Air New Zealand Greenteam Enviro Hunt—18 November 2018

The Air New Zealand Greenteam is a group of Air New Zealand employees who volunteer their own time every month to give back to their communities through preserving and protecting our environment by assisting environmental projects all over the country.  For the past four years, the amazing Greenteam and some of their family members have helped out at CUE Haven by planting trees.

The Greenteam members and their families were back out to CUE Haven today not to work, but for a fun and relaxing spring BBQ picnic and an “enviro hunt” to give the Green Team members a chance to enjoy the bush and socialize without having to work.

In addition to a picnic and walk in the bush, the enviro hunt is an opportunity to learn fun facts about New Zealand plant and animal life and geography.  The participants form teams (with creative names) and as they walk through the bush, they have to answer questions placed on boards all along the walking track.

Shelley Crawford, Air NZ Community Engagement executive and Greenteam coordinator who organised the event, arrived first thing in the morning with partner Josh and along with Mahrukh and Thomas of CUE Haven got everything organized.

They marked the route with red and blue ribbons to guide the teams.

The question signs were also installed at various points along the route.

There were also several test challenges set up along the way.  At one stop, the teams had to look around for items starting with a particular letter. And at another stop, Thomas talked about introduced animal pests and trapping and demonstrated how some of the traps work.

At another stop they had to remain quiet and listen for sounds in the bush.

And the feather challenge involved finding unique feathers that Shelley and Josh hid around one of the picnic platforms.

The Greenteam members and their families and friends arrived around ten—a total of 81 guests!  The group had light refreshments and Mahrukh welcomed everyone and gave a short talk about CUE Haven for the benefit of new members.

Shelley then described the programme for the day and the activities and prizes.

Thomas then gave a safety briefing.

The weather forecast had been for cloudy skies and showers but it turned out to be sunny spring day so we made sure everyone had hats and sunblock.

There were thirteen teams and they were sent out at three minute intervals along two different routes. The teams moved along their assigned routes, exploring the bush, answering questions and doing the tasks

Greenteam members – Jan, Leanne, Sarah, Tui and her daughter Daisy helped out for the day at some of the activity stops and at the water and cookie stop at the Duke of Edinburgh’s Hillary Award Grove hut.

One group took time for a quick chess game!

As the teams returned one by one, the little ones were kept entertained with activities.  The Story Time Fairy Saini did a great job.

The colouring in competition also kept the children busy.

While the teams were out exploring, Anoo, Shelley, Shaun and Mahrukh got the BBQ lunch organized.  When all the teams reported back we had the yummy lunch.

While lunch was served, the volunteer judges tallied up the teams’ scores.

It was a real challenge judging the colouring-in competition.

Shelley then awarded the prizes.  The winning team for the mystery quote was Team Gibson taking less than a minute to complete the quote from Jane Goodall– “You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference and you have to decide what kind of a difference you want to make.”

The overall winning team was Team Highway led by Shen Harrison.  They completed the course in just over an hour and had the most correct answers and won a $100 prezzy card!

Other prizes were awarded for the colouring competition and there were also a variety of spot prizes for answering trivia questions about the environment.

It was a fun day of exploring, exercise and learning and the Greenteam members got a chance to enjoy the growing native forest at CUE Haven.

Our many thanks to Shelley for all of her hard work organising yet another very successful family day out.  Shelley, we really appreciate your continued support of CUE Haven.

And a huge thank you to volunteers Anoo,  Daisy, Jan, Josh, Leanne, Sarah, Shaun and Tui; and of course the beautiful Story Time fairy Saini.

And a big thank you to all the wonderful Air New Zealand Greenteam members and their families who joined us today. We hope you enjoyed the day as much as we did.   It was wonderful seeing old friends and welcoming new people and we look forward to seeing all of you again soon.