QBE is a commercial insurance company which has served markets in New Zealand and Australia for over 125 years.  Today it is one of the top 25 insurers and reinsurers in the world.

The company has a long tradition of community support for the arts, sports, and social and environmental projects and today seven professionals from the claims, HR and underwriting departments came out to CUE Haven to help with infill planting of long living canopy trees.

The group arrived first thing in the morning and included Andrea, Bryce, Esther, Jenny, Keith, Mary and Terry.

The weather forecast was a bit of a worry.  Some bureaus said it was going to rain all day whilst others said the rain would start at noon.  The sun was shining first thing in the morning so we decided to alter the plan for the day a bit to take advantage of the sun.  Ordinarily with a group of volunteers new to CUE Haven, we would spend time after morning tea to acquaint them with the project history and future plans.  But today because we wanted to get into the field as quickly as possible before the weather packed up, we spent a few minutes getting acquainted over morning tea and then Thomas gave a safety briefing and explained the plan for the day.

The plan for the day was to do some infill planting in an area that had previously been planted in 2013 with fast growing manuka, kanuka and karamu.  Today we planted kohekohe, rewarewa, makaka, totara, titoki.  These long lived trees will form part of the future forest canopy at CUE Haven. 

Thomas had previously taken the plants up to the site.  Once the group was on site, Thomas repeated the safety briefing and gave a planting demonstration. 

The group then went to work.  The first task was carrying the plants to the planting areas.

The planting was challenging because as these plants will grow to be huge trees, they have to be planted far apart in light wells in the existing bush.  Not only that, some areas were very muddy and undulating.  The team spread out over a wide area to find optimum spots for the trees.

In a few hours the teams managed to plant all of the trees we had for them in spite of the challenging conditions.  They gathered up all the pots, trays and gear and took them back to the ute.

When the planting was finished, we requested the team to plant a special puriri to commemorate the grant awarded to CUE Haven by QBE Foundation, and also the first QBE volunteer day at CUE Haven.  Puriri trees live for over 1,000 years and are a food source for a large number of native NZ birds.

We had a tag for the QBE Foundation which the team attached to the tree.

Our many thanks once again to the QBE Foundation for their support. The generous grant QBE Foundation awarded to CUE Haven helped us acquire the trees we planted today and this winter, and the grant has very greatly helped with the costs relating to flood and cyclone remediation projects.

The team then headed back to the nursery to unload and clean up.

We then had a relaxing lunch and Mahrukh spent some time telling the team more about the history of the CUE Haven project and answering questions.

We want to thank Debbie for organising the volunteer day—sorry you couldn’t join us and we look forward to seeing you at another QBE volunteer day.

A big thank you to the hard working team who weren’t afraid to dive into the bush and get muddy to find the best spots to plant the trees. We very much appreciate your hard work and amazing contribution to CUE Haven.

We really enjoyed meeting everyone of you and all the interesting conversations and we hope you enjoyed the day as much as we did. We very much look forward to having you out again for another fun and productive volunteer day.

And we also look forward to having you out with your friends and family for a leisurely visit soon to explore more of your community native forest reserve.

Thank You!! Thank You!!