Tim Calder

Willowbank Quarter is the largest single accommodation facility that I manage. With 31 apartments, 104 double rooms and executive suites this complex has been no easy feat to lease single handily. The University Flat List has been responsible for the bulk of traffic directed my way with Trademe providing a significant portion of the rest. I am grateful for the support from the Otago Language Centre for displaying one of our banners and for the previous tenants for passing on positive feedback which has helped create excellent word of mouth referrals. It took right to the 30th of December but now I can say that Willowbank Quarter is completely 100% tenanted!!

One of the other applications that I thought I would try is the Facebook Group feature. I used this feature to create a Willowbank Quarter ‘Neighborhood’ group where I invited all my signed up tenants. Once they joined I have been able to send them notifications of tenancy updates, and display contact and other information. It has been encouraging to see that members of this group have also used the notice board feature to speak to other group members e.g. trying to find missing mail, email problems, etc. I am hoping as the year goes on that this group will also be a sounding board for problems that tenants may be facing that I am unaware of. I am also hoping that this Facebook group will also help promote this relatively unknown complex to the wider student community.

I have to count myself as very lucky to have been brought up on a farm in Pikowai as I have later found, since leaving for Dunedin, that the lifestyle cannot be beaten. Set on the coast of Bay of Plenty, Pikowai is located half way between Tauranga and Whakatane on State Highway 2. The relatively steep terrain and bush/forestry setting makes for beautiful scenery and creates an ideal environment for wild Pheasants, Turkeys, Peacocks, Quail, Deer and Pigs to reside.

Our family farm has many operations and activities:

• Sheep (Romney Coopworth cross)
• Cattle (Hereford)
• Deer (Elk, Wapiti & Red)
• Dairy grazing
• Forestry (20year old)
• Equestrian (Race horse pre-training, Dessage & Eventing facilities)
• Bull leasing (Angus, Hereford, Jersey, Friesian) 
• Cropping (Turnips, Chickery)
• Lucerne, Red Clover, and Meadow hay production and sales

EZY STOR Self Storage has rapidly filled to a very high 87% occupancy across all of our facilities in Dunedin. This very exciting news demonstrates that even after our large expansion of 58 garages at our St Albans Street facility in Kaikorai Valley, only six months after 36 new garages were built next to the Burnside off-ramp in Green Island, that the demand for self storage in Dunedin is growing. With close to 300 garages spread across 4 locations in Dunedin EZY STOR Self Storage is the largest provider of single garages in Otago. This expansion looks to continue into 2009 with one warehouse to renovate into a 400 unit storage facility and another parcel of land to develop. By 2010 EZY STOR Self Storage will be on target to have over 1000 garages and units in the greater Otago Region.

Last night a new committee was elected in for the Otago University Rugby Football Club Inc. The key position of Club Chairman is now held by Kelvin Fisher who has been a long serving committee member. Kelvin made it clear in his opening speech that he expects great things from the 2009 years committee as it is a big year for the club as it tackles financial difficulties, due to increased competition for club rugby players, as well as celebrating its 125th Jubilee on Queens birthday weekend. The club is grateful to all its sponsors which enable it to exist, in particular to Speights for its generous financial support.

Mike Brock was a very highly regarded staff member at St Peter’s School, Cambridge, where he had spent over 30 years of his life. Mike will be very much missed by students and staff alike.

Hi Everyone

It is with great sadness I am writing to tell you Mike Brock passed away on Sunday morning.

The funeral will be held on Thursday 13th November @ 1.00pm in the St Peter’s  Chapel, with seating in a marquee outside.

Seating in the Chapel will be for close family and colleagues, please identify yourself at the door.

There will be a memorial book for everyone to sign at the Chapel and in the Dining Room where refreshments will be served after the service.

Kind Regards
Steve Robb and the Alumni Committee

St Peter’s School, Cambridge, New Zealand
Telephone: 647 827 9899 Fax: 647 827 9812
Website: www.stpeters.school.nz

Michael Hill has just been announced as the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year and will be representing New Zealand in Monte Carlo competing with 50 other entrepreneurs for the 2009 world title. Michael Hill has featured significantly in Otago over the past 12 months as he has was responsible for hosting the highly successful New Zealand Golf Open at his newly completed course ‘The Hills‘ in Arrowtown. At the age of 70 and with a net worth of $235M up from $150M in 2006 (recognised by the New Zealand Rich List), Michael Hill is clearly worthy of this recognition and is a Kiwi to be proud of.

Prof. Brendan Gray , course director and Dunedin City Council Chair of Entrepreneurship, organised an excellent event where local business people that had been involved in the Masters of Entrepreneurship programme were able to celebrate with the graduating students an end to another great year of this highly successful masters course. Among the guests was former Dunedin woman Amanda Ellis, Senior Executive of the World Bank based in Washington DC, who spoke about the strong need for Entrepreneurship in the current state of the world’s economy. Other invited guests included the team from Pocketsmith who have produced a cashflow and financial forecasting web application to help people with budgeting. This event highlighted the support and encouragement that Dunedin provides Entrepreneurs over other cities in New Zealand.

This has been an excellent week at the Otago MBA as Don Walker (course coordinator) put together a great line up of guest speakers from around New Zealand all with areas of international expertise.

• Prof. Robert Patman, Department of Politics
• Prof. Rick Garside, Department of Economics
• Stephen Jacobi, Director of NZ International Business Forum
• Rod Drury, CEO of Xero
• Michael Gleissner, CFO of Sealord Group
• Allen Frazer, Meat and Wool NZ
• Pat English, China Market Manager of NZTE
• Murray Denyer, Zespri International
• Dr. John Yeabsley, NZ Institute of Economic Research
• Geoff Cassels, Venture Capitalist
• Michael Parrott, CFO of Tower Investments
• Richard Mehrtens, Globaleagle
• Jen Porter, Investor and Director of TradeMobile
• Alex Duncan, Strategy Director of Fonterra
• Prof. Geoff Kearsley, Department of Tourism

The highlight of the week for me was listening to Rod Drury who would have to be New Zealand’s greatest Entrepreneur. Rod has no problem with sharing with others his goal of becoming a billionaire, and because he has had such a successful track record everyone who listens has no trouble believing it.

Over this week I met many successful business people whom I had never heard of before, one of which was Richard Mehrtens who gave an excellent presentation about International Business in general. Richard was easily the most entertaining as no other guest speaker was able to squeeze so many offensive words/phases into their presentation. Richard shared a lot of his personal experiences with the class, some good and others bad but all amazing as the deals he talked about involved several hundred million dollars.

Acknowledgement needs to be made to Don Walker for preparing such an interesting and enjoyable program for the week. This week is definitely a highlight of the Otago MBA course I have completed to date.

This afternoon I was the Dunedin guest on The Panel of Radio New Zealand National hosted by Wayne Mowat broadcast from Wingtatui Racecourse. I am not the biggest fan of this type of public exposure but I thought the experience could only improve my public speaking and provide an opportunity to talk positively about the Otago Stadium project being completed by the Carisbrook Stadium Trust. The first half of the show consisted of a political discussion in regards to both the NZ and US elections. I enjoyed the second half more as I had settled into the live discussion and was able to speak comfortably about the stadium as this is a topic I am more familiar with. Over all this was an enjoyable experience thanks to David Allan (Executive Producer), Chris Reid (Senior Producer), and of course Wayne Mowat from Radio New Zealand National.