Westpac Northland Business Excellence Awards 2014
28 Oct, 2014
Westpac Northland Business Excellence Awards 2014 Westpac Northland Business Excellence Awards for 2014 took place at the Forum North on Friday night. There were entrants from 50 Northland businesses competing in 6 business categories, 5 ancillary categories and an overall supreme winner. Marine North Ltd was the Supreme 2014 […]
Advocate Article
28 Oct, 2014
2nd WEEK OCTOBER 2014 Spatial and temporal concepts as to what a city is can provide endless and ever-changing debate. Cities have always been a gathering of people and a space for culture, society and civilization. Sometimes it is obvious the place you are in is a city and in […]
Advocate Article
28 Oct, 2014
4th WEEK SEPTEMBER 2014 Every few years, public discussion turns to the state of our CBD and of the number of empty premises that exist within it. This discussion is not unique to Whangarei and is played out in urban centres throughout New Zealand and internationally. It reflects the tension […]
Advocate Article
28 Oct, 2014
2nd WEEK SEPTEMBER 2014 Inward investment is often motivated by so many personal or cultural intangibles that go beyond a pure business decision. A person may have a desire to leave their existing business environment because for any range of social, cultural or economic reasons their current location is no […]
Advocate Article
28 Oct, 2014
4th WEEK AUGUST 2014 Recent discussions among interested groups in Whangarei have raised the possibility of Whangarei becoming a Fair Trade district. Fair Trade is a different way of doing business. It is about making principles of fairness and decency mean something in the marketplace. It seeks to change the […]
Advocate Article
28 Oct, 2014
2nd WEEK AUGUST 2014 Submissions for the Whangarei District Council’s innocuously titled “Plan Change 130: Bulk Format Retail Environment (Okara Park)” closed a couple of weeks ago with little or no fanfare. I would imagine very few within our community were aware of it and based on its title, even […]
Advocate Article
28 Oct, 2014
4th WEEK JULY 2014 Recent events in Northland and elsewhere around New Zealand have shown the devastating impact that natural or man-made disasters can have on businesses and the economy. Disruption of business will affect your ability to maintain your existing market. Some statistics suggest that 3 out of 5 […]
Advocate Article
23 Jul, 2014
ADVOCATE COLUMN 2nd WEEK JULY 2014 The Westpac Northland Business Excellence Awards provides an opportunity to celebrate business excellence and the role business plays in our community. Through business, countless individuals can apply their talents to achieve their own aspirations and provide service for others. If we can celebrate and […]
Advocate Article
23 Jul, 2014
ADVOCATE COLUMN 2nd WEEK JUNE 2014 Every action and decision we make in life is dictated by our politics, personal sets of economic values and our world view –or lack of it. This how we as a community decide how we believe scarce resources are best allocated. At a […]
Advocate Article
23 Jul, 2014
ADVOCATE COLUMN 2nd WEEK JUNE 2014 As soon as you get it a car it seems like a great time to complain. The driver in front of you is too slow, the driver behind you too fast, the traffic light sequence is all wrong; most drivers have never used […]
Ease of Business
11 Jun, 2014
CREATING A BUSINESS FRIENDLY CULTURE Whangarei needs transformational change if we are to develop a high wage, high growth economy. This change can be facilitated and enabled by local government but also requires private sector to assist, invest and develop. Business growth requires sufficient rewards to justify the risk and […]
Observations on telephone survey HAC
06 Jun, 2014
Here are some observations in relation to the recent telephone survey on Hundertwasser Arts Centre As expected given the research methodology, people under 40 are significantly under-represented in the survey sample – comprising just 10% of the unweighted sample relative to what appears to be 30% of the population. A […]
