News

2023 was an interesting year for me, with highs and lows.. I got a contract to manage a budget service and provide community training on how to budget effectively. That was a high.

A low for me was the nationalisation of the health service, reducing my opportunities to assist with disaster recovery planning.

Oh well, as one door closes another opens............

Let's see what 2024 brings.

Not a lot to say except that the prevalence of Covid in the community is affecting many businesses, including mine. There is only so much I can do via virtual meetings :(

KIa kaha New Zealand

Another year dawns with Covid still the number one topic. Mask wearing everywhere, restrictions on travel, on business etc........
As hoped at that start of last year, I am now assessing levels 2 to 4 for the Healthcare Assistant qualifications which I find very enjoyable.
I've also worked with an organization in setting up protocols in case of lock-down for riots, armed intruders and other physical threats. We hope to test them this year - but not in real life,please!

New Zealand has had no Covid-19 in the community for a few months now, so businesses are starting to be less cautious about the future. But consultancy work continues to be very slow to recover, so I am still looking for ways to diversify. I am hoping to renew my assessing of Levels 2 to 4, Healthcare soon and also increase my financial mentoring.
2021 promises to be an interesting year.
And finally, I am proud to be a supporter of the "Shielded" initiative, run by Women's Refuge. Hence the shield at the foot of each page of this website.

New Zealand appears to be holding a Covid invasion at bay with stringent border controls - long may it continue.
Some businesses are now cautiously optimistic that life will return to a semblance of normality, but this is not, generally speaking, translating in to consultancy work yet.
I have, however, been working with clients to update their disaster plans ro reflect what we now know happens when a pandemic strikes. Also, sadly, lock-downs due to violent events are happening more often, so I have been involved in writing lock-down policies and procedures, which I hope will never be needed.

Last year I said I would work harder at keeping this page up to date - and promptly ignored it for nearly a whole year! My excuse is that my life was taken over last year doing a diploma in Te Reo Maori. As well as 6 hours per week in the classroom there was lots of mahi kainga (homework) and aromatawai (assessments) to do. and being a slow learner, that took a lot of extra time. Happily it paid off and I passed. I am not planning on continuing at a higher level this year, but hope to expand my knowledge of Maori culture, again at diploma level. Nevertheless, I really do intend to update this page monthly.
Work-wise, I continue to spend much of my time on disaster recovery planning - living in New Zealand it is not really wise to not have such a plan! I am also working with clients on scenarios to test such plans and Business Continuity Plans.

How can it be news when I keep failing to update?! My bad.
But this year I have been busy learning new skills, and am now an assessor for levels 3,4,5 Health and Wellbeing.
I have also been busy learning more about Maori culture as well as continuing to learn te reo Maori
But I shall make a concerted effort to keep this page live:)

11 months since I last updated this page, that is dreadful. Where did the year go?

But I guess there was nothing new happening, so I didn't write anything.

I continue with writing policies and reviewing disaster recovery plans - and expect to do the same in 2018, unless a new contract comes along doing something different:)

I seem to have settled into a pattern of just updating disaster recovery plans....... Mind you, with the earth continuing to rock and roll, and weather-related power outages around the country, there is a very real need to keep on top of such plans!

Which is why no news was posted from August to now. But that is a poor excuse, and my resolution for this year (well, one of them!) has to be to post something every month.
I am mainly working on policy production at present, which is very time-intensive and quite challenging. When not writing policies I am undertaking disaster recovery planning.
I would love to get more proofreading work, but everyone needs it, most businesses know that - but no-one seems prepared to pay for it:(

A few months ago I announced a tie in with NZ Tourism Brokers and Adventure World for the UK tour. Unfortunately it has not worked out as I'd hoped, and therefore I have decided to stop offering the tour.
The page offering the tour has been removed from the website.
A sad day.

I have been struggling with yet another head cold for the past few weeks, so have not been as active as usual.

Work on disaster recovery planning continues to keep me busy; I am now into revisiting DRPs and updating/amending them after being in operation for a year.It is pleasing that changes are few and minor, showing we got it right first time!

The past three months have been extremely busy with a variety of tasks.Disaster recovery planning has featured large, as has policy writing.
In addition insolvency work is really taking off, overtaking general budget advising - a sad sign of the times.
Finally emergency preparedness training continues, with a further course planned for this month. The courses are well received, as is the practice day. The latter is so popular that I am being asked to provide regular practice days!

Much of the past month has been spent devising an "emergency preparedness" course, plus the scenarios for when it is practiced.
I have also been advising on the contents of the preparedness kit to be kept in the intended relief centre.

As mentioned before, I have been negotiating with some partners re the tour to the UK for which I am Tour Manager
I am delighted to report that Adventure World and Lynne Sinclair, an independent travel broker, are now helping me to market the 2016 tour - the link to Lynne's Facebook page is

After some time away from working on projects relating to emergency preparedness, I am now producing a training course for the staff and community wardens at a retirement village. This will include an exercise involving other residents, plus updating the preparedness kit.
I am also still involved in preparing policy documents for a public sector body as well as finalising the close-down of a company. Busy, but still have capacity for more work....

I am now heavily into preparing policies for a large public sector computer department. Also negotiations concerning the UK tour are nearly finalised, which is very exciting.

My seven weeks in Europe was wonderful, perfect weather, two All Blacks games and days when I had no Internet access - bliss.

I am now back to the usual contracts, plus an extra - helping to wind up a company which is currently solvent but, if it continued trading, soon would not be. Interesting but sad work.

I am glad to say things picked up a bit in July, and I was busy with a variety of different tasks, including disaster recovery planning, tour planning and meeting new stakeholders of the recycling company I am involved with.

The start of August will be busy as I aim to get everything up to date, ready for my 7 week trip to Europe. The trip will take in a couple of rugby world cup games as well as catching up woth family and friends and travel colleagues.

Usually, but for a business, maybe not! This has been a very quiet month, and I have no news to report:(

As the DRP work is now completed, I am able to review other areas of my work, and have revisited the UK tour. I am delighted to announce that I am working in partnership with an independent travel broker to market the tour. We have some exciting plans for it, including tailoring it to suit small interest groups.
We are currently working on PowerPoint presentations and hope to launch them in the near future.