Tim Weir

Tim comes from a Southland farming background, growing up in a close community where life centered around family, neighbourhood, church, school and sport related activity. Having had a childhood and youth where community and voluntary organisations played such a large role, he followed his high school sweetheart Phillipa to Christchurch for university studies.

Through completing a B.Sc. majoring in Geography he was convinced of the importance of structural socio-economic and environmental influences on society. Attending Ilam Baptist, a church encouraging honest critical thought and living, gave Tim the space to think these things through from a faith perspective. His passion for social justice were deepened through a Masters in Public Health at the Otago University Christchurch School of Medicine. Through these Public Health studies Tim gained a knowledge of the wide array of not-for-profits operating in the community sector. They also embedded in him a more appreciative understanding of the meaning of the Treaty of Waitangi for all Aotearoa New Zealanders. The diversity of Tim’s studies included an internship in health promotion on a healthy housing initiative and his dissertation researching the impact of sex work law reform on Health and Safety in the Christchurch Brothel Sector. Having been taught to seek out the causes of the causes in bringing about societal transformation, he is currently working on getting an understanding of equitable sustainable economics.

Now married to Phillipa and with two pre-schoolers, they have chosen to settle in the suburb of Shirley near to Delta Community Support Trust (www.deltatrust.org.nz) where Tim has been Services Coordinator since finishing his studies in 2007. Tim is enjoying being able to live and work in the same local area, developing a renewed sense of close place-based community. He has found through having day-to-day life within walking or biking distance that work, church and going with his children to Playcentre among other things all become more interconnected and meaningful. At the same time, through Delta Trust, he is actively involved in wider Christchurch and national community and voluntary sector networks and organisations. Being appointed to the Community Sector Taskforce in August 2010 fulfills an aspiration of his to participate more directly at a national level of policy development.

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