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Pink Ribbon Ice Skating Extravaganza

Our fabulous agent Liz O’Neill, has been fundraising for the Breast Cancer Foundation since last year after a close friend was diagnosed. This year she held her inaugural Pink Ribbon Auction in May, with great support from the Harcourts Network and local businesses. Usually seen in blue, pink was the colour of the day!

Liz, who is also a competitive Ice Figure Skater auctioned a skating lesson with herself and her fellow Harcourts Holmwood Sales Consultant colleague Richard Dawson won the lesson for $1,000 – on the proviso that the Holmwood CEO Tony Jenkins did the Ice Skating lesson, and that it was filmed by their Videographer Sascha Jehle!

Deciding that it was a great opportunity to continue fundraising for BCF, Liz  engaged local companies Rosefern Homes and Urban Arch, and created her Ice Skating Extravaganza. This involved team members from Holmwood, including Tony Jenkins and Jamin Marshall battling it out on the ice in dance-off’s, relay races and best dressed competitions. Everyone showed off their excellent skating skills, with some tumbles along the way! There was another auction held on the ice which was a great opportunity to bid on some items and raise extra funds. The total amount raised from both events was $31,604.03

Check out the fantastic video and photos from the auction and Ice Skating Extravaganza. Congratulations to Liz, Tony and the entire team at Harcourts Holmwood, this is an amazing fundraising effort!

And a huge thank you to everyone who attended our Pink Ribbon Ice Skating Extravaganza and showed their support!

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Celebrating 12 years of Sponsorship

At Holmwood we are celebrating a very special relationship this year.

It is an absolute privilege to have been sponsoring Nurse Maude for more than 12 years now. Through snow storms, earthquakes, pandemics, and the ups and downs of the real estate market, we haven’t missed a beat.

Every day, our agents are travelling all over Canterbury on the back of Nurse Maude vehicles, to support the essential work this amazing organisation undertakes. It is an honour to be able to contribute directly to the care of someone in our community.

Harcourts Holmwood are deeply committed to this relationship – it is much more than just being a face on an ad to us.

24 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks of the year, for 12 years, we’ve been on the road behind Nurse Maude, literally…!

Where they go, we go.
Here’s to 12 years.

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Pop up Penguins

The Penguins have arrived!

Harcourts Franchises in Christchurch are proud to support the Pop Up Penguins charitable promotion as the main Presenting Partner. The charity we are thrilled to be backing is Cholmondeley Children’s Centre. This centre has been an integral part of our community for many years, what a wonderful and colourful way to give back! Holmwood have selected our penguin design and we can’t wait to share this with you! In the meantime, please keep an eye on our Facebook page to see when our penguin will be released into the wild!

Schools around Canterbury are also involved in the painting of the smaller penguins. These will also form part of the “walk” around the region from the 29th Nov to the 31st Jan 2021. Harcourts is also promoting a design competition aimed at children in the Christchurch region. Any person under 18 can submit a design for a penguin; the winning design will be commissioned, displayed and will eventually be given back to the child as their prize.

The “walk” comprises the 50 large penguins, the 65 smaller school-designed penguins along with the Harcourts colouring competition penguin.

See the colouring competition below, or click here to download a printable PDF.

For more information on the Pop Up Penguins initiative, visit https://popuppenguins.co.nz/

#popuppenguins

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Pink Ribbon Breakfast 2020

A little later than usual… but our St Albans office is taking part one more time in the Pink Ribbon Breakfast. This wonderful event helps support the Breast Cancer Foundation NZ’s vital work.

The money raised will help fund several areas. One of the most important, is to support groundbreaking work by some of our country’s top breast cancer researchers. It will also help educate people about breast health, and provide free support services for breast cancer patients.

Donate today to help make zero deaths from breast cancer a reality:
https://pinkribbonbreakfast.co.nz/page/harcourtsholmwoodstalbans

The following graph shows how the funds raised are distributed:

#showyoursupport #pinkribbonbreakfastnz

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Holmwood Sponsor Good Bitches Baking

Harcourts Holmwood announce sponsorship of the Christchurch Chapter of Good Bitches Baking

Good Bitches Baking (GBB) is a network of people who want to show kindness to those in their communities. They do this by delivering delicious homemade baking to people in the community who are having a hard time.

Their mission; to make Aotearoa the kindest place on earth.

The organisation was started by Wellington friends Nicole Murray and Marie Fitzpatrick in 2014. They founded GBB, in the Kiwi tradition of delivering comforting food in an hour of need, and it has become extremely popular throughout New Zealand. There are now GBB Chapters right across the country with new Chapters starting all the time.

Good Bitches Baking Christchurch Harcourts Holmwood

The Christchurch GBB Chapter, led by Sally Clarke, has massive 175 bakers. In July they baked 177 boxes of goodies for different organisations and groups across Christchurch including Battered Women’s Trust, Women and Men’s Night Shelter, Post-Natal Depression Canterbury, Neo-Natal Ward and Dementia Canterbury to name a few. Harcourts Holmwood are absolutely delighted to announce their sponsorship of this thriving Chapter.

“I was so pleased when Sally approached us to sponsor this organisation,” says  Harcourts Holmwood CEO, Tony Jenkins. “Good Bitches Baking is a fabulous and very kiwi concept. We can all remember times in our lives when sitting down with a cup of tea and some home-baked treats has provided a moment of reprieve from a difficult situation.”

Click here to find out more about GBB and see how you can volunteer

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Pink Ribbon Breakfast

Our St Albans office supported the Breast Cancer Society with their Pink Ribbon Breakfast. It was a wonderful morning filled with dress ups, delicious food, exciting auctions and great company.

We are proud to announce that they more than tripled their donation goal! The money raised will be used to fund research projects and medical grants to help improve survivorship, as well as support patients and their families during treatment and recovery.

Thank you to everyone who came along to support, and especially to Jarod Rolton and his wonderful team for putting this together!

christchurch communitychristchurch communitychristchurch communitychristchurch community real estate

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Le Race Record Smashed

Records smashed as Kate McIlroy and Daniel Whitehouse win Le Race cycling crowns

Daniel Whitehouse has broken the Le Race course record to claim back-to-back titles, while Kate McIlroy won the cycling classic on her third attempt by smashing the women’s record by a staggering nine minutes.

Whitehouse won the 100km race from Christchurch to Akaroa in 2018 after just having an appendix removed and again had to do it the hard way today after puncturing near the halfway point, as well as losing his cycling computer early in the race.

“I had no idea what was going on and had to do it old school,” laughed Whitehouse whose new record time of two hours 35minutes and 28 seconds is even more remarkable considering an enforced slow start through the city due to limited police resources.

“On top of that the replacement wheel was a bit narrower so my front break wasn’t working very well, and I had to hold off the speed a bit downhill,” said Whitehouse who found himself chasing a leading foursome of Jake Marryatt, Scott Thomas, Paul Odlin and Kees Duyvensteyn.

The 24-year-old climber managed to claw the leaders back one by one charging up the famous Hilltop, where only Marryatt managed to stay clear to take the King of the Mountain prize.

The young Christchurch rider, however, was soon caught by Whitehouse and young Andrew Bidwell from Blenheim who was the only rider to match the defending champion uphill.

On the final stretch, Whitehouse waited for one last steep climb to accelerate and lose his two young competitors to arrive well clear of Bidwell and previous record holder Michael Vink in third place.

In the women’s race, the frustrations of losing last year’s race on the finish line was the perfect motivation for Kate McIlroy to finally win Le Race in the third attempt.

“I didn’t just want to win the race, but destroy the record,” said the former Olympic triathlete who clearly has not lost any of her competitive juices, winning in 2.49.10.

McIlroy said she was not going to get caught again and was grateful to find a strong group to stay with going up to the Hilltop. “Last year, I had to do a lot of racing by myself, so it made a big difference to be able to stay with a group.”

The 37-year-old said that she “was done with Le Race” after ticking the cycling classic off her bucket list. “But never say never,” said McIlroy who finished more than two minutes ahead of Henrietta Christie and 13 minutes ahead of Julia Grant in third.

Both race winners picked up the $500 winners check as well as the $500 dollar bonus from Harcourts Holmwood for beating the course record, and were followed by a field of around 700 riders of all ages and abilities, including blind tandem rider Blair McConnell and riders on vintage bikes.

The 53km Le Petite Race to Little River was won by Chris Ross and Sammie Walker in the women’s race.

 

 

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Le Race Sponsorship

Once again Harcourts Holmwood are offering a $500 prize to the first man and first women that break the current race records in the upcoming Le Race event, Saturday 23rd March.

Le Race is a 100km cycling race with mixture of challenging hill climbs, fast flats and exhilarating downhills that travels from Cathedral Sqaure in Christchurch, across an extinct volcano, to the French surrounds of Akaroa.

It has been won by some of the country’s leading cyclists, including nine time Tour of Southland winner and Commonwealth Games medallist Brian Fowler, former junior world champion Jeremy Yates, Commonwealth Games representative and Olympian Heath Blackgrove, six time New Zealand duathlon champion Mark Bailey and in recent times Christchurch pro cyclists Sam Horgan, Michael Vink and teenager Keagan Girdlestone, who in 2014 was the events youngest ever winner.

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Community Highlights 2018

We are proud to look back on our sponsorship and community support in Christchurch for 2018 and excited for the year ahead!

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Holmwood Sponsor the Mission’s Christmas Lunch

Harcourts Holmwood has a positive and long-term commitment to the Christchurch community. This year we have taken another step up! Not only are we contributing to the Christchurch City Mission’s ‘Walk of  Stars’ but we are also as a major sponsor of the Mission’s Christmas Lunch.

The Christchurch City Mission is one of those institutions we all wish wasn’t needed. Alas, the statistics tell a different story. Demand continues to rise, more are living on the fringes of society and we need to give a helping hand this Christmas.

With one family in five finding the expense of Christmas too much of a burden, it is a privilege to be able to support this important event.

We are aware that others might also like to contribute so we have set up a ‘Givealittle’ page. To access this page please click here or simply text “donate” to 206 to make a $3 donation.

Help us, help others this Christmas!