About Nga Taonga O Aotearoa

(The following was a Featured Article on www.maori-in-oz.com )

When I was first approached to write a profile for the “November Featured Article” about our business it was met with initial reluctance on my behalf, though after much thought I realized that in doing so it might encourage other Maori to start their own business.

Everyone has their reasons for why they do the things they do as I have mine and a lot of continual effort has been put in place to get our business to where it is today. This is my story…

In October of 2001 I was diagnosed with a Cyst on the brain that I soon found out was benign, however I still needed to go through the necessary treatments, care and the rehabilitation that pursued. Around March of 2002 my Rehabilitation Officer told me that I was unable to work again but I should think about taking up some kind of hobby or maybe do something for myself. She asked me what did I enjoy? I told her that I missed our taonga from home, so she said, “Why don’t you do a business course to sell your taonga?” I had left school at the tender age of 15 and couldn’t imagine going back for any kind of schooling at that point in time.

I was however blown away with her final words on the matter, “the seed having now been firmly planted in my mind”. I found myself looking into this more deeply and I began a course through Centrelink called NEIS (New Enterprise Incentive Scheme) in late July. The programme stipulated that you had to have some kind of disability, had been out of the work force and on some kind of Centrelink payment for a period of 6 months all of which I qualified for.

The programme ran for 8 weeks and involved an ongoing mentorship for a further 12 months. It was a very intensive course that not only stepped me through how to start up a business but also involved how to write up the initial business plan and follow it through. The course opened my eyes in many ways and the ‘true me came out!’ After 8 weeks the exam came up, (man was that scary) but low and behold I passed with flying colours, I was very pleased with the outcome.

I phoned my Dad to tell him that I had passed the NEIS Business Course and was going into business. Dad said, “And what are you going to sell now?” I said, “Our treasures from home, taonga (greenstone, bone carvings), Mäori Designed Clothing etc” Dad replied with, “Well, ‘Ngä Taonga O Aotearoa!’ I thought wow Treasures of New Zealand! And that is how we got our name.

During the 8 weeks of the business course we had to prove that our business concept was going to work and that we needed to do some test marketing. I flew back home to Aotearoa to buy some greenstone, bone carvings and a variety of Mäori material and bandanas. We started at the Woodridge Markets with just the one table in the far corner of the market with Prince Tui Teka playing in the background. We could hear people approaching our stall and saying, “I can hear Prince Tui Teka” and I’d reply, “Nau mai haere mai, he’s over here!” We sold heaps on our first day!

Waitangi Day Kingston - Qld

This continued for 8 weeks until I had to go home and restock again. Each time I flew home I thought to myself, ‘What would be a good seller?’ The list of items being sold in our business began to rapidly grow as I added Tribal T-Shirts, Mäori League Jerseys, NZ Track Suits, Mäori Dinnersets, Placemats, and Mäori Framed Pictures and as the list grew so to our business.

We began to realize just how much Maori and Kiwi’s really missed the treasures from home. Even the simplest of things would bring out the best in us like the Silver Fern Flag. It really didn’t matter what it was, as long as it had something with New Zealand or Maori on it to bring us closer to ‘home’. We also realized, “You don’t appreciate where you come from until you actually live away from it!” With my Dad naming our business it made me even more passionate about it all, to me my Dad is God.

‘First impressions count’ especially in business and to be professional across the board it was important to present ourselves well and get a design made up that could be embroidered onto the front pocket of a black polo shirt for us to wear. So I approached a lady who did embroidery explaining to her what we wanted the logo to represent. I told her that ‘Treasures’ to me meant love (heart) as well as giving other details that I knew to be relevant to meet the overall design concept that I was after. She took away what I shared with her and came back with a design telling me that she had added the ‘little ball things’ that swing around into the final design – I told her that these ‘ball things’ were actually called poi!

We had now grown from one table to 4 tables and a gazebo. In July of 2003 an opportunity came our way. A couple had flown in from New Zealand with the intent to travel around Australia and had brought over a box trailer with their furniture in it. They were Gypsies travelling throughout Australia. They had previously traveled New Zealand from the top of the North Island to the bottom of the South Island preaching the gospel and selling leather hats and bits and pieces. Unfortunately ill health forced the lady to return home to New Zealand. We had seen their box trailer for sale but it was not in our price range so didn’t think anything further of it. 2 days before they were ready to leave Australia they rung us and offered the trailer to us at half the price so we grabbed it.

The box trailer was an empty shell when we brought it, mostly white in colour with just a green stripe around it. We had drop tables installed immediately and soon after I met an awesome Designer who drew a köwhaiwhai pattern over the green stripe and put our business card details on both sides of the caravan and on the door.

We also met another Maori Designer and asked him if he could design us a business card that depicts what we sell i.e. Greenstone, Bone, Päua, Mäori Designed Clothing and Kete and that’s exactly what he did. We were so blown away with the designs on both the box trailer and for our new business cards!

My Mum and Dad came over to Australia in August of 2003. I knew that my Mum was proud of our achievements and I think my Dad was quietly impressed too but would never tell me directly. He’s from the ‘old school’ and what would take a normal person one day to put a rod in the caravan took my Dad a week. But that’s my Dad always the perfectionist, best to let him do it his way. Talk about a crack up!

So in August of 2003 we officially became a ‘Mobile Shop on Wheels’ and this allowed us to take our business wherever we wanted to go to. We went from Woodridge Markets to the markets at Jimboomba, Park Ridge School and Caboolture also.

A Kapa Haka Festival was being held in Melbourne in the upcoming month of November and Teepu said I could only fly down with what I could carry. I packed 4 suitcases, flew down and sold out of everything including the knitted beanie off my head! Due to the great success I had on that particular trip I said to Teepu we should take the Mobile Shop down to Sydney and Melbourne. So with our business on tow we set off from Brisbane taking on Sydney and Melbourne during the busiest period through Christmas and New Years.

I get such a thrill seeing the excitement it brings to our people. My motto and vision is ‘Bringing our Taonga to our people’. I am very passionate and sincere about our business and making it grow successfully so in February of 2004 I phoned my Dad and said that we want to travel Australia and Dad said, “Your business is not going to last forever!” and I replied with, “Oh yes it is Dad I have had our business card tattooed on my arm and its here for life!” His astonished response was, “You’re bloody mad!!

Earlier this year, we set up our business for the Waitangi Day Celebration at the Kingston Butter Factory in Logan City, Brisbane - that was an awesome experience. Then we attended the Brisbane Kapa Haka Comps and soon after returned back to the Kingston Butter Factory for the Koroneihana Celebrations where Katchafire also entertained the crowd with their hit songs and reggae beats, yet more awesome days out! As the Festivals were all great successes for our business I told Teepu to throw in his job and that I wanted us to take our taonga out to all our people around Australia.

Teepu’s last day at a fulltime paid job was on February the 28th of this year and we began our Australian wide travels in the following month of March. We left from Brisbane and did about 10 markets in and around Sydney; in the meantime I had to fly back home to New Zealand twice to restock. We will always call NZ our home we just choose to live here in Australia, as the opportunities are far greater than back home.

Around Easter time our tenants moved out of our Brisbane home and we had to head back up north to find new tenants. The people ‘home’ in Brisbane had really missed us. While back in Brisbane we set up again at the Woodridge Markets. On May the 1st we found new tenants and hit the road again. As we had only skimmed the surface of Sydney with our business we decided to head back their and stayed for a further 7 weeks, which turned out to be the wrong time of the year as it was very wet and cold, we just managed to keep our heads above water though. After our winter experience in Sydney we decided that in future we would take a ‘winter break’ and go overseas where the weather is much nicer.

Inside Mobile Shop

With the rapid growth of our business our Accountant advised us that becoming a Partnership was more preferable and beneficial over the Sole Trader that I had initially started out as, a requirement to complete the Neis Course at the time. On the 1^st of July our business officially became a partnership.

Because we are too small to buy bulk I have to travel back and forth to New Zealand every 6 to 8 weeks to restock. We have had so many people ask us to Franchise or become our Agent but I feel our Business means too much to me to take the risk of placing it in others hands and possibly ruin it in the process. If anyone is going to ruin our business it will be myself, and as long as my Dad is here on this earth that will never happen.

At the moment 90% of the clothing we sell is imported to New Zealand from China, Philippines, Indonesia and India. Though we emphasize to our customers that even though the importing is from outside of our homeland some clever Maori are getting paid royalties for their designs incorporated into these products. It is sad, but slave labor in the above countries make it much more affordable to get mass-productions made and sent out around the world for distribution. There are not many items/products that are 100% made in the country of its origin and when it is the prices are very steep.

To cut out the ‘middleman’ and buy directly from the source preferably here in Australia is something we are working hard towards, when we achieve this as the old saying goes, ‘The sky is the limit!’ Until such time we have to continually travel back to NZ on a regular basis to restock. We currently have around 30 suppliers to which only 3 of these are direct with the remaining going through the middleman.

Ideally we would really love to be able to support our people here in Australia for there is so much talent out there, but do you think we can find reliable Carvers, Designers and Dressmakers who are willing to do this? We have plenty of people coming up to us and telling us that they can do ‘this and that’ and yet when I eagerly tell them to bring me their goods and we shall see if we can work out a business proposition with them they don’t come back missing out on what could be an awesome opportunity for all of us!

We are currently looking for a Dressmaker so that we can make up our own design of clothing and sell these Australian wide. We had the clothing labels made up which we have called “Teenda Kakahu” (brought together by the first 3 letters of my partners name and the last 3 letters of my name) and “Designed in NZ” to ensure our customers can identify which products are designed by our people. We also had Swing Tags made up with our Business Card on one side and Teenda Kakahu on the other. At first I was going to have, “Designed by a Kiwi” but thought that one might not go down to well!

So if you are a serious Craftsperson of our Taonga, Maori Designed products and/or a Dressmaker, Australian based or even know of someone back home in New Zealand that we could work with directly, don’t be shy contact us immediately and we will happily go through the potential business aspects together and in the process cut out that middleman!

Our business intent is not prioritized or driven by the need to make money but more so in “Bringing our Taonga to Our People” and this keeps us passionately focused. As soon as I am inside our Mobile Shop I come alive and I believe this has a flow-on affect when people enter our shop also. Operating our business involves plenty of commitment and ongoing hard work behind the scenes though the rewards come in seeing our people’s faces light up and the obvious excitement generated from our shop. Not just to our people though but to all the Nations – the immediate response we receive makes it all so worthwhile.

But it doesn’t stop there for as soon as we have regular products (at the moment our line of products is constantly changing) we plan to get a brochure made up and on the 16th of April 2005 Nga Taonga O Aotearoa went online and launched our new Website to promote our business and bring our taonga to even more of our people. For now I am determined to succeed knowing that my Dad named us and with the intent to make him proud some day!

So if you happen to see us on our continual travels across Australia, or  see us at our Mobile Shop at the Woodridge Markets on Sundays, don’t be shy pop on in to “Nga Taonga O Aotearoa” and say Kia Ora!

By Glenda Simpson and Teepu Temple

Nga Taonga O Aotearoa
Treasures of New Zealand