PICTURE GALLERY

Great planning, wonderful teamwork, an incredible floor plan. Now add to the mix a diverse and creative group of home business people and you have yourselves a fantastic event. This is just what the Connecting 0604 group achieved at the Big Day In on Saturday November 20th. What started out as an idea suggested to a small group of home business people April 2009 became a reality November 2010.

As an exhibitor I was amazed at the amount of visitors who talked about the great atmosphere in the room. This topic has always intrigued me as an atmosphere is not something tangible. It’s not something you can actually see or touch. The very fact that people talked about The Big Day In at a feeling level told me we had made an impact on the community. This is exactly what we were aiming for.

The idea for the expo was for members of the Connecting 0604 group to showcase their home businesses to the community and each other. We wanted to be seen to be a professional group of people who choose to work from home. Our aim was to present in an informal, relaxed exhibition style-format with a homely feel. We wanted to create an environment where visitors could wander around with a cup of tea and chat to the exhibitors. From where I was placed I could see the look of astonishment on people’s faces as they emerged from a tunnel of lights. This showed me immediately that we had indeed achieved that goal. I was astonished at how long people spent at our event too. Clearly they felt relaxed and welcomed enough to do this.

We wanted to gift something to the people in the community to let them know that we were here in a meaningful way. The culture of our group is to give business – not get business. One hundred wee plants were given out to people on arrival with a little sign which read: “Creating growth in the community”.

The directories that were also given to visitors on arrival contained the business details and contacts of our exhibitors. We now have a unique directory which has gone out in to the community and beyond. High quality was our goal with the directories and that is exactly what we delivered.

To add to the success of the day we had beautiful music, a clown running around the village and an amazing town crier who announced our event. A young magician aged 6 who entertained children and their parents and a celebrity guest to intrigue people. Our tombola stall was a hit with the locals. One lady walked past with a box of prizes. She told me in an excited voice that she’d only gone to the library to return two books! She was very happy as was the recipient of the proceeds of the tombola stall (we will be writing about him separately).

We were incredibly supported on the day with an extraordinary team of helpers and a person holding a clipboard making sure the event ran as smoothly as it could. And it did.

If you were an exhibitor, a helper, someone who donated, someone who was donated too, or a visitor – thankyou to you all for contributing to our first Big Day In event and making it the unique and successful event that it was. We welcome feedback, stories and photographs.

See you all next year!

Liz Constable

Founding member and co-ordinator Connecting 0604

Individual people do have to be mentioned because without them we could simply not have created such a wonderful event:

Co-ordinator

Liz Constable – Book Art Studios – I had so much fun putting this event together it couldn’t be called work!

Interior Design

Thanks to the wonderful insight and dynamic interior design skills of Allison McDonald of Allison McDonald design we looked like the professional and unique group we are.

Graphic Design and web design

No event is able to function without some form of marketing and advertising. That meant invitations, posters, website information and much more! Without the ongoing support of Christopher Hope of Christopher Hope Web Design and Photography we quite simply would not have got to where we are today.

Music

We were entertained throughout the day by the beautiful music provided by Andrew Healey and Jo Morgan of Acoustic Candy. It made a huge difference to the room and those in it when they were playing.

Plants

Glenda Gordon – Gordon’s Native Plant Nursery provided the beautiful seedling giveaways

Magician

Remy the Great. Our youngest working from home member who, at the age of 6 is already following his passion for magic.

Celebrity Guest

Ken Ring, a magician in his own right is best known these days as his role as a long range weather forecaster. Ken’s predict weather almanac’s are used widely in New Zealand by Farmers, Fishermen, Skiers, Events Organisers and anyone who works outdoors or just wants to know what the weather is going to do! Ken very kindly was our celebrity guest who put in a lot of time and effort both before and on the day. We are very grateful to him for his wonderful input.

Press Releases

Andrew Healey – Promotional Writing Services – for keeping the media informed of our event.

Town Crier

Our local town crier Nigel was a delight to many Titirangi residents seated at their local cafes busy enjoying their morning coffee! Nigel added a touch of intrigue by announcing our event in an old fashioned way providing something a little different for a Saturday morning.

Vinyl Graphics

Not only did Henry Killan of Vinyl Graphics (2008) Ltd spend the whole day being an outstanding helper but he also provided the graphics for the sandwich board and our banner.

Banner

The banner which Karen Willis of KEY small business solutions so kindly donated.

Ottoman

Brett Kennedy – Brett Kennedy Design – creating the beautiful ottoman.

Printing

We were so thankful to Craig Constable from Fleetwood Printing for all the printing work he did.

Directory Design Work

Jo Morgan from Hoi Polloi Graphics very kindly donated her time and the beautiful design work is all thanks to her.

Operations manager and helper

Husband and wife team Raz and Jose from RAZ art design and production. Jose was our operations manager and kept us all wonderfully on track. Her husband RAZ did a great job of being everywhere we needed him to be.

Sandwich board maker and helpers

Pete and Sharon Mooney. Another wonderful husband and wife team. Two invaluable helpers in so many ways on the day.

Photography on the day

Jenny Tomlin - Jenny Tomlin Photographics

George-Hone Scott Recipent of the proceeds of the tombola stall

The reason for the tombola stall was to donate the money to someone in the community who was striving for excellence in his or her own life. We ran a competition which the Western Leader kindly wrote about to find such a person. 16 year old George Hone-Scott’s entry stood out head and shoulders above the rest (no wonder he’s so tall in real life!). He is a truly remarkable young man. His goal of reaching the level of playing ice hockey for the black sticks has just got two steps closer by trying out for the under 18 team and being selected for the under 20’s! Now, he has to frantically raise the funds to get him to America (he has as yet no sponsorship). The tombola stall raised $545 to help George on his way. Grateful thanks to Hoi Polloi Graphics who donated $55 to round it off to $600! If anyone is interested in sponsoring George please contact Liz Constable: liz@ connecting0604.co.nz GO GEORGE!

We have a great team of people who drove the event from the start thankyou for all the hours you spent at the meetings:

Shirley Wakelin

Glenda Gordon

Allison McDonald

Tracey Ashton

Liz Constable

Judy Newton

Christopher Hope

Lynne Flood

Ricky Belsham

Lorraine Ferrier

Dean Kaye