Bossweek in Spring

A few things have happened since my last update. We had a BA5 hosted by Tonkin & Taylor at their new offices in Halifax Street and they gave us quite a different view of Nelson, presenting the work that they're doing around climate mitigation. A very compelling reason as to why we need to take climate change, and particularly sea level rise, very seriously they showed a video of a project in the Pacific where an airport runway had turned into a trampoline partly because of human error and partly because the sea level rise that has been happening. They also showed a visual of the downtown Nelson waterfront we may have one day. Some pretty stark reminders of what could happen. A lovely thing I saw in their offices was a staff jigsaw puzzle and I've heard of a few businesses that have a jigsaw puzzle set up that people head to when they need to take a break from work. I'm thinking about bringing one in here.

Kim and I caught up with the team from WSP who contacted the Chamber because they had some of their engineering experts coming to the region who deal with seismic issues for buildings, to share how seismic assessment actually happens and the implication on construction. They connected with us to see if there was potential to hold a workshop on this, which is what we did.   This is something worth highlighting, that the Chamber can work with members who've got expertise in areas that we know the wider business community is going to be interested in, and we can work with you if you want to deliver workshops of that nature. Perhaps it's something that you didn’t realise that we do, but we love to create those opportunities for our members; that’s part of our role. 

One Monday, the whole team and a couple of board members went out to a beautiful family bach in Cable Bay where we did a session with Katrina Kidson looking at how we can help ourselves, through mindfulness and through other practices, to actually be a little bit more present in the day and try and relieve some of the stresses that are just intrinsically associated with work and the working environment. The environment was gorgeous and also Katrina has got a lot of experience in this area, and she took us through some nice techniques. It was really good to do it as a team and a nice way to start the week.

I caught up with an oversight group that I belong to which is funded through the Ministry of Social Development to look at what critical skills are required in the region, specifically in construction. Appreciating we've got a big construction project with the hospital and some other projects that are coming online, this group has been put in place to make sure that we've got an understanding of what's required by those projects. 

I went to an Institute of Directors workshop titled, Don't Fear The Robots, talking about AI and how AI is impacting and benefiting our businesses. It's about understanding what, and where AI fits in your own business, so that you use it as a really useful tool, as opposed to being afraid of it. Some of the Chamber went on the Great AI Roadshow and came away inspired.

I had a meeting with Minister Todd McClay alongside Fiona Wilson and Anna Crosbie from the NRDA. This was a follow up from the meeting we had with him in Wellington, and he wanted to catch up to talk about regional projects he's got on his radar in terms of making it easier for irrigators to store water.  It's quite complex at the moment for our primary producers to get resource consent to create more storage, so they're trying to make that easier for people.

That evening I went to the opening of a really exciting new venture called Project 100 which is a gallery space that opened on Hardy Street next to Bench (the new jewellery school). It was a really well attended event, and very exciting to have a space very much focused on contemporary art installation. And it'll be a rotating installation space so artists can book in the space in the way that they want to for a duration that they want to, but probably with a minimum of a month to be able to have a display.

I met with the Australian High Commissioner, who was in the region for a visit and that was really enjoyable. She was touring around the region, just trying to get a sense of where Nelson sits in terms of regional economies and where we align with Australia and trade opportunities. She was very complimentary about the region.  It's a good example of how the Chamber connects with high level visitors to the region so if we've got any businesses who are exporting or operating locally who need connections, we use the personal relationships that we foster to be able to assist you.

I travelled down to Queenstown with Venus and with Kim to go to the New Zealand Chamber of Commerce conference which was very successful, The main takeaways were that all regions are feeling the pinch in the way that Nelson Tasman is feeling the pinch. Most of the retail centres are really  quiet. But we had economist, Brad Olsen speak who said there are green shoots appearing.

The New Zealand chambers have got over 20,000 members collectively, and we have made a commitment that we're going to work better at connecting members in our region with members elsewhere. So there is a wider network there if you want to find suppliers or are looking into new regional markets, not just export markets. We still need to have a discussion about exactly how we do that, but the willingness is there.

The other big thing that came out of the conference is is that next September in Melbourne is the International Chambers of Commerce conference. It's usually in the northern hemisphere, and in the southern hemisphere, maybe once every four or five years. Next year’s event will definitely be an Australia/ New Zealand alliance. So all New Zealand Chambers of Commerce are going to endeavour to have some representation there and to that end, we will also be inviting some of our exporters.  They'll have a chance to meet the heads of other chambers of commerce and business leaders from around the globe, who will all be in Melbourne. So that will be a really good opportunity for some of our local businesses to hook into a very large network, which you don't ordinarily do. We’ll be putting the invitation out when we get the information, which will be in the next month or so.

I had a really good meeting with Nikki McDonald from Nelson City Council. The Council was a financial supporter of the Primetime pilot we did last year for senior people who are 50 plus and wanting to establish their own business. NCC would like to see that happen again as they have a City For All Ages policy. Part of that is, how do they support people who are aging to either stay in employment or get in self-employment. We are also talking to TDC and MSD as well.

We co-hosted an event recently with a speaker who addressed the impact of domestic violence on employees, and the fact that actually, as an employer now, you are legally obliged to give people up to 10 days paid leave if they are a victim of some kind of domestic violence. The presentation involved talk about how you can create a workplace where people know that they can come and talk about the situation and don't feel that they can't take the leave. It’s a difficult, but important subject. One of the reasons it is vital for us to hold events like this is that it falls under our Strong Community tagline.

We have a couple of subcommittees of the Chamber Board and that includes one dedicated to finance.  For the first time, we've got an independent chair and that is Yolandi Tzinavos from Findex. From my perspective, it's a really important committee because they're the people that help me with financial planning as it something that needs to be done at a board level. And we're a small organisation, so it's really helpful to have an independent Chair. We didn't need to, but we felt it was quite useful because external people bring a different perspective into an organisation and especially somebody who comes from a strong financial background joining a finance-centric group. So it’s a warm welcome from me, to Yolande.

I have regular catch ups with Craig Churchill, who is the Regional Commissioner for Social Development, but also the head of the public service sector in Nelson. He's consequently got a view of all the government agencies. It’s useful for him to get feedback from me in terms of how the business community is faring and if there's any issues that are looming.

Kim and I met with the new regional representative for 2 Degrees, Gareth Richardson. They've been a national partner of the Chambers of Commerce for a long time. The great thing about Gareth’s arrival is that we haven't had local business representation from any of our telcos in years. So to have 2 Degrees back in the region is really positive.

I had a first meeting with the Local Advisory Committee for FENZ (Fire & Emergency), which I've been appointed to. This was a national meeting for us to meet the team and understand how that's all going to play out. It's an important role for the Chamber to be involved in because FENZ has a requirement to connect with the community and businesses are often those organisations that employ volunteers for the fire brigade - and also need to be able to connect in with the fire brigade in terms of their own individual needs, whatever that might be. They might need to backfill if people are volunteering, not so much for brief emergencies, but if we're getting to the situation where there are floods that have been taking people away from work for a long time, and people could be out of their workplace for a week. That's a big impact on a small business, particularly. It's understanding the dynamic so that we can make sure that the organisation is sustainable as only 20% of the FENZ workforce is paid, therefore a massive 80% is made of volunteers.  So we're going to start to be that intermediary between the business community and with FENZ, which feels like a really good thing to do.

I had a very exciting day as a business award judge. We all met with the Kiwibank Young Business Leaders entrants. It wasn't interviews, more conversations, but I found it really inspiring and all the judges enjoyed it. Hopefully the participants also did; I think that they all got something out of it. We won’t have a final winner until Friday 28 February.  Tickets for the gala awards dinner are on sale now!

I was involved in a roundtable discussion convened by Nick Smith with Minister Paul Goldsmith who was in the region mainly to talk about arts infrastructure and activity. But it's always a good opportunity to meet with ministers when you get the chance. I was there talking to him in my capacity as Chair of the Nelson Festivals Trust, but also supporting the museum in their build as they're trying to get some funding from central government. We wanted to really have a good display of strength behind that, and as a Chamber of Commerce, we want to see that investment in the inner city, and we need the government investment to support it.

I went to a webinar that was held to understand how you measure the metrics behind environmental, social and governance impacts which a lot of businesses now need to consider in order to be able to be verified as part of a supply chain. It’s becoming increasingly stringent for businesses to understand, particularly environmental impacts, but also where are they sourcing sustainable and ethical goods? If you're part of a supply chain, particularly into export markets where there are free trade agreements, it's going to be increasingly important that you have wider visibility in order to be verified as part of that supply chain. If you want to borrow money for any aspect of your business, most banks these days will be looking at these issues as part of their lending criteria.

We had a really cool export hub event, actually, on the 16th of October, which was with exporters with MPI, who talked about some of the real practicalities of exporting, what you need in order to be a good food export, particularly, but essentially, if you're if you're working within the New Zealand food safety standards, then you are essentially qualified to export because we're right at the top of the standards required to be able to export food.

Lastly, for now, I went to Te Awhina Marae where I was invited to look at the next stage of the Te Tauihu Intergenerational Strategy. One project that they're looking at is a food strategy for the region, and what that will look like in terms of food resilience.  What sort of crops we grow, why we grow them, where and who grows them, and how they are distributed. They're working with Massey University, and with a grant from MBIE to look at how food systems work nationally.