Upper Hutt BPW NZ Newsletter June 2017 1

Upper Hutt Business & Professional Women

NEWSLETTER— June 2017

2017 Regional Meeting at Palmerston North

Sally lighting the candle at the beginning of

the meeting

Sally giving the Presidents Report

for Upper Hutt

Upper Hutt members who attended

Sally Kean, Hellen Swales, Trish Gray, Christine

Edney

Upper Hutt BPW NZ Newsletter June 2017 2

Kia Ora and greetings to our new President, Hellen Swales, other members of the Executive and fellow BPW members from the lower half of the North Island and Christchurch. Firstly, I wish to extend my thanks for the wonderful job the organising committee has done in putting together this meeting at relatively short notice. In my report last year in August I mentioned that the Upper Hutt Club was ex-periencing some growth. We lost two members last year – one to a new career in Auckland and one who has decided BPW is not for her. However, I am de-lighted to announce that we now have 17 members again with a nomination for another member to be confirmed at our Committee Meeting on Tuesday evening. All the new members who have joined in the past few months are all young women in their 30’s and it is wonderful to have their input into our Club. Our “Hands-Up Cup” was presented at our Christmas Dinner Meeting to a member who introduced two new members last year – a challenge I put out to the Club early in 2016. That member is Heather Newell who is a long-standing member of the Upper Hutt Club. We have managed to get some publicity for BPW in our community newspaper during the time since our last Regional Conference and our name is starting to be known in the community. Guest speakers we have had since August 2016 have been: Karen Morgan the new Principal at Taita College in Lower Hutt who spoke to us on her journey to being principal and what her hopes are for Taita College. This college is a very low decile school – Karen came from a Decile 10 school so it is a major challenge for her. In October we asked Zainab Radhi from BPW Wellington to speak to us on her journey to New Zealand from Iraq and her work with the Red Cross. November we had a speaker from the Defence Force, Major Toni Duffield, telling us of the New Zealand Defence Force’s “Operation Respect” and their support for White Ribbon Day. This was most appropriate and their “Operation Respect” would do well to be rolled out into every major company/government department throughout the country. December was our Christmas Dinner where we try and have a light-hearted speaker. Last year we chose Mary Fisher, the Para-Olympian swimmer who holds many world records and who grew up in Upper Hutt. Mary is completely blind and was wonderfully entertaining

In January we held our Strategy Meeting and from this our newest member, Talani Meikle came up with the

idea of holding a “Youth Engagement Forum” to try and tackle the problem of youth crime in Upper Hutt.

This was held at the end of March and over 100 people attended. It was from this that we got the publicity

as our Mayor was not at all happy that we were doing this and really got stuck into Angela McLeod who

was the MC for the event. We hope to now find ways of employing some youths so they can raise money

to get their drivers licences to help find employment.

February saw us have a Red Bag Day Breakfast and Hellen Swales came to our rescue as guest speaker following the lady we had organised from National Council of Women not being able to attend due to an accident a few days beforehand. Our February guest speaker at our dinner meeting was Noeline Casey from the Pan Pacific & South East

Asia Women’s Association who gave us an overview of the work they carry out.

March meeting we were entertained by a young engineer Gaby Bush who works on the Transmission Gully

Project. She was a wonderful speaker and knew all the statistics on women engineers, pay gaps and

gender inequality.

2017 Upper Hutt Report presented at Southern Region

Meeting by President Sally Kean

Upper Hutt BPW NZ Newsletter June 2017 3

April’s speaker was James Kirk from the Orongomai Marae which was a follow-up to our Youth Engage-

ment Forum and our May speaker was Carolyn O’Fallon who is standing for the National Party in our

electorate. Speaking of the election, we hope to host an evening for all candidates, open to the public in

late July/early August again getting the BPW banner out there in our community.

Ladies, this year our Committee is only four members. I will admit I am finding it hard as much of the work

is falling on my shoulders. So projects will have to be easy ones this year – we have delayed promoting a

scholarship until next year but we did supply 55 stationery packs to children in need in four Upper Hutt

primary schools. We will continue with this project for as many years as we can fundraise funds to cover

the cost of this.

My aim for the remainder of 2017 is to gain a few more members but they will need to be brought up to speed with BPW before they can take responsibility. This is why I asked Talani to join us at National Conference in Waipukurau so she has a better understanding of what BPW is about and who our members are as she undertook to take on our Treasurer’s role immediately on joining BPW in November last year. Thank you ladies for the opportunity to present this report to you. Sally Kean, President, Upper Hutt

BPW Hawera and Wellington co-hosted this event held on Saturday 27th May at the Hancock

Community House in King Street, Palmerston North.

In attendance we had members from BPW Central Hawkes Bay, Hawera, Upper Hutt, Wellington

and we used technology for the first time where members from BPW Christchurch joined us

through either a Skype call or we used our Flash meeting technology normally used by the

National Executive for their monthly meetings. We had a few issues but on the whole it was very

successful. We learnt a few things and will be able to improve on our next meeting where

members and hopefully individual members will be able to join us. The hope is that the Young

BPW members will take advantage of this technology when they host their young BPW Meeting in

Christchurch later this month.

Our agenda was the same as the Northern Region Meeting "Facing a Challenging Future

Together" Leonie our facilitator and time keeper a role I am sure she will own as her own

following on from our National Conference where she was chief timekeeper.

The club reports where one of the highlights for me as the sharing of what each of our clubs

where doing was just fantastic. This created a lot of question and answer time by the other clubs

and sharing of ideas. The workshop on a Triennium Theme for BPW New Zealand created a

number of one lines as well as I believe we have some great bumper stickers from this workshop.

The hope is that we will see some of these produced onto a business card and become part of

the handouts for the clubs.

The workshop on resolutions by IPP Vicky Mee was as always enlightening and thought

provoking on how we as clubs can proactively promote the external resolutions passed at this

year’s conference. Sally Smith (VP Membership) went through the need to update our face to the

world through a new website and how this can attract members. She also talked about GrowMe

and KTA's how these will work in parallel with each other.

It was a full day where I am sure each participant has taken something back Wellington and

Hawera enjoyed hosting the southern regional meeting and want to thank the BPW New Zealand

Executive for their attendance.

Hellen Swalles

Report on Southern Regional Meeting from NZ President

Upper Hutt BPW NZ Newsletter June 2017 4

Dinner Meetings

June Speaker: Deborah Cranko

Architect

Deborah in 2015 won the

National Association of

Women in Construction—

Professional Woman of the

Year award.

Deborah first became inter-

ested in architecture when in a

school holiday placement in an architects office

printing out plans etc. Deborah studied at Victoria

University and in a class of 25, one third were

women. During her studies Deborah was granted a

study award and went overseas to study.

Deborah has been practising in Wellington since

leaving university, working for architectural and

multi-discipline firms. She founded her practice to

enable her to care for her children and continue to

practise. It was at Parent’s Centre Ante-natal classes

where she met our President Sally Kean and a

friendship developed which is still going strong

even through both Deborah and Sally’s children

are well-grown. Architecture is a broad profes-

sion embracing aesthetic, social, legal and busi-

ness skills and a joie de vivre. Her practice work is

currently mainly in the residential area with a focus

on sustainability and heritage work, and commer-

cial projects relating to heritage and seismic

strengthening. Deborah has chaired the Professions

Advisory Group at the School of Architecture and

Design at Victoria University of Wellington in

addition to tutoring and guest lectures.

Deborah is a volunteer for Youth Line and treasurer

for Historical Places Trust.

At present her practice is working on the upgrade of

the Wellington Trades Hall.

July meeting: 11 July

Candle Lighting

Speaker: Natalie Sisson

Chief Adventure of

The Suitcase Entrepreneur

Donations for food bank this month:

Refer to the dinner invitation

Upper Hutt BPW NZ Newsletter June 2017 5

Members Page This page is where we can add what you our members have been up to.

Note from the Editor

I had a lovely and educational day at the Regional Meeting and to finish the day off a lovely meal

and conversation with Sally and Trish at the Fisherman’s Table in Kapiti.

Winter is now here so the garden is not getting the attention it needs with the ferns all growing. A

great place for hiding in for some furry friends.

Your editor

Christine Edney

New Members to Upper Hutt BPW

At our June Dinner Meeting

Emma was welcomed as our

latest member and received

her name tag etc

Birthdays in June

???

************************************

Dates for your Diary. Please support

July

Candle lighting

August

Upper Hutt BPW 31th Birthday

High Tea

Sunday 30 August

Alfred Coles House

Hutt Road

Petone

12.30 pm Cost $35-00

September

Suffrage Day/White Camellia Awards

********************************************

Trish Leahy received her

10 years as a member

certificate from BPW NZ

********************** ***********

Dinner meeting attendance was down at our

June meeting and no two minute wonders were

shared.

************************************

KTA’s

Start looking at your books again and seeing

what you can mark off, Many of you will have

achieved a lot of the requirements without even

knowing you have done so

Upper Hutt BPW NZ Newsletter June 2017 6

BPW—Upper Hutt - Committee

President: Sally Kean kean@paradise.net.nz 5263008

Secretary: not filled

Treasurer: Talani Meikle talani@ihug.co.nz 027 4108026

Committee Pauline Whiston paulinewhiston@xtra.co.nz 5280188

Members: Trish Leahy leahys@xtra.co.nz 5285161

BPW—Upper Hutt - Dinner Meetings

Held: 2nd Tuesday of the month .January no meeting

At: The Porterhouse Blues

King Street

UPPER HUTT

Time: 6.30 till 9.00 pm

Cost: $30.00

Beverages can be purchased separately

A chance to network with other members , have a chat over a meal and listen to a guest

speaker

Aims of BPW

BPW aims to unite business and professional women to:

Work for women's:

• economic independence

• equal opportunity and representation in economic, civil and political life

Encourage and support women and girls to:

• develop their professional and leadership potential undertake lifelong education and

training

• use their abilities for the benefit of others, locally, nationally and internationally

Advocate:

• for the elimination of all discrimination against women

• for human rights and the use of gender-sensitive perspective

Undertake: • world-wide networking and co-operation between business and professional women • non-profit projects that help women gain economic independence