FleetPartners—7 March 2014

FleetPartners NZ is a leading vehicle leasing and fleet management company based in Auckland.  Today a group of corporate staff and family members spent a fun and productive day at CUE Haven.  Also joining us for the day was our good friend, Doug Bayer who is a regular volunteer at CUE Haven.

The group arrived shortly after nine.  The FleetPartners team included Chris, Daniel, Gail and Viv as well as Gail’s partner Paul and Viv’s daughter Sian.

We got acquainted over morning tea and gave the group an overview of the project, the work to be done and a safety briefing.

Doug volunteered to work in the nursery and help with potting up the seedlings into bigger pots. The potting up work is very important as the seedlings outgrow their pots and can become root bound which will impede further growth or even kill the plant.

Doug’s new nickname is “The Machine” because in just a couple of hours he managed to transplant over 100 trees from the potting tubes into the bigger bags!

Meanwhile, Tom and the FleetPartners group went down to the wetlands to work on the boardwalk.

The team did a short walk on the completed sections of the boardwalk to see the finished product and then took a tour of the unfinished section so they could plan their work.

The first task was to transport the timber and tools to the work site.

The FleetPartners team was working in one of the most challenging sections of the track.  The section starts with a steep drop down to a very wet area and then another steep section back up to a drier section.  The team’s task was to cut steps at both ends of the section and to build boardwalk frames to connect the steps in the low area.

They broke into two teams–one worked on the steps and the other worked on the boardwalk frames—but because everyone cooperated so well, members regularly switched teams to help each other out with different tasks.

Building the steps is a real challenge.  It is necessary to study the terrain to determine how many steps are necessary to ensure that future users of the track will be easily able to negotiate the steps.  Once the step layout is determined, they are cut out and secured with frames, pegs and nails.

The end result is very professional looking steps that will be enjoyed (and appreciated) by visitors to CUE Haven for many years to come.

Building the boardwalk frames involved assembling them from heavy timber, and then pegging them into the ground after ensuring that everything is straight and level.

One of the biggest challenges is fitting the boardwalk sections to curves in the track.  This required lots of measuring and cutting, and the team’s results were excellent.

The group was so enthusiastic that they ended up breaking for lunch about an hour late!  But as a result, they got a lot done. In spite of wet and slippery conditions, the team did a fantastic job, building two very nice sets of steps as well as some complicated turns in the boardwalk sections.

After the late lunch, we went for a tour of the property.

It was a great end to a wonderfully productive day and we have a lot of people to thank.

Doug, thank you very much for your hard work and enthusiasm for the project.  We really appreciate your continued support and it’s always great to have you out to CUE Haven.

A big thank you to Chris for championing CUE Haven to his colleagues at  FleetPartners and making the day happen.

And a very special thank you to the hardworking team.  You were great to work with and we very much look forward to having you back.