The Aitken Legal managing director also dishes on the firm's other community initiatives
Last month, Aitken Legal brought back its charity golf challenge after a long, eight-year break, helping hospital foundation Wishlist to raise over $60,000. In the first part of this interview, managing director Lisa Aitken shares with Australasian Lawyer what precipitated the event’s comeback – and what’s next on the firm’s charity calendar.
What prompted the launch of the charity golf day initially, and why was it put on hiatus?
The first year that we held the Sunshine Coast Corporate Charity Golf Challenge was in 2007, a year after I opened the firm. I started the golf day because I had a very sick nephew a couple of years before this: at 10 days old he contracted RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) and we nearly lost him. I was in the room with him when they intubated him in order to transfer him from Nambour Public Hospital to Royal Children’s Hospital in Brisbane. He stopped breathing when they were trying to do this and it was heartbreaking. He needed to be intubated so they could be sure he wouldn’t stop breathing during the transfer and he remained intubated on life support for more than 2 weeks and in hospital another week after that. The equipment needed for this, was not available in the hospitals on the Sunshine Coast at the time. My sister had to stay in Brisbane alone whilst her husband and young daughter remained on the Sunshine Coast and would drive down to visit.
This separation from family and their daily support made it so much more difficult to cope with everything that was happening. I was driving home from the hospital on the day when they transferred my nephew to Brisbane – it was late June and the radio was on in my car and I heard the local announcers on 92.7MixFM talking about Give Me 5 For Kids – an appeal MixFM held in June every year to raise funds for Wishlist (Sunshine Coast Health Foundation) to use to better the paediatric health services on the Sunshine Coast and to minimise children having to go to Brisbane for care. I knew then that I wanted to get involved and help as soon as I could. The first piece of equipment that we raised money for through our golf day as part of Give Me 5 For Kids was a neonatal ICU incubator.
I made the decision to stop the golf day in 2016 after 10 years. It was still going incredibly well each year, but the firm was insanely busy and I was generally spreading myself too thin. All of the organisation for our golf day is done in-house by just me and our marketing manager. It takes months to pull it together and a lot of late nights. I decided that 10 years was a nice number to end it on and I was happy knowing that, at that time, we’d raised nearly $400,000 for Give Me 5 For Kids and Wishlist.
What drove the decision to bring it back this year? Will it be a mainstay event moving forward?
We decided to bring the Sunshine Coast Corporate Charity Golf Challenge back in 2024 because it was the 25th Anniversary year for Give Me 5. Over that 8-year hiatus, I was regularly being asked why we stopped it and if we’d be bringing it back. It was always such a fantastic day. When we decided to bring it back this year, we went straight to Pelican Waters Golf Club where it was for most of those years that we previously held it.
The golf course and clubhouse had gone through some major renovations, and we were fortunate that they decided to partner with us to bring our charity golf day back. It was agreed that if we were going to bring it back, it needed to be even better, so we decided to hold an ‘elite day of golf’ for a great cause. It was ‘invitation only’ and sold out in just 2 weeks. We certainly upped the ante and will do so even more in 2025. We’re incredibly proud that we raised $61,064 for Give Me 5 and Wishlist, and we’ve had a lot of the teams already seeking an invitation for next year.
What other initiatives is the firm doing in relation to charity/pro bono work, or what are you guys looking to do?
We have always supported the many charity events that happen each year on the Sunshine Coast. It is a truly wonderful community spirit here and so many of the businesses are grateful for the support they get from the community and are more than willing to give back. In addition to our charity golf day, we also hold an event called the Giggle Ball. This is a comedy charity ball. The first one was held in 2010 to support the local chapter of Camp Quality to raise $10,000 they needed to stay open. We raised them just short of $50,000.
The Giggle Ball does not really have a regular schedule, it is more when we think we have time to make it happen. Since 2010, we have held the Giggle Ball five times and always for local Sunshine Coast Charities. The last one was in November 2023 (and the one before that was 2018 but Covid delayed holding this event for quite a few years). Last year we raised more than $141,000 for endED, a local charity helping people living with eating disorders to find their path to recovery. Whilst the golf day will be an annual event around August each year, the Giggle Ball will continue to be more infrequent. We are looking at doing the next one in early 2026.
Later this week, Lisa talks how she got into law, and what drove her to start her own firm.
