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Spencer McNally

Q: How long have you lived in Camps Bay?

A: As a child I lived in Sea Point and Fresnaye, but really I grew up in Camps Bay as I attended both Camps Bay Primary and High School, and played football at the Camps Bay Club from the age of 8 until my mid-twenties. I moved to Camps Bay in 1997 and bought my current house in 2001.

Q: Before the CID Steering Committee, how have you been involved in community affairs?

A: In 2004 I established Friends Of The Glen, which successfully lobbied SANParks to prevent overdevelopment of the Roundhouse precinct in the Big Glen. I joined Camps Bay Watch in 2008 and was co-opted onto the Executive Committee with responsibility for maintaining the member database. Thereafter, since 2012 I have been a trustee of the Camps Bay and Clifton Safe Community Trust, which is the entity that funds the Camps Bay Community Security Initiative (CBCSI) and other neighbourhood projects related to safety and security. In addition, I have privately funded and managed the rehabilitation and maintenance of the public open space that is now the Shanklin Crescent Park, and am currently busy extending the park down to Chilworth Road with assistance from Village N Life and the Camps Bay Retreat.

In 2009 I established Camps Bay’s first CBCSI clip-on 24/7 security guard scheme for the Blair Road, Cranberry Crescent and Shanklin Crescent area, covering some 40-50 homes. In 2020 I initiated the addition of a monitored CCTV scheme for the entire area, again as a clip-on to CBCSI. I continue to oversee and administer both schemes.

Since 2009 I have served as a trustee of the Children’s Hospital Trust, a NPO that funds major building and other projects at the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital, which is sub-Saharan Africa’s largest and oldest specialist paediatric hospital. I served as Chairperson of the CHT from 2011 to 2017. Since 2020 I have also served as a trustee of the Children’s Hospital Foundation. I also serve as a trustee of another less well-known NPO.

Q: What is your career and professional background?

A: I’ve been a Fellow of the Faculty of Actuaries and of the Actuarial Society of South Africa since 1995. After graduating from UCT in 1992 I worked as an actuary for one of the major South African life assurance companies until 1997, before co-founding a business that is now part of SGHC, a NYSE-listed online gaming company. SGHC employs more than 3,500 people in 17 countries, of which around half are in Cape Town. 

Q: Anything else that we should know about you?

A: I’m married to Karin (who also grew up in Camps Bay), with adult sons Glen, Sam and Jamie. We all enjoy walking our dogs in The Glen and to the beach, and I particularly enjoy mountain biking on Table Mountain, including the paths above Camps Bay and Oudekraal. I have fond memories of growing up in Camps Bay, when children could walk the neighbourhood streets freely at night and the beachfront was always safe and clean. I initiated the CID project because I believe that a CID is the only way to raise the funds that are necessary to provide the security, cleansing and social upliftment services that we need to restore Camps Bay to the safe and clean suburb that we all remember it once being.