July 2007 - Richard Aston

Work to develop a good expansion based continues. I have been working hard with the team here at Big Buddy on strategies and writing detailed planning documents especially around training new coordinators. It's kinda scary to realise just how much we've had in our heads and its not until you have to write detailed training manuals that you find out.

I spent some time in Wellington interviewing potential coordinators there and catching up with our friends in Barnadoes who are very supportive of having Big Buddy operating in Wellington. I even managed a coffee with my fellow WOD award winner Deborah Morris Travers, it was good to catch up with her work and she was able to share some Wellington contacts with me.

I have been working in the Warkworth area as well, interviewing a potential coordinator there and talking to local people about Big Buddy in the Rodney area.

I started doing some thinking around business sponsorship, developing an idea, Big Buddy Business Supporters. The idea is simple. Big Buddy builds a series of strong win/win relationships with select businesses across New Zealand. Each business will commit to Big Buddy a certain amount of funding, promotional opportunities and perhaps expertise or help from their staff. Big Buddy in turn will help each business by allowing our brand and logo to be use to help promote that business with customers or employees. I figure in an increasingly competitive world its important for business people to find a point of difference. Customers are changing, becoming much more selective in who they deal with. Recent studies by Philanthropy NZ show kiwis prefer to shop or do business with companies who support worthwhile causes, who a business is and therefore who they support is as important as price in many cases. In a very synchronistic way I was approached by a business person looking for exactly this type of relationship. Michelle Dobson is a real estate agent in Auckland's North Shore area; she had been a mentor once, loved the idea of it and wanted to support us. She also needed a competitive edge in her work so we negotiated an agreement where she dontated a portion of her income to Big Buddy in return for using our brand to support her work. Had some other talks with a larger business in the fruit drinks industry, nothing has come of that yet. So the idea is developing and I will be working hard to get more business people on board with it.

Oh yes we were finalists in the Waitakere Enterprise Business Awards, it was nice to be aknowledge in this way.

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