How the Amy Gillett Foundation for Safe Cycling was saved from insolvency and got back on the bike

Mary Safe says she was shocked and devastated when she heard the charity had gone bust, but is happy with its revival.

“We’re just blown away by how this has been handled and turned around,” she says. “Our spirit has gone from a low point to a steady climb, and the fact that Amy’s Grand Fondo can continue is amazing.”

She has agreed to join the new board of directors, alongside Anderson, Murray, Textor, Bates and Michael Drapac, an international real estate investor whose son Damion was killed in a bicycle accident.

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“It’s about maintaining that emotional connection to Amy and her life and her legacy, which is so important to our family,” she says. “I often get in touch with people through the foundation who have had a loved one lose their life on the road. There’s so much work to be done and a lot of it has to be focused on addressing behavioral change.”

Genevieve Sexton, a specialist in corporate restructuring law and partner at Melbourne law firm Arnold Bloch Leibler, says a number of complex steps had to be taken to convince the liquidators, administrators and ultimately the Federal Court that the foundation could resume trading as a going concern.

The first of these was to convince the liquidators, Cor Cordis, to appoint consultancy firm KPMG as administrators. The second was for Murray and Textor to sign a deed of arrangement, with the support of creditors, which guaranteed that the foundation’s staff would be paid and that the company would have enough working capital to remain solvent.

The necessary financial injection, approximately $450,000, was donated by several of Murray and Textor’s business partners, cycling friends and supporters of the foundation: economist Guy Debelle, chairman of the National Australia Bank Phil Chronican, property developer and philanthropist Daniel Besen, asset manager Geoff Wilson, former chairman of the Australian Sports Commission John Wylie, company director David Moffatt and Drapac.

KPMG, restructuring experts Ian Carson and Sexton, and a team of in-house lawyers have all volunteered their time and expertise. Sexton says that if this work had not been done pro bono, the cost of the salvage operation would have been prohibitive.

The foundation ran into financial trouble after it contracted with the federal government to provide training and other services beyond its means. Bates, the foundation’s new executive director, says the charity will focus on its original goal of improving the relationship between cyclists and motorists.

The foundation emphasizes the mutual obligation between road users and speaks out against bad behavior by both cyclists and motorists. “If we want respect, we have to give respect,” she says. “Everyone deserves to come home safely and no one in a car wants to be responsible for someone else’s death.”

The foundation previously convinced state governments to pass laws requiring motorists to leave cyclists one metre apart on the road. Murray says the relaunched foundation will push for mandatory flashing taillights on bicycles to improve cyclists’ visibility. “That won’t make us popular, but it will save lives,” he says.

According to Murray, the foundation was too valuable to disappear until the work was completed.

“I’ve watched good friends like Mary and Denis Safe and Mike Drapac grieve the loss of their children. I was hit and nearly killed in a car while riding in 2006 and despite how much I love the sport, I still feel a mixture of guilt as a father and fear every time I go riding.

“It just had to be saved and pulled back from the brink of the abyss so the work could continue.”