President David opened the meeting at 7.29.
There were 13 members present.
Apologies: Peter B, Ted, Sue, David J, Wendy, Avis, Don S and Malcolm, If you want to put in apology for absence tell YHC at nickhamnz@gmail. com.
Club announcements;
President David has found a brilliant and self sacrificing volunteer to manage the sale of Christmas puds - Rory. So all of us need to support him and buy some puds come the festive season.
Don C told us that Epsom Lodge will have a Christmas Present wrapping day on 14th December. Details to follow.
Ingrid: Saturday 5th November Rotaract and Auckland Rotary are sponsoring a "Hobsonville Zumba' session to raise fund for the "Give Every Child a Future" campaign, designed to raise funds for the inoculation campaign for 100,000 children in the Pacific. There is a 10.00 am Zumba Gold class (that's for mature people!) and 11.00 am for the young and fit! It's at the Rifle Range Amphitheatre, Hobsonville. There is a gold coin collection - so bring your sovereigns along!
Sargent's session- actually brilliantly executed by corporal Stephen
Covered all current issues and cost YHC a small fortune! -
Three minute speaker:
Greg gave us the second edition of his "Selling the farm" saga. It has all been sold and with it a lot of memories. Finally Greg's mother had to sell her car - but was reluctant to let it go as it still had half a tank of gas in it!
Speaker:
Simon Beck, export manager for T & G, gave a fascinating account of how the export of apples and kiwi fruit has changed over the last three decades.
This sound like a boring topic but Simon has been involved in the export industry for ever, selling venison, wine and now focussing on apples. In the 1980s NZ sold a range of horticultural products via single sellers into 'wet markets' that's wholesalers who then on-sold to retail outlets. Now 90% of horticultural exports go direct to retail outlets, mainly supermarkets.
The destination of exports has changed from European/North America focused to much more Asian destinations, with China absorbing about 22% and Vietnam not being far behind.
The products are now "brands" with a growing proportion of income arising from the licencing of intellectual property - ie named brands of apples, kiwifruit, etc.
The volume of exports has remained roughly the same with income increasing steadily as a result of the premium that the bands can produce.
In passing we were told that the RSE workers were acquiring significant useful skills and were very important contributors to the success of the industry. Additionally that mechanisation might be able to harvest 15-20% of the apple crop and that 75% of the apples were coming out of Hawkes Bay with the balance mainly from Nelson.
The meeting ended at 8.31
PS There are two deliberate spelling mistakes. Your challenge is to find them!
