Media Release by Hockey New Zealand, 18 January, 2012

After a successful Champions Trophy last December, the Black Sticks Men’s squad is back together and in Hawke’s Bay this week for a six day camp that includes a heavy schedule of on-turf trainings as well as gym and pool sessions.

“With the players having a break from the turf over summer, it is great to be back in Hawke’s Bay and have the team together and focused on hockey for the week – it will be a big six months for the squad as they build to the Olympics,” says Black Sticks Men’s coach Shane McLeod.

In a unique sponsorship initiative announced in September last year, a group of 23 Hawke’s Bay business leaders have invested their money and rallied the support of the Hawke’s Bay community to back the Black Sticks Men and Women on their quest to be the best at the 2012 London Olympics.

“It has been really evident that Hawke’s Bay is right behind us on our journey to London. For the community to help facilitate a training camp with the full squad is a great way to start an Olympic year,” says vice captain and Hawke’s Bay local Shea McAleese.

As part of the week there is an open invitation to come along and watch their training session at Park Island Recreation Ground (Clyde Jeffrey Drive, Napier) this Thursday from 4-6pm and then meet the players afterwards.

Hawke’s Bay Hockey will be opening their bar and light snacks will be available from 6-8pm. The players will be there to sign autographs and have photographs taken.  It is the last time that the squad will be training in Hawke’s Bay before the London Olympics – so don’t miss out!

Following this week’s camp, the Black Sticks Men will play practice games against Japan in Auckland in late January and then they play a five test series against Korea in Auckland in early February.

In an initiative headed by Bruce MacTaggart, Hawke’s Bay is now the official team sponsor for the 2 teams, Black Sticks Men and Women.

A group of 23 Hawke’s Bay companies have joined forces to help send the Black Sticks to London for the 2012 London Olympics.

Cottages New Zealand is proud to be one of those businesses.

A family owned and operated business, we believe in supporting the Hawke’s Bay community. It is great to be part of such a unique opportunity to put Hawke’s Bay on the map.

Each of the 23 sponsors has been allocated 2 players, one from the women’s and one from the men’s team to represent them.

Look out for the CNZ logo on the backs of star players; Striker Simon Child and Goalkeeper Bianca Russell.

Players recently visited Hawke’s Bay on a promotional visit to learn more about the region and meet with their sponsors. CNZ Managing Director, Rose Roil had the pleasure of meeting Simon and Bianca and all parties are very excited about the future.

With the Black Stick Men’s convincing win against Korea on Monday 5th December things are looking good for London.

Go the Black Sticks!

Check out the great shots taken by the client. You can see why their hearts were in their mouths. From where they were sitting it certainly looked like their brand new building was teetering on the edge of a rather large drop!

They had nothing to fear though as Andrew and our guys have completed over 200 site deliveries all over the North Island and in fact this is the second building CNZ has taken to this subdivision high up on the coast.

Prepared for any eventuality the boys did have a truck on standby to offer assistance if need be, but it turned out to be just a precaution. Better to be safe than sorry!

The call to shift the building a few days ahead of schedule was a good one, with strong winds hitting the exposed site later in the week.

The stunning, but isolated section has no access to the national power grid and so the cottage has been set up with solar power and a gas hot water system.

There are an increasing number of eco conscious clients out there wishing to reduce their impact on the environment. By choosing to go with a prefabricated building they have already made the first step. Building off site reduces wastage, transport costs and damage to the landscape.

The onsite work is now almost complete and the clients will be enjoying the stunning views from their summer getaway before they know it.

 

Months of hard work and planning by the A&P Society, exhibitors and traders resulted in another show stopping event. 

Friday was the real jewel in the crown with the sun making a welcome appearance and the crowds poured in.

It was wonderful to see so many people supporting such an iconic Hawke’s Bay event.

Our 2 display buildings seemed to be real crowd pleasers – check out the photos below to see for yourself.

It was great to be able to do something a bit different this year and take 2 buildings, one from our Excel Series of educational buildings and the other from our residential range.

Thanks to Furnware and House Presentation for doing such a fantastic job of furnishing the buildings for us.

The feedback we received over the 3 days was extremely positive and we look forward to speaking again  with those of you who requested further information.

As a Hawke’s Bay family owned and operated business we are glad to be able to support the Hawke’s Bay Show and are already talking about what changes we might make for next year.

Thank you to all of you who visited us, we hope you enjoyed your Show experience and we look forward to seeing you again in 2012!

 

Meet John and Rose, almost in person and learn more about the business by viewing 2 new online videos now available to view on our website.

Learn about Cottages NZ the easy way – straight from the horses mouth.

Plans are in place for more footage to follow in the future so watch this space.

Footage from the official opening of our new construction facility by Prime Minister John Key will be uploaded shortly.

For one, we are moving sites from our regular spot by the far corner of the Grandstand, to a new and bigger site closer to the main entrance so you won’t be able to miss us.

Secondly, this year we will have 2 buildings for you to come and check out.

And thirdly, we will be showcasing a building from the newest addition to the CNZ range – the Excel Series of School rooms.

A great opportunity to come and see what we’re up to.

We hope to see you there.

Proud winners of last years Best Outdoor & Best Overall Exhibit

Cottages NZ Ltd is challenging the conventional ways in which buildings are being constructed. The idea that buildings have to be constructed onsite is being challenged by the many benefits that are associated with prefabrication.

A few of the many advantages include; improved quality control, guaranteed delivery dates, fixed price, no affect from adverse weather conditions and reduced project management fees.

We have recently embarked on a marketing campaign focused at the education sector to highlight the many benefits of constructing offsite. We can reduce the onsite construction time by approximately 90% compared with an onsite build.

I believe there is a great opportunity here to replace the older PMC classrooms at Schools without disrupting the staff, pupils or learning.

As already mentioned, CNZ has recently launched a new range of classrooms under the branding ‘Excel Series’. These buildings exceed the Ministry of Education guidelines for construction and take into account the ‘Whole of Life Costs’ associated with a building during its life period. There are also options to use solar energy as an alternative energy source; great given the schools will receive credits for their electricity when the class is not been used.

This is an exciting time for us. Not only are we providing Schools and Boards of Trustees with alternative to the traditional onsite build, but also challenging the way the Ministry of Education thinks.

Call in to our office and display buildings on Maraekakaho Road to see some of these innovative ideas.

Not only is this range of buildings versatile and attractive, but they are designed to be constructed off site with as little time on site as possible.

The key advantages of building offsite in our workshop are:-

• Minimal disruption to the School, staff and pupils.
• Higher quality control.
• Reduced and guaranteed construction time frames.
• Reduced Health & safety risks

Access issues are now a thing of the past with construction methods developed to include modular, pre-fabricated and pod style buildings enabling the majority of work to still be constructed off site, but allowing components to be brought together at the final location.

Various design options are available, or we can work with individual Schools to design and build something of their own choosing. It’s really up to the School.

Principals and teachers from around HB were given a sneak preview of things to come at an Open Evening back in June and attendees of the HB Primary Principal Associations conference at Wairakei in August were the first to glimpse our new display classroom.

The Excel Series was officially launched by Prime Minister, John Key at our Open Day on 1st September. See the previous story for more details.

For all those Principals, teachers and Board of Trustees members who would like to know more about how these buildings might benefit your School, this building will be on display at the Hawke’s Bay Show later in the month and is available for viewing at our Maraekakaho Road site during our normal opening hours.

The weather gods were extremely kind and the sun shone down upon the 50 plus guests and around 100 students from Peterhead and Frimley Schools.

The Peterhead School students performed an impressive Powhiri to welcome the esteemed guests to our facility, while pupils from Frimley School created a ‘live’ classroom environment within one of our display classroom buildings and their ‘Kids Sing’ award winning choir concluded the formalities with a fantastic rendition of  ’Don Gato’ .

The event not only signified the official opening of our new 1800m2 fully enclosed workshop, which replaced our previous factory on Irongate Road, but also saw the launch of our new series of educational buildings – the Excel Series. This is an area that CNZ has been working on perfecting over the last few years and we were excited to be able to show the Prime Minister the end results.

John Key is no stranger to Cottages NZ. The Prime Minister opened one of CNZ’s Police Station buildings in Kumeu in 2009 and on opening the new Trades Centre at EIT Hawke’s Bay last year he had a tour through one of the cottages being constructed by the pre-apprenticeship carpentry student that uses CNZ plans and guidance as part of their ‘real world’ training scheme.

Despite his very tight schedule the Prime Minister made time to stop and chat with the students from Frimley School as he walked through our display classrooms. He was then given a tour of the workshop, where 3 buildings are currently under construction, before being whisked away to his next port of call.

The event was a great success and Cottages would like to thank all of those who attended and especially those who assisted in the organization and smooth running on the day, including;

Damon Harvey from Attn! Marketing PR
John Newland, MC
Craig Foss, National MP and his team
Jason Fox
Henry Heke
Peterhead School
Frimley School
Furnware Ltd

 

Mark and Suzy Henderson of “Mark Henderson Photography” (www.markhenderson.co.nz) and “Golly Gosh”- Unique Greeting Cards (www.gollygosh.co.nz) and their young son could not be happier with their new Cottages NZ home.

Transported on to site last month the Henderson’s already feel right at home.

As part of our construction process we ask all of our clients if they are happy to complete a Customer Feedback form to enable us to constantly assess the service we are providing.

According to the Henderson’s we have very little to improve on, and that’s just the way it should be.

Get things right first time is our moto.

For those people that think by going transportable they are limiting themselves, think again. We have a wide range of styles and sizes available and Mark and Suzy agreed.

This build was another great example of the benefits of building undercover in our purpose-built factory – greater quality control and guaranteed timeframes.

Thank you Mark and Suzy for your kind words, it was a pleasure working with you.

Read their comments for yourself below.