Ron Resnick of Nelson, who died in October 2010, aged 63, was a CAFCA member, and regular donor, from 1998 until his death, and for many years he had also been a regular pledger to the CAFCA/ABC Organiser Account, which provides my income. Indeed his last payment to that was made the day before he died. You can read the obituaries of him by me and Ted Howard in Watchdog 125, December 2010, http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/25/12.htm. Ron had suffered lifelong bad health but his death was still sudden – he was an active and vocal member and a regular correspondent; we had been exchanging e-mails on CAFCA business just weeks before he died, with no hint from him that anything was amiss.

Now we have learned that Ron’s generosity has extended beyond the grave. When I was trawling back through our e-mail correspondence after his death, I was startled to find the following in a May 2009 message from him:”…I've got no children and have just done my Will and left Murray's salary account and CAFCA heaps of money...” . To be perfectly honest, I didn’t take any notice of that at the time and forgot about it. Nor was I expecting him to die 18 months later. But it turns out that he was deadly serious. As a result, CAFCA and the Organiser Account have each received half of a bequest totalling $18,701.20. It’s a very precise sum, which I assume is a percentage of his estate.

The individual sums, let alone the total bequest, are easily the single biggest donations ever received by either CAFCA or the Organiser Account. From memory we have received one previous bequest and some very generous donations from living members and organisations (the biggest of which was $5,000). On behalf of both myself and CAFCA, I am deeply touched that Ron elected to include me and us in his will. Ron, wherever you are, many thanks indeed; you can rest assured that, in both cases, the money will be put to good use. The obituary by Ted Howard, a friend of Ron’s, referred to his “smug knowing grin”. Well you’re entitled to have it now, Ron, because you’ve taken our breath away by this act of posthumous generosity.