Finalists on the 2019 Coresteel Innovation Tour were privileged to visit with Andrew Tombs of Alpine Energy.
Celebrating Innovation 2019
Snazzy Suitcases and Speedy Fundraisers
Harding Construction / Coresteel South Canterbury has helped make one small boy’s dreams come true this month.
Cameron Hunter was selected to participate in the annual Koru Care trip to Disneyland for children with special needs. Cameron suffers from cerebral palsy and has a special mobility tricycle to help him get around.
“Koru Care will take Cameron to Disneyland with a group of 23 other special needs children,” explains Heather Harding, Coresteel South Canterbury.
“Koru Care will pay for most things, but the families were advised they needed to supply an extra-large suitcase to carry all the goodies home and also that they needed to have roughly US$500 for spending money. That’s actually quite a big ask for many of these families.”
Harding Construction and Coresteel South Canterbury purchased the suitcase of Cameron’s choosing and had it decorated by local designers, Corporate Print. “Cameron loves his new case,” says Heather. “He’s going to enjoy trailing that around the world!”
Cameron also held a trike-a-thon and raffle to help raise funds. “We actually raised more than we needed,” says his mum, Kate Hunter. “We’re thrilled because we’ll give the extra to Koru Care as a thank you gesture.”
Click here to see the video of Cameron receiving his suitcase. His mother's reaction was priceless, too!
Special Children's Christmas Party
Harding Construction is pleased to sponsor the Canterbury Special Children's Christmas Party again this year.
The SKY TV Special Children’s Christmas Parties in association with Manuka Doctor are the biggest events of their kind in New Zealand for special needs children and their families.
Organisers work closely with hundreds of charities, schools, community groups and government organisations throughout New Zealand to select these special children and invite them to the party. The children suffer from one of a number of life-affecting challenges, including life threatening illness, physical and intellectual impairment, domestic violence, or living in underprivileged circumstances.
The Goal is simple: to put smiles on these children’s faces for at least one day in the year.
At every event across New Zealand these children are treated to a day of celebrity stage shows, fun rides, interactive games, plenty of yummy food, face painting and many more fun activities. The highlight of the day is when the children enter Santa’s Toy Cave where they are given 2-3 high quality toys to call their own.
"We are delighted to be part of this fantastic event again," says Heather Harding of Harding Construction." This will be the third time we have helped sponsor the Canterbury event. We enjoy taking a team from our staff to help out on the day. It's great to be able to be involved practically as well as financially."
Visit www.sccpnz.co.nz to find out how your business can be involved.
Inspired Design Wins Coresteel Award
More than just an Award
Operating under our Coresteel umbrella, we recently had the privilege of taking six Graphics and Design students from Craighead Diocesan school on the inaugural Coresteel Innovation Tour.
"As part of our association with Coresteel Buildings, we are pleased to offer the Coresteel Innovation Award to local secondary school students" says Heather Harding, Marketing Manager for Coresteel South Canterbury.
Wanting to do more than just present an award, the team from Coresteel South Canterbury decided to offer an "Innovation Tour" of different local businesses that utilise innovative approaches to enhance their service offering.
"We wanted the students to understand that innovation is about far more than just technology - it's a way of thinking," says Harding. "These businesses value innovative problem solving approaches. One common thread in all the presentations was that 'failure' is nothing to fear - it's actually a necessary part of the refinement process when developing ideas."
Feedback about the tour had been overwhelmingly positive with students, teachers and businesses all in favour of including more schools in the future.
"We have always intended that the award would be open to the wider school community, but first wanted to test it out on just one school" says Harding. "Our thanks must go to the staff from Craighead for all their help and support refining the award and tour process."
The award winner will be announced in Term 4.
Coresteel South Canterbury's Longest Drive
Coresteel South Canterbury was pleased to be a major sponsor of the 2017 Vodafone South Canterbury Chamber Golf Classic. In association with Harding Construction, Coresteel sponsored “The Longest Drive” challenge, offering a Maxfli golf umbrella to the winner. To add a bit of fun to the event, Coresteel also ran a business card draw and a “Chip for Chocolate” competition, offering a chocolate bar to any player who successfully chipped a ball into a sand bucket. “We had a lot of fun with our chipping challenge,” said Heather Harding, of Coresteel South Canterbury, “It was harder than it looked, so in the end we were giving chocolates away if people just got close to the bucket. There was a lot of groaning and laughing going on.”
Paul Jackson of Davis Ogilvie hit an impressive 184.5m drive to win the Longest Drive prize. Grant Gilbert of Aorangi Customs and Freight won the business card draw and received a stylish Coresteel Compendium for his prize.
The Golf Classic is a popular annual event on the South Canterbury business calendar and was attended by a record 72 players from 24 different businesses across South Canterbury. “This was a good opportunity for us to promote the Coresteel brand and network with other business people from our region” said Harding, “We had some good conversations with people wanting to know more about Coresteel. It was very pleasing.”
Young Enterprise
Harding Construction provided business mentoring for the "Upbeat Wines" 2016 Young Enterprise team from Timaru Boys High School.
The team investigated several product and marketing ideas before deciding to manufacture their own stylish wine-holders. They had to research similar products, develop a design that would work with different bottles, source their materials and then manufacture their product themselves.
"We started off thinking we'd make garden planter boxes from old wine barrels, but soon realised these would be costly to make and would probably have a limited market." said Sam Taylor, Marketing Manager for Upbeat Wines. "We still liked the idea of making a wooden product. The wine bottle holders appealed because we could make them ourselves from easily sourced products, and we anticipated they would appeal to a wide range of people. They are especially good as gifts."
Heather Harding, of Harding Construction worked with the team for several months, helping them develop their product and marketing strategy. "I really enjoyed working with the Upbeat Wines team," says Heather. "They had some great ideas and were keen to make a success of their venture. I'm sure they'll all go on to do great things in the future."
It's not too late to place an order if you'd like a wine holder! Just let us know and we'll put you in touch with the team :)
From top left to right is Hamish Murdoch and Hunter Webb and bottom left to right is Sam Taylor and Marcus Shillito.
