An unofficial straw poll conducted at Tuesday evening’s meeting about selling the Raglan Trust Hospital saw 50 hands go up supporting the sale. Earlier the meeting had started in an overfull room at the Community House. As people were standing outside in the cold, it was then decided to move the meeting to the Raglan Club so the attendees migrated there.
Chair Peter Storey started the meeting by saying that the Trust was of one mind and had decided to sell Raglan Hospital. He said that the sole purpose of the meeting was to tell the community of this decision. While many people at the meeting spoke in favour of retaining ownership of the hospital, the majority appeared to support selling it.
Barry Ashby asked for a show of hands for people wanting to work towards keeping the hospital. About eight people volunteered, but Peter Storey said the Board was full apart from a missing iwi representative. One person volunteered for that role. Bill Ringer said that the meeting was emotionally charged and people should stick to the facts and not do anything in a hurry. Ted Glyn said he would like to see the facts on paper. One person said that Mr Kennedy an original trustee had said that if it is sold it is gone for good. Rodger Gallagher pointed out that another safeguard would be inclusion of a buy back clause in the sale agreement so if the new owner does wish to sell the property in future that the Trust has the first opportunity to buy it back.
Fred Gilbert spoke in favour of selling the hospital and recounted his experiences as Chairman carrying out maintenance work on the building. At the end of his speech there was considerable applause.
Another person queried the Board on the fund that would be setup with the proceeds of the sale. Norris Peart said that the Board had not yet considered that, but it would keep some of the investment to build the fund and preserve it against inflation. Apart from that it could be available for uses such as subsidising people staying at the hospital.