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When Gary Wright started his apprenticeship at the family business Wrights Jewellers in 1971, both the main street and life in Pukekohe looked very different to when his Grandfather first opened the shop in 1912. The population of the town was around 6,940, there were 129 businesses, and Australian Niel Allen beat Frank Matich by four-tenths of a second to capture the New Zealand Grand Prix held at the racetrack on January 9th. Now, 49 years…

Level Two was announced, travel between regions could be resumed and domestic flight schedules returned around New Zealand. My partner Estelle and I were keen to escape the house after a 6-week lockdown and jumped on the Air New Zealand ‘Grab a Seat’ website after hearing about some amazing flight deals to Queenstown. It was very apparent how hard Covid-19 had hit the tourism industry here in NZ and both the government and companies are…

Extracted from Pull No Punches: Memoir of a Political Survivor by Judith Collins. Published by Allen & Unwin NZ. RRP $36.99. In stores from 1 July. When David and I came back from Hong Kong, enthused by the energy and hard work we had seen, we did what any sensible people would do. Despite both of us working full-time and studying parttime at university, we bought a restaurant. We spent a lot of time eating in restaurants so, clearly, we should…

Jason Tabrum is not afraid of hard work, and is well known for putting in the hard yards to gain exceptional results for his clients. Jason is in his 9th year of selling real estate and has built a reputation for being the agent that delivers in any market and delivers the best. “I've seen seen the market at its high, when things just sold before being listed and it was imperative not to jump for the first offer and I’ve also sold successfully…

COVID-19 brought us unprecedented restrictions to our regular routines - LOCKDOWN used to be only a prison term! But Fiona from Baker’s shoes and More looks back reflectively on what has been a difficult few months. “Closing the doors on the eve of Wednesday 25th March was incredibly sad and stressful, even though we and I am sure many others, enjoyed staying at homes with our families in our ‘Bubbles’. The doors were shut, but there were…

Through viral pandemics, world moral crises and music business madness, Mykeljon Winckel’s soul-pop-jazz collective GroovExpress keeps right on chuggin’ along, morphing and shape-shifting with the times. In the Summer of 2020, that means a scaled down version featuring more vocals and less members as Winckel takes to his state-of-the-art home studio to record most of the tracks for GroovExpress’ 4th and latest effort… alone. Entitled Get Down &…

The recent campaign to shop and buy local is nothing new to Navigation Homes co-owners Nathan Hall and Ryan Keegan. One of the things they are most proud of is the employment of local people in every facet of their business, from all the staff they employ in the office, through to the highly skilled and experienced contractors they use on site. Navigation Homes are proud to call their team local. Navigation Homes was founded in the Franklin…

Usually by this time of the year, our local parks are full of young and not so young folk showing off their best moves in a variety of different sports, but this year due to Covid things have been different. That’s not to say that things haven’t been happening behind the scenes and in some respects Director of Football at Franklin United Ben Fletcher, has been working even harder to bring to fruition what has to be the best news for youth…

BUY VOUCHERS TO SUPPORT LOCAL BUSINESSES IN PAPAKURA · Now we have a fabulous offer for you all! · How about buying a $20.00 or more voucher from a local business in Papakura and we will give you an extra $5.00 voucher to spend. · Now that’s a good deal for sure. · Head to www.livepapakura.co.nz to see which stores are accepting these vouchers and support and love local businesses today. · WELCOME TO NEW BUSINESSES INTO PAPAKURA · We…

So, the other day a colleague said, “wouldn’t it be great if we were able to look at some key measures to determine quality of life. And, what if we could determine how these were affected by exercise”. And this was a very valid general query, but also a very personal one for those who have their quality of life impacted by the effects of stress. · As luck would have it, a group of scientists have done exactly that. They identified these…