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CLIENT NEWS: Volunteers provided the horse-power to Equidays 2016

An army of more than 100 volunteers worked at Equidays this year, providing essential support to New Zealand's premier equine event. "Even if you're not a horsey person, you get into it," said volunteer team leader, Stacey Tancred, who has volunteered at Equidays for three years. Back home in New Plymouth Tancred works as a property manager, and is a mother and grandmother. But she wouldn't miss coming to Equidays. "It's great fun – you met new people and you learn a lot about horses too." ...

CLIENT NEWS: More than $11,000 raised for chopper at KCE fundraiser

More than 200 members of the Taumarunui community rallied together to raise a whopping $11,200 for the Waikato Westpac Rescue Helicopter last night (Thursday 13 October). The money was raised at a quiz night and auction fundraising event hosted by local electricity retailer King Country Energy (KCE) at the Taumarunui Cosmopolitan Club. KCE community relations manager Helen Peacock said 38 teams purchased tickets to the event to take part in the quiz and bid on auction items. "More than 30 ...

CLIENT NEWS: Mitre 10, Z Energy and New World to ‘round up’ for Waikato Women’s Refuge

Three of the Waikato region's biggest retail chains have teamed up with the goal of raising $100,000 for Waikato Women's Refuge during the week of 14 November. Mitre 10, Z Energy and New World independent retailers from across the Waikato District – 37 stores in total - will ask customers to round up their purchases during the week of 14 November. All proceeds will go to Waikato Women's Refuge where funds will be distributed to refuges in Thames, Waitomo, Tokoroa and Hamilton. CEO of Wa...

HMC News: The Force is strong with this one

HMC's Chris Gardner proved he was a force to be reckoned with when a Star Wars project he was working on won a prestigious award from Disney. Chris was one of the writers of the Build the Millennium Falcon magazine, published by De Agsotini, which guides the reader through the construction of a 1:1 scale replica of the original Empire Strikes Back movie miniature of Han Solo's hot rod starship. Chris worked on The Secrets of Space Flight section of the magazine, explaining the various compon...

CLIENT NEWS: Farmax Consultant of the Year 2016 winners announced in three categories

Three winners have been named in the 2016 Farmax Consultant of the Year Awards in Rotorua overnight. They are Trevor Cook from Totally Vets Ltd in Feilding who won the Beef + Lamb New Zealand Sheep and Beef Rural Professional of the Year title, Brent Boyce from LIC's FarmWise Consultancy Group in Wakefield who is the Dairy NZ Dairy Rural Professional of the Year and BakerAg sheep and beef consultant Ellie Cranswick from Masterton who was named New Zealand Institute of Primary Industry Managem...

CLIENT NEWS: Turn your best bull calf into cash

Dairy farmers in the thick of calving are being offered thousands of dollars for their best bull calves by CRV Ambreed. The company is offering farmers who breed the best bull calves $4,000 if their bull calves are selected for the CRV Progeny Test program. That $4,000 could turn into $11,000 from graduation payments or more if royalty options are taken. CRV Breeding Program Manager Aaron Parker said with calving now underway, a lucrative source of extra income could be dropping in farm paddoc...

CLIENT NEWS: Young Maori woman brings important cultural perspective to dairy farming

Lincoln University student Ash-Leigh Campbell, 25, is one of the bright lights of Maori agribusiness in New Zealand. Recently named as a finalist in the prestigious 2016 Ahuwhenua Young Māori Dairy Farmer Award – the first ever woman to make the finals of the dairy category – Campbell, who is of Ngāi Tahu descent, is passionate about bringing a Maori perspective to the dairy industry. She graduated with a Diploma in Agriculture from Lincoln University earlier this year, and is currently ...

CLIENT NEWS: Cambridge couple launches unique healthy pre-made meals

September is shaping up to be a month to remember for Cambridge locals, Wendy McGregor and Nick Moore. The two founders of Plate Me Nutrition have spent countless hours developing unique, delicious and nutritious pre-made meals with an 18-month shelf life. And, after lots of hard work, his month their products were officially launched into the market. McGregor and Moore say they are already blown away by early demand for their meals. "During our product validation phase we were contacted by h...

HMC News: Do you need to get social?

By Heather Claycomb, HMC Communications Social media isn't new. And chances are, your business has a few social media accounts you set up years ago. Whether your profiles are active, however, is another story. You are not alone. Many companies jumped onto social channels in the early days but enthusiasm and effective use quickly waned. If you've found yourself questioning the value of social media – or even seriously thinking of deleting your accounts because you've reaped zero val...

CLIENT NEWS: TrainMe programme helps Hamilton man secure work

Hamilton man Nikau Kelly-Goodwin, 23, has turned his life around – in part thanks to TrainMe's Training for Work programme. After spending several years in prison followed by eight months' unemployment, he was keen to make a fresh start. In April Kelly-Goodwin approached Work and Income New Zealand (WINZ) who referred him to the TrainMe Training for Work programme based at Ruakura in Hamilton. The programme, which runs for up to 13 weeks, helps people find work that matches their in...

CLIENT NEWS: Ag companies form technologically robust partnership

Hill Laboratories and Ballance Agri-Nutrients have formed an exclusive partnership giving Hill Laboratories sole rights to the Ballance co-op's soil and herbage testing from 1 August. Ballance general manager of sales, Campbell Parker, says together the companies have plans to use new technology to help Ballance reps and their farmer customers make better nutrient management decisions using robust data that's now at their fingertips. "Hill Laboratories has recently developed a mobile app, cur...

CLIENT NEWS: Waikato family win farm-help for a day

Deserving local farmers, Judy and Ali Sherriff and their son Robbie, from the little Waikato town of Arohena, have benefitted from seven extra pairs of free helping hands on their busy dairy, sheep, and beef farm this month. The Sherriff's were recently selected by local energy retailer King Country Energy (KCE) as winners of the company's Holler for a Hand competition, along with two other farming couples from within KCE's operating area. Consequently, seven KCE staff members, including the ...

CLIENT NEWS: FoodWaikato spray dryer beats expectations at Waikato Innovation Park

FoodWaikato's open access spray dryer at Waikato Innovation Park is operating at capacity, helping companies using it for research and development to grow their export markets. FoodWaikato operations manager Dave Shute said the plant had been running at full capacity all year around was expected to continue doing so. The spray dryer, upgraded at a cost of $5.7 million a year ago, switched to mixing and drying formulated dairy cow, goat and sheep milk products after the fresh milk stopped flowi...

CLIENT NEWS: Turn your best bull calf into cash

Dairy farmers in the thick of calving are being offered thousands of dollars for their best bull calves by CRV Ambreed. The company is offering farmers who breed the best bull calves $4,000 if their bull calves are selected for the CRV Progeny Test program. That $4,000 could turn into $11,000 from graduation payments or more if royalty options are taken. CRV Breeding Program Manager Aaron Parker said with calving now underway, a lucrative source of extra income could be dropping in farm pad...

CLIENT NEWS: Kaivolution hits 100 tonne milestone, but needs help to grow

Hamilton food rescue organisation Kaivolution is celebrating a big milestone with a party – and a call for support. Since its inception in October 2014 the charitable trust has collected and redistributed 100 tonnes of edible food, approximately the weight of 10 Hamilton City buses. "That's 100 tonnes of good edible food successfully diverted from landfill," said Waikato Environment Centre general manager Ruth Seabright. "To reach this milestone in just 18 months is humbling and a test...

CLIENT NEWS: Hamilton million dollar homes show unprecedented increase in sales

Lodge Real Estate's managing director, Jeremy O'Rourke, today confirmed the number of million dollar residential properties sold in Hamilton has officially hit a record high. "Latest data shows that 6 Hamilton homes above the million dollar mark were sold in May 2016, compared to 3 during the previous month (April), and 2 one year ago (May 2015)," he said. "Overall, between May 2015 and May 2016 there has been an 89% increase in the number homes above the million dollar mark sold in Hamilton...

CLIENT NEWS: KCE finalist in Deloitte Energy Excellence Awards

Local electricity generator and retailer, King Country Energy (KCE), has been named a finalist in the prestigious 2016 Deloitte Energy Excellence Awards for its Waikato-based 'Tree of Light' initiative. KCE is one of four companies in New Zealand spanning the electricity, oil, gas and petroleum industries to this week be selected as a finalist in the annual Awards' 'Community Initiative of the Year' category. The category was open earlier this year to New Zealand energy sector organisations ...

CLIENT NEWS: Waikato women training despite dairy downturn

It appears the current dairy downturn is all-but deterring young Waikato women from agriculture training. In fact, if enrolments at Waikato-based private training provider TrainMe are anything to go by, young women are lining up in record numbers. Angel Ryan (17), Chance Taingahue (19) and and Brenda Pairama (17) are among nine 16 to 19 year-old females about to complete TrainMe's National Certificate in Agriculture Level 2 course this month. Remarkably, this is a record number of female e...

CLIENT NEWS: Tracking feed helps to improve herd productivity

Dairy feed company GrainCorp Feeds is offering a free milk monitoring and prediction tool that aims to help farmers increase their productivity. The tool, called Tracker, uses the latest in data analytics combined with nutritional information from GrainCorp Feeds to give accurate predictions on the farmer's average daily milk solids, including percentage of milk fat and protein. Tracker also provides live feedback on milk quality including somatic cell count and milk urea when that data is av...

CLIENT NEWS: Dairy farming teacher wins community leadership award

Passing on what Lisa Hicks has learned about dairying in the past nine years has led to her winning the Dairy Community Leadership Award. Hicks, who with her partner Graeme Sorensen manages an 800 cow 400 hectare dairy farm in Ohakune, received the Dairy Women's Network award this week at the organisation's annual conference in Hamilton. Hicks, the Dairy Women's Network Manawatu Regional Group Convenor, helped establish the Ohakune DairyNZ on farm discussion group and hosted local and intern...

CLIENT NEWS: Breeding programme gives birth to horn-less dairy cows

CRV Ambreed's latest breeding programme will offer dairy farmers a wider selection of high genetic merit, horn-less cows. The herd improvement company has been developing its polled product line for over a decade, which has been driven by farmers concerned about animal welfare, human safety and the cost of de-horning animals. The programme has gained momentum over the past three years and polled genetics will be available to market as soon as next year. CRV Ambreed research and developmen...

CLIENTS NEWS: Hill Laboratories to centralise Hamilton operations at new city location

New Zealand's leading analytical testing lab, Hill Laboratories, has announced that staff from all four of its Hamilton sites will soon consolidate in one city location. In approximately one year's time, the company's 300 Hamilton-based employees will begin to occupy what was formerly a New Zealand Post building on Duke Street in Frankton. The move will include all employees from Hill Laboratories' Hamilton sites in Clyde Street, Te Aroha Street, Clow Place and Waikato Innovation Park, and is ...

HMC NEWS: top tips from PRINZ conference 2016

We've collated out top take-away tips from PRINZ Conference 2016 and put them into bite-sized snippets for you. These tips come from top PR Practitioners - from NZ and overseas - and address communication challenges and opportunities in the 21st century. Create a single source of truth: Megan McPherson (Otago University) reinforced that, in a crisis, we need to set up our own single source of truth - or someone else will. This often 'looks like' setting up a webpage to house your information...

HMC NEWS: Hamilton PR firm finalist at international awards

Hamilton-based public relations firm, HMC Communications, was named one of 10 finalists in the 2016 COMM PRIX Awards. The awards recognise the best public relations campaigns in the world and other finalists include PR professionals from Italy, Kenya, Australia, Singapore, Finland and one other from New Zealand. The finalist nomination relates to HMC Communications and its client, Child Matters, work on Buddy Day. Buddy Day is New Zealand's only child abuse prevention awareness day, which occur...

CLIENT NEWS: KCE funding helps get the right tools for Taumarunui Volunteer Fire Brigade

Taumarunui Volunteer Fire Brigade works hard to ensure the safety of the King Country community, attending around 120 emergency incidents a year. Based in Taumarunui, the brigade attends incidents as far away as Ohura to the west, halfway to Te Kuiti to the north and Te Ponanga Saddle, on the road to Turangi, to the south-east. The region has lots of winding roads and rolling hills, and about a quarter of their call outs are for vehicle accidents on the road. It's therefore essential that ...