Two Cowboys on a Journey: Etco*, Auckland - New Zealand

etco* 

(Learn: * Inspire: *** Amaze: * Live: **)
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When do you become a maker?

Many producers will tell you that they've always been making things and continues to do so regardless of their achievements in business or career. It may be the way they were brought up, the access to tools and materials, or just the inspiration they had from their parents or grandparents.

Some people become makers out of necessity. They couldn't afford a new bicycle and had to make do with an old one that needed fixing. As we've seen in some of our previously profiled Producers, some had to earn a living under difficult circumstances, to provide for their family.

There comes a time in the life of every maker, fixer or creators when their interest has the potential to go beyond a personal value, and become their career or their business. Many are natural entrepreneurs. Even more, makers seek out opportunities to work with others in a trade. Trade schools are available that will educate anyone with the commitment and interest to succeed. There are not many of these organizations thought, that will go beyond teaching the qualification of the trade and skill. Very few are also prepared to invest in the person that becomes the tradesman or woman of the future.

In Auckland, we've found an inspiring approach to qualifying electrical apprentices for their entry into the job market. The company is called etco*. They train electricians, place apprentices and put young people on the road to becoming successful people.

Impressions

Etco* embarks on a three-year journey with the student, to help him or her become a successful person. It starts with simple personal values and disciplines like personal hygiene, dress, respect, consistency, and teamwork. It goes further by teaching students life-skills in managing their money, motivation, tools, and how to grow their careers.

Peter Rushworth, one of the founders of the initiative puts it well: "At etco*, students don't only learn how to make things, but they learn how to make things work." Most importantly, they are showed, taught and coached towards making their lives work. For many unsure and insecure school leavers, this provides an amazing hand up. This sets them onto a path of becoming a successful Producer. Their maker interests are given a chance to let them earn their livelihood. They get qualified for a trade, and earn along the way while doing so. Above all, they learn what it takes to be a successful human being.

More than three thousand of them have had this hand up already, and the results and feedback are phenomenal. It is so sought after that student compete for a chance to be part of this program. New Zealand electricians, especially the ones that came through the etco* system, can be found the world over. They are recognized and valued for their skills, but more so for being good, solid and contributing members of their respective communities. Many go on to have their own successful businesses that in turn, provide opportunities to a new group of apprentices that etco* sets on a path to future success.

Etco* is a wholly owned subsidiary of ECANZ (Electrical Contractors Association of New Zealand). The business was established to provide employment and training for the electrical industry in New Zealand. Since their beginnings in 1991, their commitment to producing the best has helped thousands of Etco apprentices and students achieve outstanding results and successes, in industry competitions, national examinations, and the industry itself (http://www.etco.co.nz/).

Their two main areas of activity are the employment and placement of electrical apprentices via their group apprenticeship scheme, the provision of training courses for apprentices and tradespeople.

Come with us, as we meet some of the Producers of tomorrow while being inspired by people that are committed to making other people successful.

Our Apprentice

This video was edited by our very own apprentice Video Producer: Henry van Wyk. It is his first Producer profile video.

Yes, he has the same name as I do - just an improved version, I guess. Henry has an exciting career ahead of him in the film and video industry, and we are privileged that he is starting it with us.

Henry joined Profiled Productions in March 2016. He will be accompanying us on our journey, as we travel the world looking for inspirational Producers and their stories. 

Please welcome Henry into the fold - he is more than the camera in "Two Cowboys and a Camera". We have high expectations of him, and we are excited to have him on the team!

Hendrik van Wyk
Producer

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Please help us to bring you more of these programs by supporting us on Patreon: www.forwardthefavour.com. 

Photos

Training - Old School ;-)

Right, Lesson 1...

Never get stuck behind the 8-ball.

if it doesn't switch on, then we always have some firewood.

Two Cowboys on a Journey: pure delish, Auckland - New Zealand

Christmas Cakes

(Learn: * Inspire: **** Amaze: * Live: ****)
(The Two Cowboys Subjective Rate-o-Meter.   )

How do you take charge of your own destiny with two small children and no money? You make something!

This is the first producer we profile in New Zealand. It is also a huge success story showcasing just what is possible with determination, unwavering commitment, and a great team of people. Breakfast cereal in New Zealand, will never just be Weetbix and milk again. Now you can upgrade to something healthy and delicious, with the knowledge that you are supporting a maker, making a difference. Meet Karen Staples and pure delish.

For more than a decade pure delish has been creating quality products that are real, delicious and anything but ‘ordinary’.  Their brand is synonymous with mouth-watering excellence, and they have carved a solid reputation for innovative, category-challenging and award winning products.

They started out small with Karen, owner of pure delish, wanting to make some extra cash for her family at Christmas.  She decided to roll up her sleeves, follow her passion for baking and set out on a mission to make a Christmas Cake that had a bit more of a modern twist than that offered at the time. This modest beginning has led her to where they are today, an innovative and passionate company producing a wide range of products including, 7 different breakfast cereals, snack bars, cookies, slabs and last but not least the famous pure delish Christmas Cakes!

Impressions

A visit to pure delish is not a normal visit to a food factory. The first thing that strikes you when you arrive is Karen's energy and passion. It is contagious with smiles from her staff everywhere. The second is the aroma of freshly baked cookies. Purely delicious cookies! It is a busy place. You need to know where to stand and not be in the way.

We arrived on a hot mid-Summer's morning at their factory in Mt Wellington, Auckland. Pure delish just moved into a brand new warehouse and company offices. "We've outgrown our space again!" is how Karen greeted us. The demand for pure delish's products keeps increasing, and recently they've started shipping product for export to Australia.

There aren't enough space on the shelf for all the awards that Karen and her people have received over the last few years. Not only did they manage to break into the cereal market, but they've succeeded in creating a whole new category of product that focusses on supporting people on the more natural paleo diet. There is almost a religious following of the pure delish products. I've brought some of the paleo bars home, and never had one. My teenage son (who avoids healthy food at all cost) annexed it, and that was the last I've seen of it.

Pure delish makes everything by hand. At first, this sounds like a less than profitable idea. Especially in fast moving consumer goods. Mechanisation and automation create margin in this category which is notorious for razor-thin profits and huge volumes (i.e. a lot of work for little money). In Karen's case, she decided that she would rather this profit end up in the pockets of her people. It is a differentiator, but also a commitment to employ people that equally benefits financially with her in her business. They all share the satisfaction that comes with making something.

Factory work can be soul crushing boring and repetitive. Karen showed us how employees at pure delish move from role to role, acquiring new skills and helping her to innovate the products as they grow. The ingredients they use are sourced from all over the world. Every nut and every raisin are checked to assure it meets the quality standards of the products that leave this kitchen.

What do you do as a producer when you achieved your goals? You find new ones.

Karen is slowly shifting her focus away from day-to-day production management and business survival, in a very competitive market, towards mentoring and growing her people. Her son recently joined her in the business, and this gives her an opportunity to take stock, reprioritize, and spend more time developing her people. She is now mentoring others to make something.

They all eat lunch together every day.

With this much energy, I cannot wait to see what Karen and her team is determined to do next. Once a maker, always a maker. As she said it: "It is in your bones!" Enjoy!

Hendrik van Wyk
Producer.

Get rewarded for supporting our local Producers. Receive special offers and invitations from the Two Cowboys.

Who we are: We are a social enterprise. We are funded through donations and sponsorship. 
All our earnings are applied back to covering our costs of marketing and promoting Producers and inspiring local communities. Please support us to bring you more (www.forwardthefavour.com)

Two Cowboys & A Camera

Today is a Special, Special Day...

Two years of planning and we are ready to move to the next stage in our lives as producers. We are embarking on promoting producers and creators of civilized life. We are showcasing people with purpose, who make things.

We are two Cowboys that travel between Canada and New Zealand to learn, inspire amaze and live while we showcase small Producers.

We believe that these Producers are the foundation of our communities. They drive the engine of our world. We should know more about them, and be inspired by what they do. We should learn from them, and discover for ourselves, the value of making something.

Please come along with us on this journey. Share it with as many people as you can.

We have a simple mission:

"Inspire people to make something, to discover meaning and purpose in life."

How We Do It 

• Our plan is to record and publish small documentaries you can watch on our You Tube Channel.
•  This will be followed by video training, where some of our featured producers will be teaching  you what they do. You will be able to get the training at www.ProfiledTraining.com

We are putting it out there for you to enjoy. Hopefully you will be as inspired as we are.

You can get involved:

• Please follow and share our producer stories.
• Tell us about producers you believe we should feature.
• It all costs a lot of money, so we are open to sponsorships and financial support for our journey.
• Please buy our producer training and other products online. It helps to keep the initiative, and our producers going. (www.profiledtraining.com)

Sincerely,
Hendrik van Wyk
Producer.

Get rewarded for supporting our local Producers. Receive special offers and invitations from the Two Cowboys.
Please help us to bring you more of these programs by supporting us on Patreon: www.forwardthefavour.com. 

When Maker Becomes Artist

The ultimate fulfilment for producers and makers is when craft becomes art. The logical step from here is to pass this knowledge on to the next generation.

I dabble in leather carving (www.hendrikvanwyk.com).

On my maker journey, leather carving inspired me to make beautiful and useful articles. The articles I make has the potential to outlast me if I take care of them. It also means that once I have a well made article, I probably won't need another one soon.

My journey taught me about meaning and purpose. It provided the mind space and satisfaction to create. The articles I make are useful and valuable to me. Making it is almost a meditation. Other people recognized the beauty and uniqueness of the articles. As a result, I've produced some custom items for a select few clients.

It is therefore inspiring to see a select group of craftspeople sharing these values, and investing in the perpetuation of their craft. Be introduced to the Traditional Cowboy Arts Association.

Who knows, maybe we get a chance to meet these folks soon...

Hopefully we get to feature their craft, their motivation and also introduce people to the possibility of learning how to make things themselves.



Hendrik

Get rewarded for supporting our local Producers. Receive special offers and invitations from the Two Cowboys.
Please help us to bring you more of these programs by supporting us on Patreon: www.forwardthefavour.com. 

The Simple Things in Life

"Our life is frittered away by detail."  Henry David Thoreau

Isn't it interesting how the simple pleasures in life has the most profound impact on our lives?

Busy lives

Our days are easily filled with all kinds of must-do's and do-not forgets. From the moment we open our eyes it is a rush to get ready for work. Get the kids to school. Be on time for the meeting. Grab a coffee. Do the presentation. Get the food ready for dinner. Do the washing. Walk the dog and get to bed in time to have enough energy for tomorrow to rinse and repeat.

We can be forgiven for getting tired and depressed just thinking of it all. If the daily grind is not enough, we have the weekly and monthly reminders that push us along: Pay the mortgage. Close the deal. Settle the bills. Buy the food. Service the car. Celebrate the birthday. Clean the yard. Make it to Summer and then to Christmas.

Then there are the goals for life: Pass the exam. Find the job. Marry. Earn the promotion. Buy the house. Build the career. Raise the kids. Retire. Before we know it, eighty years have passed and we are lying alone in bed with a drip and catheter wondering, what just happened?

In and Out of Control

The holidays provide a welcome chance to reevaluate what life is about.

With the years ticking by, I've slowly and painfully learned a profound lesson about the things with which we fill our days. It doesn't matter how much money we make, it is likely not going to be enough. It doesn't matter what house we live in, it is likely going to be too small. I've realized that some things are inevitable like hair loss, being despised by your teenage son, or the death of your dog. With this realization I've learned that while we may not be able to control these things, we can control how we think about them. We can choose to be helpless or hopeful.


There are many other things that are there by choice, and not by chance. Most of what happens every day is with our consent, consciously or otherwise, and within our direct control and influence. We can choose how busy to get, how many things we have on our minds, and what we must and mustn't do. Another profound lesson I've learned from this, is that no matter what happens, there are only a few simple pleasures that make it all worthwhile. Without these, we may as well head straight to the drip and catheter.

Simple Pleasures

Some people meditate. Others read or run. For many, the pleasures are primal. All of them have the profound power to put life into perspective. When everything is stripped away. When the noise gets too much. When we realize that our mind-space is out of control, then we can withdraw to this simple zone for perspective. We can again become basic human.

For me it is a campfire, a piece of meat, cold beer and sharing it with good friends. This is my happy place. Simple.

When everything we do as people are stripped away, the simplicity of a shared meal around a fire with good company may just be the most profound equalizer. No matter where we live, what we drive, which job or qualification we have, it all simply comes down to those moments humanity celebrated for thousands of years.

These are the moments we must collect most of all along our life's journey, before we're booked for our appointment with old-age plumbing. We should cherish the simple pleasures in life.

Disconnection and Control

We live in a bizarre world. We are disconnected from our local communities and neighbours, yet have all the news and gossip about people and events, that has little to no bearing on our day-to-day lives. We know more about our Facebook "friends" than we do about our neighbours. We eat food, wear clothes and use tools from people we don't know, and is unlikely to ever meet.

Every month we hand over the majority of our earnings in taxes and interest to bureaucrats who profess to have our best interest at heart. They assure us, they have a higher moral compass and knows best what we need. This we do while these people have no knowledge of who we really are. We are connection rich, morally sedated, responsibility abdicated, and community poor.

We worry about things we cannot influence or change. I am trying to find a term for this state, and is open to suggestions.

What we miss is to be mentally and physically involved in the things around us. We should consciously choose our world and give it priority. Not someone else's fabrication somewhere else. We should choose to interact with people we meet on the street, in the shops, by talking to them. The old fashion way.  We should get to know the people in our community. These people, and us make the community. The butcher, the baker, the carpenter and builder. Our producers.

In our shrink-wrapped ready to wear, ready to eat world, we walk past these people never really knowing who they are. We don't know what they do. How they do it. We are worse off because we don't take the time to reach out to them and get to know them. In the process, we lose the opportunity to get to know more about ourselves. It is time for us to take time to meet each other.

If we do, we are likely to buy their bread - our community's bread - instead of the bread from a faceless corporation, paying minimum wage. We can drink our community's beer. Eat our community's meat and vegetables. If we support our local producers, we are directly and indirectly supporting ourselves. Then our children have true meaningful opportunities to learn to make something and be part of a place and its people. Then our youth will become the engineers, carpenters, builders and bakers of the future, instead of aspiring to careers in minimum wage mindless corporate jobs. Then the values in our communities and our people are restored.

In the following weeks we are going to feature some of these producers.  We hope you like what you see. We are certainly having a lot of fun getting to know them better.

See what happens if you support your local producers: http://content.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1903632,00.html

"At the most basic level, when you buy local more money stays in the community. The New Economics Foundation, an independent economic think tank based in London, compared what happens when people buy produce at a supermarket vs. a local farmer's market or community supported agriculture (CSA) program and found that twice the money stayed in the community when folks bought locally. "That means those purchases are twice as efficient in terms of keeping the local economy alive," says author and NEF researcher David Boyle. (See the top 10 food trends of 2008.)"

Hendrik van Wyk


Get rewarded for supporting our local Producers. Receive special offers and invitations from the Two Cowboys.
Please help us to bring you more of these programs by supporting us on Patreon: www.forwardthefavour.com.