Ian Douglas Todd
A Good Bugga – Gone But Never to be Forgotten
On Saturday, 10 August 2019 our dear friend and LANZ colleague Ian Todd, affectionately known as Toddy”, passed on.
Toddy, and his Law Partner Alan Wilson, have been members of LANZ since formation.
LANZ is an alliance of Law Firms bound by our desire to formulate and implement procurement arrangements on terms better than those that may apply if we stand alone. Foremost however we are a group of likeminded Lawyers who wish to share camaraderie, to create professional and personal relationships, to foster the desire to help each other, and to create commercial friendship.
In many cases that commercial friendship extends to personal friendship.
LANZ was made for Lawyers like Toddy and could not be what it is without the contributions that men and women like Toddy make to our alliance.
Just a few weeks before his death Peter Jefferies and I were fortunate to be able to attend a Special Sitting held at the Huntly District Court to acknowledge the significant contribution made to the law over the course of 40 years in practice by Ian Todd. We celebrated with “Toddy” and it was an absolute delight to see how chuffed he was with this personal and professional recognition. Not only that but he was genuinely warmed to see us.
Thank goodness we seized the moment to share this special time with our friend. As one does, we agreed to catch up again and to try and avoid the passing of time which overcomes us all when busy with what we often perceive to be the more important parts of our lives – the Office, mundane chores, doing the lawns, watching Coronation Street, general administration, and so on.
Only three weeks later, it was with regret and much personal sadness that we gathered again to bid farewell to our mate.
Toddy’s warmth, humor, friendliness, special ability as a raconteur, numerous times shared at Conferences, and especially his time with us in LANZ will never be forgotten.
In LANZ we have the Te Toka Koru Award – colloquially referred to as the “Good Bugga Award”. “TE TOKA” being the rock, solid and firm in its steadfastness, and “TE KORU” being an iconic symbol representing the unfolding spiral of life that unifies heaven and earth in a timeless dimension of oneness.
This Award acts as a memorial for the “Gone But Not Forgotten” and recognizes and venerates the living by acknowledging one of our Members each year as being of sufficient personal standing so as to be deserving of our recognition as one amongst us who has underpinned the camaraderie and sharing values that we treasure highly in our alliance.
Ian Todd was the recipient of the Te Toka Koru Award in 2018.
From Ian’s reaction, it was clear that the awarding of Te Toku Kora was a great personal honor recognizing the significant esteem and high regard held for him by LANZ and its members.
How fortunate we were to honor the living man - a genuine Good Bugga and an immensely proud recipient.
Allan Gallagher (Founder of Law Alliance NZ)