Page 50 - HW April 2021

then as now
Then as now – April 2011
IN NZ HARDWARE JOURNAL 10
years ago, such was the amount
of time between a magazine being signed off and the printed version reaching your desk that we were still coming to terms with the February 2011 earthquake that devastated Christchurch.
From a human perspective, in our April 2011 magazine we were happy to list just some of the corporate
kindnesses and tangible expressions, large and small, of support for Christchurch and its people.
10 years on, we’re still working through the effects of the February 2011 earthquake.
Browns Brushware for example donated a quantity of brooms and mops for coordinated distribution through existing channel customers into areas of need and Tui Garden Products staff volunteered to forego a day’s holiday so that day’s pay (matched Dollar for Dollar by their employer) could be sent to the Christchurch Mayoral Fund.
At the other end of the scale, Fletcher Building committed $5 million towards recovery and reconstruction efforts, while PlaceMakers donated 20 Rapid Response Community Shelters, PlaceMakers Know How Card members sent in unredeemed vouchers to give to the people of Christchurch and big blue sheds elsewhere in the South Island sent teams to give local Christchurch staff a break.
Bunnings in New Zealand and Australia together contributed $100,000, having already helped raise $150,000 through family fun days and sausage sizzles around New Zealand and across Australia.
A super effort, even if that’s a far from exhaustive list of corporate good deeds and doesn’t even scratch the surface of how our then team of four and a bit million dug deep and sought to help.
FROM SOUTH TO NORTH
Further north, store openings progressed apace, including Bunnings Warehouse Mount Wellington. Construction complete, in April 2011 stock was rolling into the new 10,000m2 big barn and its newly recruited team were setting to unpacking and merchandising more than 40,000 products.
Further north still, Mitre 10 MEGA Warkworth was the first MEGA opening of 2011, attracting over 10,000 customers over the weekend, due in no small part to offering one of the still new Columbus cafés and the presence of local cricket stars Dion Nash and Jo Yovich, along with long time Mitre 10 “Big is Good” personality Levi.
Owner-operator of the Warkworth store, then as now, was Cam Caithness, who’d taken on the Mitre 10 Solutions and Garden Centre stores on Queen Street just two years previously – but clearly had bigger fish to fry.
Indeed it quickly became apparent that the fast-growing community needed a bigger, better home improvement offering, so Cam teamed up with local developers Neil (Sandy) Barr and Geoff McNaughton, to anchor their proposed retail complex at Stockyard Falls with a new Mitre 10 MEGA.
Ground works and construction started in the winter of 2010, with the doors opening on 11 March 2011.
Cam remembers: “We had massive support from the community. The store was pumping – the excitement was palpable and our team were buzzing. The day was a roaring success!”
These days, Cam’s Riviera Holdings company continues to go from strength to strength with a new prenail plant and the prospect of another MEGA for Whangaparaoa.
10 years ago however, less than a month after the sad events in Christchurch, came another reminder of just how fragile life can be.
When Cam and partner Celia got home on the night of the Warkworth MEGA’s opening, they turned on the news only to find a massive tsunami had struck Japan.
“We saw a container ship being washed into the streets of Fukushima... What a day!”
10 years ago, the Mitre 10 MEGA Warkworth team celebrate the store’s opening.
48 NZHJ | APRIL 2021
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