Why we give
NFIA Trekkers do the hard yards for QBI
Australia Patron’s Annual Walk for Charity, along the
Great Ocean Walk, raised over $125 000 to support
priority research at the Queensland Brain Institute (QBI)
at The University of Queensland (UQ).
Through the hard work of Brian Davies, a successful businessman and immediate past-president and patron of the National Fire Industry Association (NFIA), and his wife, Liz, QBI was the joint-recipient of a donation of over $250 000 in 2019.
This incredible eort was the result of the NFIA Patron’s Walk held in October, which may sound like a scenic walk in the park but Brian, Liz and seven other NFIA members spent three days enduring driving rain and winds of close to 50 knots coming straight o Antarctica.
The idea for the walk came while the couple were completing the Three Capes Walk to raise money for the Queensland Brain Institute in 2018. On that walk, Liz suggested to Brian that as the patron of the National Fire Industry Association, he could create his own patron’s walk for charity. Mr Davies believes that corporate Australia has a big responsibility to give back, which is testament to the success of the inaugural walk. The money raised was shared between the Queensland Brain Institute and the Gallipoli Medical Research Foundation.
The NFIA walk is the rst of three walks to raise money for research at QBI and GMRF, with the aim of raising $500 000 in three years. The donation from the NFIA walk will help QBI’s research into motor neurone disease, dementia, Parkinson’s disease, stroke and QBI’s Discovery Research Endowment fund, which enables fundamental research into major health issues, including depression, anxiety, PTSD and epilepsy. QBI is extremely grateful to Brian and Liz andthe NFIA team for their support in 2019.
The Stafford Fox Medical Research Foundation
has supported healthy ageing and stroke-induced dementia
research at QBI, donating $8.5M. Paul (Stafford Fox
Foundation Trustee) and his wife, Susan, visited QBI in
October, 2019, to meet with Professor Pankaj Sah
(QBI Director) and Dr Steven Zuryn and Emeritus
Professor Perry Bartlett AO (back row).
In 2019, The Stafford Fox Medical Research Foundation confirmed its continued generous support of the prestigious $2.5 million philanthropically funded international fellowship to Dr Steven Zuryn at the Queensland Brain Institute to fight stroke-induced dementia, also known as vascular dementia. The Foundation also continues to support the work of Emeritus Professor Perry Bartlett’s research into prevention of dementia in ageing by improving cognition through exercise.
The Stafford Fox Medical Research Foundation was established in 2013 following the death of Moyna Fox, and named in honour of her late husband, James Stafford Fox, a former BP Australia chief executive. Stafford and Moyna
Fox started one of Australia’s wealthiest medical research foundations after many years of careful planning, resulting in a fund worth over $100 million. It was only publicly revealed in Moyna’s will when she died in 2013, many years after her husband.
James Stafford Fox was a private person, tall, physically imposing, but without a, particularly dominant personality. He rose from a position as a junior clerk at the Port Melbourne depot of the Commonwealth Oil Refineries (COR) in 1932, to become the first Australian chief executive of BP Australia Ltd in 1971. In World War II, Stafford served in New Guinea where, in 1944, he was mentioned in despatches for bravery. He contracted malaria and spent many months recuperating in Melbourne but his military service triggered qualities of leadership and marked the beginning
of a steady rise in the business world, and of careful investment in the future. One of his first partners was John Holland, later to become Sir John Holland AC, founder of one of Australia’s great engineering and construction firms, involved in building the Snowy Mountains Scheme, Parliament House and many other projects. Stafford Fox was a colleague of Holland’s in the army in Darwin, and an early investor in Holland’s business, serving as a director for 36 years from 1949.
Stafford spent three years at the helm of BP Australia, and retired in 1974 at age 60, remaining on several boards until 1985. By 1990, he was in poor health, suffering, among other things, from dementia. He entered a nursing home and died in 1994. By that time, he had already charted the course that would lead to the establishment of the foundation. Moyna lived on Research for more than 18 years, knowing what would happen after her death, but never revealing it publicly. Eventually, she too succumbed to dementia and died in 2013. The couple, who were so careful with their money and who clearly had no desire for fame and prominence during their lifetime, will now forever be remembered for their generosity in setting up the Stafford Fox Medical Foundation.
The Foundation’s support of QBI is crucial in enabling Emeritus Professor Bartlett and Dr Steven Zuryn to continue their work in finding solutions for the growing challenge of dementia today. This cutting- edge research is helping put Queensland and Australia at the forefront of world medical research.