In loving memory of Grahame Maher, who passed suddenly and unexpectedly. His loss has been tremendous for many people from many countries of the globe and of course especially for us his family. 

This is a collection of the various notices, readings, events, projects and even Foundations established in his honor which are continuing to make him proud with their work & efforts.  

Grahame Kenneth Maher was born on 7th July 1959 and tragically passed away on 2nd Nov, 2010.  Unexpectedly, after just celebrating his 28th wedding anniversary with his wife, Jenny and proudly excited about recent news of his daughters engagement, Grahame spent his last few days, with the love of his life by his side and taking the time to tell the people who meant the most to him, just how much he loved them. 

Suffering what by all accounts was a "incredibly minor and fortunately just a nasty scare", Grahame had been in the hospital for several days prior to his death. Joking, posing and formulating plans so he could get to the Grand Prix and get around the doctors restrictions on flying straight after his discharge. Yet even just the few days Grahame had in the hospital was limiting enough to imagine just how hard he would have struggled had he been forced to slow down by old age or physical disabilities.

He loved, lived and enjoyed every minute of his life genuinely and just before he left, he was in high spirits telling all those who meant the world to him just how much he loved them. 

As his eldest daughter, and as my Mum still refuses out of principle about using any kind of social media, I am trying to ensure this can provide a collection of the "official" details I guess..    And further to this, to provide a link and record of this stuff not only for Mum and also for our family and future generations to come....             

Thanks for the extended well wishes, Mum, Kate & I, along with so many others, are looking out for each other and hanging in there!!

    Cheers,
                                                            Jess Maher
                                                        jess@assistnz.com 

Remembering Grahame Maher on what would have been his 52nd birthday... <3

posted 8 Jul 2011, 12:07 by Unknown user


Multimedia from around the world on the 7.7.11 & the first of what was Dad's birthday for us all :(

posted 8 Jul 2011, 06:05 by Jess Maher   [ updated 7 Aug 2011, 13:19 ]





" I hear him saying "Thanks have your tears but build that bridge and move on."   I'm trying.   
He left us so many wonderful  memories and demonstrated how to have balance in our lives."

-MAYSIE OLIVER (MAHER)

The Grahame Maher Award

posted 7 Jul 2011, 23:53 by Jess Maher   [ updated 8 Jul 2011, 10:31 by Unknown user ]


Vodafone

World of Difference

The

Grahame Maher

Award

Picture (Device Independent Bitmap)

Introducing the Grahame Maher Award

Celebrating Grahame’s achievements

On 2 November 2010, Grahame Maher, CEO of Vodafone Qatar and the man who spearheaded the launch of the Vodafone World of Difference programme nine years ago, passed away. This award is a tribute to truly inspirational man who was committed to making the world a better place. He changed the lives of everyone he met and this award offers you the chance to do the same.

Today Vodafone is proud to unveil the World of  Difference Grahame Maher Award, in memory of Grahame – an inspirational leader and champion of our

World of Difference programme.

The award offers one previous World of Difference winner the chance to win £ 100, 000 for their charity which they can utilize to develop and implement a project that engenders change. Change that is sustainable and has a lasting impact on their charity and the community around it.

Key Dates

7  July 2011 – Launch of Grahame Maher Award

2 November 2011 – Final judging in Qatar

3 November 2011 – Winner Announced

Eligibility

The award is open to anyone who has completed their World of Difference placement in any country where the programme is operating.

To learn more on the Grahame Maher Award visit

http://www.vodafone.com.qa/gmaward

Or our Facebook Page

http://www.facebook.com/VFQABETTERWORLD

http://www.vodafone.com.qa/go/en/aboutus/betterworld/gmawards

       
Picture (Device Independent Bitmap)       
       








Talking about Dad on the front page of the paper...

posted 21 Jun 2011, 23:33 by Jess Maher

Fighting cyber bullies 

CATHERINE HEALY
Last updated 10:37 21/06/2011
Cyber bullying
CATHERINE HEALY/Western Leader
SPEAK OUT: Jess Maher is trying to change people's attitudes to cyberbullying through her charity Sweet As Social Media.

The death of her father got Jess Maher looking into the darker side of social media.

Miss Maher became frustrated at not being able to control the online profile of her late dad, former Vodafone chief executive Grahame Maher.

She soon became interested in what people's rights are online.

"I realised that we don't have any digital rights. After I reported dad's death to Facebook and memorialised his page, they deleted every post he'd ever made."

Now the 27-year-old Massey resident is trying to help young people combat cyberbullying through her charity Sweet As Social Media.

"John Key has said that schools need to fight bullying. But schools can only help between 9am and 3pm. What about outside of those hours?" she says.

Kelston Boys High School principal Brian Evans says schools do their utmost to prevent all forms of bullying including making regular checks on Facebook and Youtube.

"But when it comes down to contact between individuals it's difficult to control," he says.

Miss Maher says young people spend a large proportion of their time in the digital world talking to each other by text messages or on the internet.

The bad behaviour that might once have occurred face to face is happening online or by text.

Miss Maher says parents who are not IT savvy may have no idea what their children are doing. She wants people to start taking what happens in the digital world seriously.

"Our attitudes need to change – we need to educate people. I think we need to teach kids about good behaviour online. When a child records a fight between two children and puts it on the internet, we ask why they were fighting. We should also ask `why did a child think it was okay to record it and put it online?"'

Miss Maher is using the places young people gather outside of school hours, such as Zeal recreation centre in Henderson, to get her message out.

Sweet As Social Media set up a You Tube booth at Massey Community House last month.

The idea was to give young people who don't have access to the internet at home the chance to record their thoughts about preventing cyberbullying and put their videos online.

The charity is also creating a free online magazine that will give parents information about how they can protect their children from cyberbullying and encourage good behaviour online.

"We're going to have a launch event on July 7, which would have been dad's birthday.

"I want to create something positive. Dad was all over Facebook so if we can get some learnings out of his death, that's great."

Martin Cocker is executive director of Netsafe, which hosts New Zealand's Cyberbullying Taskforce – made up of school, business, parent and telecommunications representatives.

He says people who have not been exposed to cyberbullying struggle to understand why it's so disturbing.

"In the past, if you were bullied on the school bus you could get off the school bus and feel safe. Now, if the bullying is happening via your cellphone or online it can be relentless.

"You might say `why not turn the phone off?' But for many people these days that's how you keep in touch with your social network. And no one wants to be disconnected from their friends."

See www.netsafe.org.nz or www.sweetassocialmedia.com for more information on how to combat cyberbullying.

- Western Leader

Sponsored links

2 comments
Post a comment
25 year old power lifter   #2   11:55 pm Jun 21 2011

You are wasting your time, you can't control peoples interaction with each other without implementing censorship. You wouldn't want to be responsible for that. Anon would be angry.

Yvonne Godfrey   #1   03:29 pm Jun 21 2011

Well done Jess! You are filling a huge integrity gap that is being created online. Keep up the great work!

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Traces of Dad linger on YouTube as far as I can find them...

posted 9 Jun 2011, 05:58 by Jess Maher



If you know of a video that should be added to this playlist, please email me jess@assistnz.com 



Below is video from the various boat launches I have done on the anniversary of Dad's every month... 


Grahame Maher Charitable Fund, Qatar, Middle East- Rachael Mayo-Smith

posted 9 Jun 2011, 05:55 by Jess Maher




The text from the image above has also been pasted below: 


 

 http://www.vodafone.com.qa/go/en/aboutus/vodafone-foundation/grahamecharity

Grahame Maher Charitable Fund
 

Grahame Maher was the CEO of Vodafone Qatar, but much more than that, he was an inspirational man, a great coach and mentor, and above all a good friend.  Grahame himself made a difference to the lives of everyone he touched.

 
Grahame passed away on 2 November 2010 and we all miss his inspiration and vision, his passion and energy for life, and his love for all the people he worked with.

 

Grahame had worked for Vodafone for almost 15 years, holding CEO positions in New Zealand, Australia, Sweden, Czech Republic and most recently Qatar.
The Vodafone Qatar Foundation, which is the charitable arm of Vodafone Qatar, has established the

 

Grahame Maher Charity Fund to accept donations from people wanting an opportunity to commemorate Grahame and what he stood for.

 

Grahame’s passion was “people” especially entrepreneurial women. Grahame’s wife Jenny and other people who worked with him in the countries he lived in will be focussing on scholarships for his passion to continue –“To make a world of Difference”.

 

Grahame had planned to join Vodafone Qatar’s cycling Team on the GBI trip in 2011 and we look forward to raising money to continue Grahame’s legacy to make a world of difference.


One Month till what would have been Dad's 52nd birthday...

posted 9 Jun 2011, 00:17 by Unknown user   [ updated 21 Jun 2011, 23:29 by Jess Maher ]

In a month from now on 7th July will be Dad’s birthday. He would have been 52 years young.

In Qatar, where Mum is still living and working with Vodafone herself (with the flash fancy title of Corporate Social Responsibility Project Manager)... With the various awards, foundations and other related honors set up for Dad since he passed, there are plenty of excuses for a party (which he would have appreciated) many of which have a charitable focus.    
Down here........... 

We wanted to have a local celebration of Grahame’s life and impact to inform others of what I have learnt in my experience personally but also celebrate the work and progress we, collectively, have been able to achieve in order to build awareness about the lack of digital rights for users online and address such timely issues, that unfortunately we imagine are relate able to most, if not all New Zealander's right now- being that of youth suicide and how the morbid instance of death should be handled online. We have been ableto learn and meet a lot of people in that time, both online and off and we want to celebrate the achievements which collectively, we have been able to make, even if those helping me the most are not aware of it but especially given the impressive progress we have been able to make in the last few months alone.

While this is a sad and difficult time in our lives we would like to take the opportunity to make something positive out of it.  We understand that many people may struggle with the morbid nature and unavoidable reality when it comes to these kind of issues and that obviously there is a direct involvement with people who maybe grieving, including youth- especially at a time like this... 

As such while we intend on trying to make every effort to make this a positive and enjoyable event, we are going to need as much help as we can get in order to be able to pull this off successfully- including people coming down on the day!!!

If you are interested or able to provide any assistance or support in making this event a success or you would like to make sure we keep you updated and "in the loop" so to speak, we would love to hear from you! Contact us on Facebook through the Sweet As Social Media page - http://www.facebook.com/SweetAsSocial - (which we would appreciate everyone’s “Like’s on too please!) or email sweetas@assistnz.com or jess@assistnz.com -  Cheers all & more details to come…

You can see more about our work in this area on our website www.sweetassocialmedia.com

6 months on...

posted 4 May 2011, 09:42 by Jess Maher   [ updated 4 Jun 2011, 10:36 ]


Vodafone Qatar Charity Cycle Ride Target to raise QR 10,000 for the Grahame Maher Charitable Fund

posted 28 Apr 2011, 00:38 by Jess Maher   [ updated 28 Apr 2011, 01:07 ]


What are we doing?

• Participating in the Global Biking Initiative (GBI) Charity Bike Ride
• Cycling from Amsterdam to Dusseldorf
• Cycling 90-100km each day for 5 days

Why?

• To represent Qatar (18 countries participating)
• To raise money for the Grahame Maher Charitable Fund

When?

• 1st to 6th May 2011


Fundraising – please help us raise over QR 10,000 for Grahame’s charity

• Grahame was very passionate about cycling and had planned to join us on this charity cycle ride.
• Please support us by making a donation to Grahame’s charity
• Help us to exceed our target of QR 10,000
• Please contact: rachael.mayo-smith@vodafone.comto pledge your support

. Credit card donations online at: http://www.vodafone.com.qa/go/en/aboutus/vodafone-foundation/grahamecharity

or via Bank Transfer:
. Bank Account Name: VFQ Charity Fnd
. Bank Account Number: 0013-017581-009
. Bank: Qatar National Bank
. Bank Branch: Doha, Qatar
. Swift code: QNBAQAQA


For more information

GBI Home Page

Qatar's Team Page on the GBI Website

Grahame Maher Charitable Fund



Please contact:
Rachael Mayo-Smith
Head of Investor Relations
Vodafone Qatar
Tel: 7777 5642

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