Top Energy grants given to local businesses
Top Energy isn’t finding it any easier to choose a winner of its bi-annual business development grants, and in this latest round it was all but impossible.
It granted the $30,000 award to a Bay of Islands company that is setting out to fill a global boating niche, and a $10,000 judges’ commendation award for the revival of Kaikohe’s Trefoil Park.
Paihia couple Karin and Russell Carlyon established their company, Offshore Cruising (OC) Tenders, from their own seafaring experience. Within six months of setting off on their 12-meter catamaran Moonwalker in 2006, they found themselves spending much of their time bailing, patching, inflating, nursing and cursing their inflatable tender.
After seven years of circumnavigating the globe the couple re-settled in Paihia and in 2015 established OC Tenders, drawing on Russell’s experience in windsurfboard construction to develop a tender that they expect to help meet the exacting standards of skippers around the world.
Made of high-tech composite, the tenders are essentially built in the same way as the America’s Cup and Volvo Ocean Race boats, which they say will satisfy serious offshore cruising sailors as well as the more casual boating enthusiast.
The company is now constructing a purpose-built factory at Haruru Falls, which the couple see as an excellent location for servicing the needs of international clients.
The business development grant judges said the new factory was clear evidence of the couple’s commitment to the area, and would create opportunities for local employment, training and growth, a key criterion for the grant.
Currently the company had one full-time employee, and expected to have at least three more by the end of the first year, rising to about nine, including three trainees, to sustain Trefoil Park, about to embark upon a new era.
OC Tenders general manager Karin Carlyon with a line-up of the high-tech craft that the company expects will be in global demand.
planned growth.
The couple envisage the factory becoming a hub for innovation and composite creativity, Mrs Carlyon saying the grant would be used to apply new technology to the manufacturing process to increase production capacity by an expected 57 per cent in the first year alone, to a peak of 155 boats annually.
The judges were also unable to go past Jennifer Ives (Green Footed Kiwi) and her passion and vision for Trefoil Park. She was transforming the 81ha bush block, a one-time Girl Guide campground, into a selfsufficient ‘permaculture paradise’ and tourist destination, offering space for large group camping, totally secluded offgrid glamping, a mini petting farm, an abundance of fruit and vegetables and easy walking and cycling access to established native bush.
It was all part of the Kaikohe renaissance, with many new businesses becoming established and a core group of locals working hard to put the town back on the map.
Ms Ives plans to re-establish existing trails, and widen them to accommodate mountain bikes to maximise the boom triggered by the Far North’s Twin Coast Cycleway and Waitangi Mount Bike Park. Tired cyclists would have a place to stay, hot showers, and good company to see them on their way.
She described Trefoil Park as a place to enjoy and become part of nature, a space to make memories, have adventures, and continue the work started by the Girl Guides. It was also an excellent community amenity, and locals would be welcome to courses and workshops.
The park would open on Labour Day (October 20) with an adventure run and the option of camping for the weekend.
The award would be used to upgrade the driveway, which she said would allow for other opportunities such as a regular rural farmers’ market, music festival or major events. She was also keen to host family bonding events.
Top Energy CEO Russell Shaw said this was a great time for businesses to leverage growing optimism in Northland, as revealed by the WestpacMcDermott Miller Regional Economic Confidence survey for the June 2018 quarter and the $46 million funding provided by the government’s Provincial Growth Fund.
He encouraged Far North businesses to apply for the next development grant in September.
Grants of up to $30,000 are awarded twice a year for local business ideas or initiatives with the potential to grow or diversify the Far North economy. The money may be awarded in full to a single stand-out idea, or in smaller amounts to several initiatives, depending on the number, quality and merit of applications received.
■ Go to www.topenergy.co.nz/ sponsorship/businessdevelopment-fund for more.