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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 ...

CLIENT NEWS: New naming rights sponsor for school technology challenge

Central King Country REAP's annual schools technology challenge will go ahead next month thanks to new sponsorship from local energy retailer, King Country Energy (KCE) Many thousands of primary school students (years 6-8) within the Central King Country region have participated in this annual event since it was established more than 20 years ago. However, Central King Country REAP's education manager Jenny Gawith said the organisation has struggled to find an ongoing sponsor for the event s...

CLIENT NEWS: Hamilton needs help: customer experience more important than brand or price

Hamilton retailers need to focus on the quality and consistency of their customer experience if they want to compete in today's market, according to Waikato customer experience expert Chris Bell. Bell, who moved his 12 year old business consultancy from Christchurch to Taupo a year ago, spent six months looking for a Hamilton business he could use as a shining example of a great customer experience but had difficulty finding one that stood out from the crowd. In one visit to a Hamilton depar...

CLIENT NEWS: Nominations open for Farmax Consultant of the Year

The New Zealand Institute of Primary Industry Management is playing a bigger part in this year's Farmax Consultant of the Year awards. The Institute, which will announce the winner alongside Farmax, at its national conference on Monday, August 8, is helping Farmax organise the awards and chairing the judging panel. The organisers of the award are broadening the criteria for the Consultant of the Year awards making it achievable for any rural professionals to enter the awards alongside farm c...

CLIENT NEWS: KCE Tree of Light to shine for ANZAC Day

The KCE Tree of Light on Te Kuiti's Rora Street is set to shine red this ANZAC Day (25 April) to commemorate all New Zealanders killed in war, and to honour returned servicemen and women. And although many locals will flock to see the Tree glow as the sun goes down, the tree's colour has extra special meaning to 87-year-old local man, Leo Dempsey. Leo's connection with ANZAC Day is decidedly personal. "In 1941, during the Battle of Britain, my brother went to England as a pilot in the Ro...

CLIENT NEWS: Dairy Community Leadership Award Finalists

Three finalists for the Dairy Women's Network's Dairy Community Leadership Award have been announced. They are Tracey Collis from Eketahuna, Lisa Hicks from Ohakune and Katrina Simpson from Hokitika. Collis, a first term elected member of Tararua District Council, will contest the district mayoralty in the local body elections on October 8. Tracey is passionate about dairy farming, business viability and community resilience. She is a first term District Councillor with numerous portfolio...

HMC NEWS: Maternity-cover position available with HMC!

If you're up for a PR challenge and love variety, let's talk! HMC has a maternity cover position available from 1 July 2016 to 15 March 2017. We require a mid-level, all-rounder to manage one of our team's largest accounts. You'll sit within the client's leadership team 28 hours a week, providing advice on all aspects of communications – both internal and external. You'll be providing comms advice... AND getting your hands dirty doing the work. You could be advising the CEO on an issue in t...

CLIENT NEWS: Dairy Woman of the Year Finalists

Three finalists for the prestigious Dairy Woman of the Year have been announced by the Dairy Women's Network. They are Westport based Landcorp business manager Rebecca Keoghan, Central West Coast dairy farmer Renee Rooney and Waihi based LIC farm solution manager Michelle Wilson. Dairy Women's Network chief executive Zelda de Villiers said judges had a hard time selecting the finalists for the fifth annual awards. "Our nominees personify all that is good about the many and varied roles wom...

CLIENT NEWS: Farmers lent a helping hand

Rural businesses are responding to the plunging dairy payout by offering nearly 30 dairy farming women two-day passes to the Dairy Women's Network annual conference in Hamilton. Dairy Women's Network chief executive Zelda de Villiers said the rural businesses that serve the dairy industry had bought the tickets to offer in competitions. "This is an example of the conference theme United to Succeed in action," de Villiers said. "Rural support businesses have bought thousands of dollars' wor...

CLIENT NEWS: New Tetra Pak office opens at Waikato Innovation Park, Hamilton, NZ

New Zealand Prime Minister, The Rt Hon John Key, today officially opened a new office for Tetra Pak, the world's leading processing and packaging company, at Waikato Innovation Park in Hamilton. The Prime Minister unveiled a plaque at the purpose-built facility in front of an audience of VIPs and Tetra Pak staff. The Prime Minister was joined at the ceremony by Her Worship the Mayor of Hamilton, Julie Hardaker, together with Waikato Innovation Park Chairman, Earl Rattray, and Tim High, Tetr...

Dairy Women’s Network appoints new board representative

Te Kuiti dairy farmer Alison Ferris has become the first Dairy Women's Network regional convenor to be elected to the organisation's board. Ferris, who with her husband Nick farms 500 dairy cows at Rangitoto between Te Kuiti and Otorohanga in the King Country, will attend her first board meeting in April. Her election follows the suggestion that one of the network's more than 70 regional convenor's should serve on the board to represent members. "A working group of convenors came together and...

Fast growing Waikato firm goes international

One of the Waikato's fastest growing companies has expanded into Canada. Waikato Innovation Park based LayerX Group, who consistently appear in the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 and are award winners in the NZ Fast 50, is offering its vGRID stack of high performance cloud services in Canada after building its own server platforms in Calgary and Vancouver where it has staff. "We already have some good traction in the Canadian market but it is early days, and a big market," said LayerX Group c...

Two new faces at Hill Labs’ Food and Bioanalytical sector

Food and bioanalytical clients of New Zealand's leading analytical testing laboratory, Hill Laboratories, will be working closely with some new faces, following two recent company appointments. Sam Marengo and Ili Tulagi have been appointed as key account managers within Hill Laboratories' Food and Bioanalytical sector. Together the women travel the country to liaise with Food and Bioanalytical clients. "In short, we guide clients on the best testing to meet their needs. Key industries for u...

Discerning renters put the squeeze on supply of Hamilton rental properties

Lodge City Rentals General Manager, David Kneebone, says there's been a noticeable shift in Hamilton's rental market with the city's renters now prioritising quality over price. "For years Hamilton renters have typically had a value conscious mind set. When choosing a rental property, most renters were looking for the best deal within their chosen suburb. The quality of the rental property was a secondary consideration. "However, we've seen a considerable shift since the start of the year. Ha...

Vision College trains record number of male Early Childhood teachers

Men are lining up in record numbers to become early childhood teachers. They are swapping traditionally 'male' jobs, like a career in the building trade, to train as early childhood teachers at Vision College campuses in Auckland, Christchurch and Hamilton. Early childhood education students David Mason and Corey Moore, 19, both set out to become builders but changed their minds to study Early Childhood in Hamilton. Caleb Goulsbro, 17, is studying alongside them. They are among six men tra...

Herd information helps farmers save money in tight times

Tough economic times are causing farmers to analyse every aspect of their business, right down to the performance of individual animals. That's why the Dairy Women's Network and LIC are working together to host workshops to help dairy farmers learn how to make better herd management decisions. Dairy Women's Network chief executive Zelda de Villiers said she was excited about the partnership with LIC, a first for the organisations. "Not only will those attending the module be given tools...