiaries is predictable. The majority of unemployment beneficiaries live unsafely below the breadline while they’re registered job seekers. They must make reasonable efforts to find paid work and this is individually monitored. Chances are people find themselves genuinely unable to find paid work at various times across their adult lives, and many have no ability to accrue savings when in work to cover downtime. The reasons are multiple – the government of any day is well briefed to know cause and effect. All beneficiaries are taxpayers.
What is reprehensible about New Zealand are the extraordinary levels of white collar crime that exist (not restricted to the rash of bad, merciless and failed finance companies surfaced in the news).
Very often the fraud, corruption and laundering is perpetrated by ‘white collar’ Local Bodies with exceedingly poor governance (see district, city and regional councils, their companies and trading organisations, their delegated off-shoot project trusts, and assortments of strategically aligned legal entities and individuals). Vast amounts of ratepayer funds are deliberately funnelled away to failed and poorly planned/managed projects at the behest of private interests on the take. Providing full transparency and accountability to ratepayers and the general public is deliberately shunned by elected, salaried, contracted and volunteer officials – against statutory and legal requirements of the Local Government Act and the Companies Act. This financial drain on The People is not remedied by current legislative amendments or enforcement.
Central government (for political and financial reasons) fails to clean up, depose and prosecute the Local Bodies through its so-called ‘public good’ agencies and departments. The cost of Local Body white collar crime, numbering in the hundreds of millions of dollars, to the affected regions if not all New Zealanders is an outrage. Unfortunately, the massive financial losses are treated as defensible, and forgettable, by those in power.
The only road for correction is legal action taken by strong ratepayer and resident associations that makes white collar officials and their effrontery answerable to the High Court. Of course, adopting the legal journey further gouges the pockets of ethically-minded and dutiful citizens severally wronged.
The apparently fair and reasonable pay structure that recognises extra responsibility is a classic example of good intentions that were not, before implementation, checked against the “Unintended Consequences” filter.
As John P. Evans says, “the system is geared to higher pay for executives, more staff and higher costs” and geared for each and every person to add extra underlings, because the more people report to him the higher rank and salary scale he achieves. This works all the way up the line, that person’s direct superior officer also then benefits from the larger department under her control, and so on and on. This is why the rational, prudent, conscientious drive to reduce staff numbers first takes out the lowest ranked, the ones who do the hands-on cleaning, maintenance, the small mending and improving that makes the city work for us pot-hole dodgers, ducking under overhanging trees, watching the rainwater flow past the grating blocked with leaves and paper and cardboard waste till it flows onto our paths.
Are the higher paid having another meeting about where to place an “art” work we can live without, are they at a sustainability hui? Do we know, do we care, do we think that’s value for our money? Do we heck!
Won’t be long before managers of various DCC companies start blaming their forgetfulness on a combination of sleeping pills and energy drinks. Works for the All Blacks so why not all other rugby organisations. Personally I don’t buy into their latest crock of shit that two rugby heads conveniently can’t remember anything, and that would have been no excuse if someone came forward with an assault or rape charge. Another example of the attitudes that the Dunedin City Council and now the Otago University are so keen to be associated with.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/all-blacks/9861937/Cory-Janes-World-Cup-drug-use-scary
If the thugby twits suffered memory loss due to binging, boot them off the team. Easy.
Ditto DCC, UoO. Gone by lunchtime. Safer Communities Together.
Thank you Elizabeth. Put well and to the point. When will folk wake up to the local body corruption? It is as if the local politicians and ‘business’ people can get away with anything because everybody thinks politics is just national, when in fact it’s also at the local level that inequality is being massively perpetuated.