Coming to a conference to get to know a large new group of people, especially when you work by yourself most of the time, can be a little intimidating, to say the least.
My partner, Jase, just started his fencing company in November, and has gotten a huge amount of value from his FCANZ membership, so we were excited to come and meet everyone at Conference23, but also a bit overwhelmed.
That’s why I was glad to have the opportunity to get to know a few people one-on-one before joining the larger group, and the Ladies Who Lunch outing was the perfect chance to do that.
The decision to go was confirmed a good one throughout the day as the rain pounded down and icy winds ploughed through New Plymouth. We all felt sorry for our partners and all the folks at the National Fencing Field Day but I was very glad to be dry and sipping gin, to be honest.
First, we went to Bianca Lorenne, a fine linen company based in New Plymouth that has national distribution and is growing quickly. We were welcomed with some free gifts, and then the salespeople talked to us about the process that the company goes through to create beautiful and cohesive linen collections. We browsed through the shop, with lots of ‘ooh’s’ and ‘ah’s’ and then hurried through the rain back out to the van.
Next, we headed to the Kina Art Gallery in the downtown area. We loved looking at all the beautiful glass objects and paintings that were done in the Magic Eye style. We also checked out a few other shops in the area. There was a lot of velvet and fake fur involved, which I was happy about (how could I not be?!?!)
Giles Chocolatier was our next stop and proved to be a very popular one. The owner and chocolatier, Gavin Giles, gave us a very informative talk about the chocolate-making process and how important it is to grind the chocolate thoroughly and temper it at exactly the right temperature to make a smooth, shiny, and delicious final product. Suddenly, Carol announced that we only had 4 minutes left for our stop there – we were so interested in the talk that the time flew by. How could we possibly buy all the chocolate that we seriously NEEDED at that point? Luckily, our van driver was patient and everyone was able to get their fix.
Locals’ Cafe is a popular local lunch spot, so we all got a ‘tasty tucker’ and got to know each other better, which was really fun.
Finally, a tasting at Juno Gin finished off our tour on a high note. I don’t really drink much, but I was very excited to learn about the science behind distilling, how different botanicals help make unique gin profiles, and the ins and outs of how spirits are judged at the Spirits Competition. The delicious samples Jo James shared with us highlighted several gold- medal winning gins that were outstanding.
So, all in all, the lunch, while good, was just one small part of an overall wonderful day filled with interesting and fun activities.
We genuinely enjoyed ourselves and I want to thank Debbie Robertson of Rural Safe for sponsoring this fun day, Debbie White for doing such a great job of organising it, as well as Carol Noakes for being the point of contact and keeping us all on schedule!
Article written by Cassa Grant
Published in the Conference23 Wrap-Up in WIRED Issue 70 / September 2023 by Fencing Contractors NZ
