Tony Draaijer - President 2023 - 2024

Tony was born in the Netherlands and emigrated to New Zealand with his parents when he was four years old. The trip to New Zealand was on a KLM Super Constellation and the journey took four days. The last lap, from Sydney to Auckland was on a Solent Flying Boat which took off from Ruby Bay in Sydney and landed in Mechanics Bay, Auckland.

Tony continues his story ....

My parents and I settled in Whakatane, where I attended St Joseph's Convent School and Whakatane District High School. I trained as a Teacher at Ardmore Teachers College in 1965 and 1966 and after graduation I first taught at Thornton Primary School near Whakatane. This was the year when New Zealand changed to decimal currency so I taught pounds, shillings and pence until 10 July and then decimal currency for the rest of the year.

After three years at Otonga School in Rotorua, I moved to Cromwell where I taught across the school in the primary and secondary departments, for three years. I met and married Ruth there and in 1973 we moved to Lower Hutt. I had ten amazing years there, first as a senior teacher at Hutt Intermediate School, then two years seconded to Wellington Teachers College, and then an incredible year as acting Deputy and Principal of Taita Intermediate School.

At the end of that magical ten years, now with a family of three children, we moved to Nelson where I was Deputy Principal for four years and Principal for the following eight. I next established a private, Independent Middle School in 1999 and ran this successfully for the following ten years. On retirement I relieved, as Principal, at eleven schools across the top of the South and finally retired in 2020. What originally was intended to be a three year stay in Nelson, we have settled here for just over 40 years.

The Stoke Tahunanui Men's Probus Club was founded in the year the Draaijers hit town! 1984 was certainly a great year!

In 2015 Tony joined the club as it was transitioning from Probus to Friendship. He  vowed to avoid becoming involved in the administration of the club, a situation that lasted until 2023. The rest is history.

Tony has an eclectic resume of interests and hobbies, ranging from sailing to building, electronics to board games. He has dabbled with golf and tramped a few hills. He follows politics with a passion and recons he has the answer to all that ails us!

"It has been a privilege to serve as President," he concludes. "This is certainly the type of environment I enjoy, and want to be involved in.