Honda New Zealand—21 June 2013

Honda New Zealand has supported the CUE Haven restoration project from the very beginning.  The Company maintains the Honda Tree Fund and for every Honda car sold in New Zealand, the company contributes to the purchase of 13 native trees for restoration projects.

Funds from the Honda Tree Fund are made available by the Auckland Council through the Environmental Initiatives Fund and CUE Haven has been a recipient of grant money from the EIF.  We are very grateful to Honda and Auckland Council for their support.

Last August, Honda celebrated the sponsorship of the 500,000^th tree through the Tree Fund and we were very happy that Honda selected CUE Haven as the site for planting of the ceremonial tree.

This year, Honda also supported us by sending out a great team of Auckland-based Honda professionals to assist with our planting efforts.

Organising the planting day was a bit of a challenge.  It was originally scheduled for the 14^th June, but on the morning, the weather was not cooperating with heavy rain and wind.  As a result we rescheduled to the 21^st.

As luck would have it, the 20^th and 21^st of June made New Zealand weather history as an Antarctic blast brought record snow to the South Island and a major windstorm in Wellington which caused a lot of damage.  Auckland got high winds and a lot of rain on Thursday but according to the forecast the weather would “improve” on Friday.

Thursday morning dawned even worse than the previous week but the Honda team decided to go ahead in the hope that things would improve and we were lucky.  By the time the team arrived early Friday morning, the sun was shining and the winds had died away.

Eight Honda NZ staff from the marketing, client support, accounting and logistics departments came out—Adrian, Ella, Esmeralda, Jennifer, Karena, Nadine, Nicola and Tennessee.  They were joined by three technical interns from Honda Japan—Akita, Kanaki and Masataka.

Also joining the group were Leanne Frisbie of PassionPR and with photographer Rich Coburn and freelance photographer Hamish Coleman-Ross.

During morning tea the team had a brief orientation to the CUE Haven project and a safety briefing.

It was a short walk up to the planting site.

Once we got to the planting site the team went to work and the weather cooperated.

At the end of the planting session some of the group took a walk up to the top of the property and then explored the gully walking track.

They also visited the golden totara that was planted by Honda last August to mark the 500,000^th tree sponsored by the Honda Tree Fund.

The group then relaxed over lunch.

The Honda team was great to work with and in just a couple of hours managed to plant over 400 trees!

We want to thank Honda NZ for their support over the years. It is great to have corporations that encourage and support environmental sustainability projects.

A big thank you to Ella Merrylees for co-ordinating the arrangements for the team to come out and quickly rescheduling after the cancellation.

And our many thanks to the great team who didn’t believe the weather forecast and came out to plant and made a fantastic contribution.

We look forward to having you all visit us again.  Thanks!