"We have had a jam-packed year this year, full of highlights. To start off with we are celebrating our 25th year as an organisation. Enormous thank you to Stacey Mendonca and Gina Jones for establishing NAWIC back in 1997. Without you both we would not be here tonight for one. There is no way we as individual would’ve achieved the same level of connection, support and inspiration from one another if there was no NAWIC acting as the conduit. On behalf of the membership, we are enormously grateful.
We also have another milestone, are also celebrating 10 years since NAWIC officially became a national organisation. 2012 saw the establishment of the Auckland and Canterbury chapters joining the original and long-established Wellington Chapter and the establishment of a national council. Happy 10th Birthday to Auckland and Canterbury!
A couple of weeks ago, Judith sent me through the president’s report from the 2012 AGM celebrating the establishment of these chapters. It was great to see how some of the items noted in that report, as future goals, are now not just a reality but a big part of what we do.
Which brings me to the next highlight. Our NAWIC Excellence Awards. It was noted in the 2012 president’s report that there was an aim to set up an awards programme. 10 years on and we have celebrated our biggest awards yet. It still blows my mind that we had 193 entries this year. With 53 finalists who were then narrowed down to special merit and highly commended recipients and winners across the 10 categories. It was an absolute privilege to be able to shine a light on some of the incredible wāhine in our industry. Thank you to all of you who were a part of it, whether you were a winner or recipient, a finalist, a nominator, a judge, a volunteer on the night or part of our event’s team. Thank you. We look forward to doing it all again next year, this time at Te Pae in Christchurch, on Friday July 21st, put that date in your calendars!
Another key highlight was the establishment of a new national council. In what is probably an ongoing theme here but I was also blown away by how much interest we had in the 3 elected roles on this new look council. There were 25 of you all up who put your name forward. This new council came out of a desire to separate operations and governance to better cater to the growing organisation that we are. Thank you to our councillors, if you’re in attendance can you give us a wave as I call your name? Pamela Bell, Anita Varga, Liz Watson, Helen Russell, Colleen Upton, Meta Apu’ula, Stacey Mendonca, Grace Jack and myself. The last 6 months have been a lot about finding our feet as the national council members settle into their roles and our chapter chairs settle into the operations team.
We are now at over 1,200 members and we operate in 5 chapters and two satellites. Again, I’m blown away by this number!
We also celebrated our second ever Heels and Steels event across the country and each chapter has held a range of amazing events and the chairs will touch on some of these shortly. This is despite the first part of the year being heavily impacted once again by covid.
I’m excited about the coming year and more mind blowing stats!"
Thank you to outgoing immediate past president Stacey Mendonca!
"It’s hard to know where to begin with covering off Stacey’s role at NAWIC as in many ways NAWIC is Stacey! As I noted earlier, we simply wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her wanting to connect with other women in the industry back in 1997 when she was new to Wellington.
Stacey has contributed enormously, in virtually every role possible over the last 25 years of NAWIC, most recently as president elect, president and in the last year immediate past president.
Stacey has been a huge inspiration for not just me but I’m sure for all of you in attendance here. She is always willing to lend a hand and impart her knowledge. She is one of the most generous people I know. She totally embodies a mantra we have here of ‘be brave and be bold’ by regularly stepping outside her comfort zone to show all of us that we can too. An example of this is getting up in front of 470 people to present at our NAWIC Excellence Awards earlier this year at Te Papa. I can tell you this was no easy task. Another example is making a live appearance during her presidency, being interviewed by John Campbell on the tv show Breakfast where she flew the flag for women in our industry and did us all proud. She is passionate, loyal and is thankfully not stepping away from NAWIC. Stacey will be continuing, as Awards Director and I’m sure wearing some different hats along the way too.
To finish I have a direct quote from Stacey, although I’m sure she can add to this herself in a second. Stacey states “We have mighty wāhine around the country achieving amazing feats at work and at home, and I am so privileged to be part of their world.”
Thank you, Stacey but I think the real privilege, for all of us, is being a part of your world."
Congratulations to our new President - Elect - Colleen Upton
President Elect Announcement:
"I’m sure Colleen needs little introduction to many of you as she is an absolute powerhouse in our industry. She is general manager and director at Hutt Gas and Plumbing here in Wellington. She has sat on countless boards and committees across the industry, most recently as a member of the Industry Project Steering Committee for Waihanga Ara Rau and Hanga Aro Rau and Advisory Committee Member for the Regional Skills Leadership Group. It is through her immense contribution to the plumbing and gasfitting industry and to women that she became an officer of the New Zealand order of Merit in last years New Years honours.
She has been involved in NAWIC for about the same amount of time I have 7 years roughly. In that time she has been on the Wellington Chapter committee, been our national trades representative, national council member and fabulous MC at our recent NAWIC Excellence Awards.
It is incredibly exciting to have Colleen onboard in this role so can you please join me in welcoming Colleen into the president elect role."
A word from Colleen
"I am very humbled but thrilled to be the new President Elect for NAWIC and take time to acknowledge the huge shoes that I am filling from those that have gone before me in regards to Rebecca and Stacey. I am greatly looking forward to this role and the opportunity to help our organisation grow and to act as a cheerleader and advocate for women in construction. My motivation for striving for a gender free stereotypical work place is my 12 year old granddaughter. I want her to grow up in a world where she can be a plumber or the prime minister without considering her gender. The shackles that prevent our wider construction industry from opening the doors widely and with a smile so that women can enter, and thrive need to be busted down. We need to be the warrior women that lead the way on this and that offer support and encouragement to those doing this mahi. I see a future full of promise and challenges and for our organisation to be the ones that lead the way."
Colleen Upton
Resignations and thank yous
"We have a few resignations and to pay tribute to these NAWIC team members who have either stood down this year or are standing down at this AGM.
Firstly, thank you to Lynette Oxford
, our Bay of Plenty chapter founding chair who is standing down from the chair role at the AGM today.
Digging back through the president inbox I found an email from 2018, back when Jenny Parker was president, where Lynette expressed her enthusiasm in joining with some other keen women in the region to start their own NAWIC satellite chapter. Fast forward to March 2020, through hours of mahi and meetings, and the Bay of Plenty satellite was launched
Clearly the start of covid was a challenging time to launch anything new but the satellite prevailed, with a solid community of women supporting each other being established and sustained in the area. Testament to this is that fact that Bay of Plenty became a standalone chapter at the end of 2020.
None of this would have been possible without Lynette and her tireless enthusiasm and passion. This achievement has been especially impressive as Lynette fought through recovery after a serious accident during her time as chair as well. Your passion and drive is inspiring to us all, thank you Lynette.
Taking over from Lynette is Sarah Wombwell.
Next resignation is Liz Watson, who has stepped down as Waikato Chapter Chair
I’ve told this story a number of times but the first time I met Liz was at the 2019 NAWIC Excellence Awards. At the time I was Canterbury Chapter Chair and us NAWIC helpers were tasked to sit at different tables at the event. By chance, I had the absolute honour of sitting next to Liz, who was a finalist in the tradeswoman of the year category. Now I had helped out with the certificates that year so I already knew that Liz was the category winner. Being able to watch her experience of the awards and of winning was such a privilege to me and she embodied so much of what our organisation is all about.
Fast forward to 2020 and Liz reached out expressing her interest in starting a Waikato satellite chapter. Liz then gathered together a group of interested women in the region. A large group I must say, they were our biggest committee at the time, to establish the Waikato satellite chapter. The satellite launched in July last year and became a standalone chapter at the last AGM. Like Bay of Plenty, Waikato has been able to establish a core group of members in the region and has gone from strength to strength.
I’m pleased to say this is not goodbye to Liz. As noted earlier in my president’s report, Liz has only stepped down from this role as she stepped into a role on our new national council. Thank you for all your work Liz
and I’m excited about continuing to work alongside you on the national council!
Melanie Reid has taken over the chair role from Liz Watson.
I also want to thank Steph and Tracey
from the Otago satellite chapter for stepping up to cover the chair role over the last couple of months, while Rebecca
temporarily stepped away.
I also want to acknowledge Alice
and the rest of the Wellington committee in covering the chair role before Helen graciously stepped into that role.
Lastly thank you to all our chapter committee resignations, I realise there are a number of committee members who have stepped down over this year across the chapters and a bunch who have joined us.
Thank you to all of them for all of their time effort and passion to include, respect and inspire the women in our industry."
Many hands make light work, we are always keen to hear from those of you who would like to get involved in any way
Get in touch with your local chapter hereor the national operations team, we can point you in the right direction
