ANZ and PwC—19 February 2016

What do you get when you combine a group of bankers and a group of finance professionals?  Answer:  A fantastic completed walking track!

Today a group from the ANZ bank Professional Services Group teamed up with representatives of the PwC Private Business Group for a day of track building and networking.  ANZ is one of New Zealand’s largest banks and PwC is one of the world’s largest professional services firms and both organisations have a long history of community service and support.

The group arrived around nine and included Andrew, Ben, Hannah, James, Jason, Kaela, Lirio, Mark, Michael, Rachel, Scott, Tim, Tracey and Victor from PwC.

And from ANZ we had David, Deanne, Fiona, Joshua, Logan, Luke, Max, Morgan, Phil, Rhys, Ryan, Viv and Wei Lun.  ANZ teams have been volunteering at CUE Haven for the past three years and Fiona, Logan and Phil had all been out on previous visits and it was great to have them back.

We got acquainted over morning tea and then gave the group an overview of the CUE Haven project, the planned work for the day and a safety briefing.

Our project this summer has been to build a 425 metre walking track in the area that we will be planting this winter.  Previous groups have been working on the track and there were two long and challenging sections still to complete.  One was the final stretch of the main track which leads up to the road and the other is a smaller loop track around a pond.

We broke the group into three teams to tackle different parts of the project but over the course of the morning people moved among the groups and dealt with a number of interesting track challenges

The first stretch of the main track the team worked on ran along the side of a slope.  It was therefore necessary for them to bench out a long section to make the track level and smooth.

The team assigned to do the section around the pond had to deal with thick vegetation and, worse, lots of dead gorse.  They attacked the problem with rakes, grubbers and loppers and created a nice smooth track.

In the meantime, the group working on the main track pushed ahead towards the end.  They ran into a patch of thick dead grass which had to be cleared with rakes and by hand.

It was great to see people getting acquainted, enjoying each other’s company and working together to come up with solutions to track building problems.

A good portion of the track to be finished was very hilly and that meant the team needed to build steps.  Doing steps requires a lot of planning to get the spacing and height correct and the groups worked together to figure out the best way to lay out the steps.

Each step had to be dug out individually.

Each step is then reinforced with a backing plank and secured with two stakes.  Finishing off the steps required a lot of hammering.

And checking to make sure everything is even.

Each step was finished off and levelled.

Overall the group installed over forty steps along the track.

It was an amazing effort and in just over two hours the team managed to complete all the remaining sections of the track!  Other volunteer groups later in the summer will take care of some of the additional finishing touches such as drainage and retaining sections.

Have a look at some of what they accomplished.

We then took a leisurely walk back to the cottage via the gully walking track and had a relaxing lunch socialised for a while longer.

We’d like to thank Nestle NZ for providing the variety of Nescafe beverages that were much enjoyed by everyone.

A big thank you to Fiona of ANZ and Kaela of PwC for organising the visit and making sure everything ran so well.

And many thanks to the enthusiastic and hardworking team.  It was a fun and productive day and we do so appreciate your hard work and your support.  We really enjoyed meeting all of you and hope you will come back with your families and friends for a more leisurely visit.  You have made a major contribution to CUE Haven and the track you built will be enjoyed by visitors to CUE Haven for years to come.

THANK YOU!!