Team Focus

Media Services, Print and Properties newsletter | issue 6 | 2014

a message from dan blackbourn

Well, what do you think of the new logo and new name?

is when the last of the publications will be transferred to Ellerslie so there is still more hard work to come to ensure that we print and deliver these products to a quality and on time that a client as large as Fairfax deserves. Thanks once again for everyone's efforts.

We have gone through this change for the business for all of the right reasons. With GrabOne, TRN (Radio Network) and APN all integrating, New Zealand Media and Entertainment recognises what our business now stands for and best represents what we can offer the market and our customers.

Branding will be rolled out over the next couple of months until the APN logo has been fully replaced. The Ellerslie Print plant and Albert Street have all been rebranded with the new logo and the new look. The reception area in Albert Street is really impressive.

***** I would like to congratulate all of the Achievers noted in this newsletter.

Thank you for going over and above. *****

*****

Thanks to all the different departments and individuals that have contributed to ensure that the Fairfax products are being processed and printed. October 27

There are some very good contributions to this newsletter and makes good reading so I won't spoil your fun and tell you what is in the coming pages but I do want to congratulate Russell Wieck and his team at Ellerslie for their success at SWUG and for Molisi Saulala picking up the Apprentice of the Year. Well done.

make your mark I warmly reiterate the invitation is open to all staff to make Team Focus an even better publication by contributing a good story, joke, funny picture or puzzle.

The best staff submission each publication will also be rewarded with a prize voucher.

Send to our newsletter producer, Iain MacIntyre, i.macintyre@xtra.co.nz.

***** And finally thanks once again for all of your efforts to date.

Dan Blackbourn General Manager NZME

1

our people | new zealand

a message from arthur lenssen August has been a very busy month for Media Services and significant increases in work combined with a vicious bout of the flu brought pressure on resources.

However, as always, the department coped admirably.

Fairfax publications are well and truly embedded now in our workflow and I am very pleased to note this has gone seamlessly with more publications to come onboard between September 27 and October 27. This will bring the complement to 58 additional titles.

Credit to Jon MacDonald and also Iain Wighton for putting the processes and disciplines in place required to deliver on Fairfax’s very high expectations.

The Ad Setting team has accepted responsibility for managing the digital requirements for the whole of APN. This challenge will be managed by Rob Ward in terms of process and Slav Tribala in regards technical delivery and quality.

Continuous training will ensure APN’s faith in Media Services is well placed and I will be looking at rotating all those who have had digital training thorough Ad Setting to ensure this skill remains fresh.

A note of thanks to Minal Fakir who every week comes up with a catchy slogan to promote the food collection set up for the mission (see his story) together with representatives from APN Print Ellerslie. Minal and I took great pleasure in delivering this bounty to the mission for distribution to those that need a hand.

Alex DSouza accepted the challenge of anchoring the Pagination team.

Joining Linus Merchant and Jaspreet Kaur, Alex’s wealth of experience across a wide range of publishing disciplines will be a great asset to pagination and also output. A surprise farewell was organised by Rob where the team bought in a cake to wish Alex all the best, which goes to show how respected he is.

Having been involved in a project featuring Special Publications, I got an insight into just how much this team does and the fantastic aesthetic they put out into the

market. Countless feedback forms have given glowing reviews, not only on the quality but also the professionalism with which this team goes about its business.

In a similar vein, the AdXpress team keeps chalking up clients and creating new templates to expand our presence in this market, and again the professional manner in which it delivers our message ensures client confidence in a very competitive market.

With the emphasis on deadlines and an increase in work of late, Casey Paki and Rhonda Skiffington along with Rob are monitoring the workflows, liaising with clients as well as 2AdPro, and doing this with a positive, professional approach that this ambassadorial role demands.

All in all this makes Media Services a unique department managing huge volumes of work, within deadline and to budget. An allround success story.

Arthur Lenssen Production Manager Print and Media Services Group

media services memoranda Boiled Cabbage

by Toby Wollaston The Boiled Cabbage Cricket team — the name has been a byword of poor cricket for the past 20 years.

A team where the criteria on playing eligibility is simply to have a pulse ... or be fat ... or old. Cricketing talent not required. What better time for the Media Services department to hand the team a charitable leg up on the team’s 20th anniversary.

2

Thank you to Dan Blackbourn for paying the team’s season fees. I really don’t think Dan knows what he has got himself in for. If he is expecting winning results then he is sorely mistaken. That is, unless he knows a Pakistani bookie that we can get in touch with?!?

Boiled Cabbage consists of a bunch of backyard hacks spread throughout Auckland. This includes myself, and Media Services’ very own Sam Hockey. Sam the

Younger’s devastating deliveries are quick, full of length and swing like the proverbial. This is not a good look for an ageing team that prides itself on “turning up but not much else”. The team is slowly working on dismantling

our people | new zealand

labels donated to catalyst APN is committed to giving back and not just to our local community, says Media Services Group Production Manager Arthur Lenssen.

“Through a friend of a friend we found out about an incredible husband and wife team who have spent the last three years developing a world-changing social enterprise providing profitable franchised business to the ultra-poor in Cambodia who earn less than $2 a day,” he says.

“This microfranchising model is making a real difference and there was an opportunity for APN to leverage our connections within the print industry to get involved and help out.

Sam’s youthful athleticism and he will soon be a bastion of bad technique and slowness just like the rest of us.

Output’s Peter Robinson also had a stint playing in the almighty green strip. Now there’s a man who fitted the moniker of Boiled Cabbage! He was the pin-up poster child of the team. His body was a temple. That is until the fame became too much.

His sheer pace proved too fast for the bio-mechanical limitations of the human body. Pete, once you learn to keep that arm firmly in its

“Catalyst Microfranchising (the husband and wife team) is currently developing a new packaging initiative designed to provide FMCG companies with a unique opportunity to build their brands while supporting a good cause.

“They are targeting gravureprinted labels that FMCGs can attach to their food packaging to draw awareness to this campaign.

“Dan Blackbourn managed to get these labels donated through a connection in the label industry which was received with much gratitude and already this promotion is making a difference 15,000 miles away in Cambodia.”

shoulder socket, you’re welcome back anytime.

As for myself ... well let’s just say that if the game of cricket was won on the forward defensive and throwing pies at batsmen then I’d be a Black Cap. But it’s not and beyond that I’m just as crap as the rest of us no-hopers.

Boiled Cabbage has put its hand to both the indoor and outdoor version of the game over the years, always with varying success. Currently the team is playing Thursday night

Catalyst Microfranchising Co-founder and Chief Executive Gerard Wakefield

Men’s Grade 2 at the Central Action Indoor Sports Centre. Thus far we are acquitting ourselves surprisingly well, sitting a nice and comfy second position. There’s plenty of time for us to balls things up and get to our destined spot of last. We Like it there. No pressure.

Below are included are a few pictures of our latest foray. Observe Sam’s eagle-like focus as he plays an aggressive cover drive and completes a run with the speed of the gazelle. continued overleaf

3

our people | new zealand continued from previous page And here’s Pete ... a shadow of his former self.

The purpose of the presentation was to firstly discuss the current processes and culture of the 2AdPro team and to secondly offer suggestions and present “best practices” that could be adopted by our local Media Services sales reps and co-ordinating staff to ensure that we receive the best possible results from our business partner.

I believe we all came away from the presentation a little more enlightened to the process as a whole and aware of things we could be doing better from our end.

Thanks again to Media Services for sponsoring us. Just remember “a dollar a day keeps poor cricket alive”. Hopefully Boiled Cabbage can play on for another 20 years before we head off to the great vegetable patch in the sky.

Indian Visit for Media Services

by Rob Ward Recently, Deborah Bull and Xanthe Williams from the Advertising Creative team made their way to Chennai (India) to assess 2AdPro processes around design and copy submission in an effort to further streamline the outsourcing service and improve the quality of work being created by the team there.

Following on from this, Deborah and Xanthe held a design/instruction presentation at the Ellerslie Print Plant which was attended by past and present Media Services staff, trainers and sales managers.

4

After the presentation we were all offered a tour of the print plant by Arthur Lennsen. I for one had never had the tour and was amazed at the complexity of the operation out there.

I think it is one of those things that you can’t fully comprehend until you see it in the flesh and would recommend that if you ever have the opportunity to take the tour, don’t pass it by.

Some points about 2AdPro you may not know: • they have a dedicated team of about 25 FTEs that look after our production work • they operate 24-hour shifts during week days (most of your work is done while you sleep) • the average worker spends about four hours each day travelling to and from work • they hold regular training workshops to train their staff based on feedback they receive from Media Services, reps and our customers • they share the same holidays and annual leave as ourselves to ensure we are completely aligned • Media Services Auckland is in constant contact via Skype with the team at 2AdPro • 2AdPro is deliberately situated in

Chennai, as it is India’s “hub” of design and they utilise and hire graduates and designers from local universities to help them get into the industry • the average length of employment for our team members is three years • depending on the complexity of the advert requested, your job will be filtered through to designers of the associated skill level to complete

City Mission Donations

by Minal Fakir Week 37 and it is time to donate milk powder to the City Mission to help the people in need. Over the last six months the team from Media Services has been donating all different kinds of food on a weekly basis such as peanut butter, baked beans, canned meat and flour etc. There has been an amazing response from both APN Print and Media Services for the food bank.

Last week myself, Arthur Lenssen, Russell Wieck and Bruce Florian from APN Print went to drop off the collection to date to their main centre on Hobson Street. The friendly and caring staff who help the homeless on a daily basis also helped us unload the donations — during which we had a surprising visit from a client walking past who made some shocking comments to the City Mission.

This only reinforced our commitment to continue helping the Mission who care for people from all walks of life without reservation or judgment — even those who may not realise the great work this organisation does.

It was really upsetting for us to see this given what an amazing job the City Mission does for people in need and not to forget the amount of time that they give out of their daily life to help.

our people | new zealand Our team’s experience this year donating food and volunteering to help at their offices has been an excellent achievement. As a consequence, you discover new points of view and opinions on charities and what an amazing job they really do. For most of us this has increased awareness of problems which people deal with on a day-to-day basis and to know you have helped out and see you are putting a smile on these peoples’ faces is a great feeling.

Thanks to everyone who has taken part in any way with the City Mission. With few months left in the year let’s finish on a high.

Adobe Road Show Event

by Naomi Somerville Myself, Rebecca Wood, Iain Wighton, Alex DSouza, Vee Patel, Slav Tribala, Rhonda Skiffington and Chris White all attended the Adobe Road Show which took place on September 18 at Sky City.

This was a full-day event and covered quite a number of design topics. We learned how to manage apps, fonts and creative processes across different devices, as well as share our work and draw inspiration from the creative community, Behance.

Firoz Patel supplied this pic of Media Services and Ellerslie staff having a great time at a recent function

We also learned a lot about the interactive capacity of magazines on a tablet and iPhone through InDesign CS6. They showed us how the front page of a publication actually came to life and took you on a complete journey. If there was too much copy text on a page, you could simply scroll down without making the layout of the magazine look cluttered.

There were many other new design enhancements that I won’t go into but it is all about moving forward and seeing what the future holds in online magazine interactivity. This is a way that we can look towards encapsulating the younger market and showing them content in so many different steams of media. It is about merging video, animation, design, photography, illustration, interactivity and audio.

There were also number of very inspirational speakers that presented at the Adobe Road Show. Gina Kiel and Harry A’Court spoke about how they brought art to life by incorporating Gina’s amazing mermaid illustration into a

handmade surf board and adding art to the waves. The illustration entailed a large pencil drawing with Photoshop. This conference gave me a taste of what the future holds and I want to be somebody that helps make that happen.

Navratri Festival — Garba and Dandiya Raas

by Vee Patel Navratri is a Hindu festival of worship and dance — the word literally meaning nine nights in Sanskrit. During these nine nights and ten days, nine forms of a female divinity are worshipped.

This year the nine nights’ festival of Navratri began on Thursday September 25 and ended on October 3.

The evenings of Garba and Dandiya Raas are filled with exhilarating music provided by live singers who come specially from India for this special occasion, to which the audience dances with uncontrollable festivity and fervour. continued overleaf 5

our people | new zealand continued from previous page Humongous crowds turn out to the event and people of all ages (young and old) enjoy the foot-stomping music dressed in their traditional costumes, along with friends and family.

People keep flowing in throughout the evenings to enjoy this unbeatable dose of fun, music and festivity which goes on well into the early hours, right up to the conclusion of the Navratri celebrations.

The event is catered by mouth-watering Indian food served by the Auckland India Association catering committee.

media services achievers • Kylie Callagher was nominated by supervisors for consistently making herself available to fill any shift or roster at short notice including weekends.

Supervisors note that this is of immense value to the team and warmly thank Kylie.

• Slav Tribala — “digital master” — was nominated by supervisors for instigating the continuous digital training in Ad Setting and overseeing quality and design of digital collateral. In the process Slav has received recognition from as far away as our Australian office for the work he has done

ellerslie update

by APN Print Ellerslie Operations Manager Russell Wieck

FFX Show Rolls On Integration of the FFX production has continued since the last newsletter with the Waikato Times and the Waikato communities coming into Ellerslie. By the time this newsletter gets to you, the Sunday Star Times and associated pre-prints will also be bedded in.

Things have gone really well with great quality and production 6

our people | new zealand running to schedule. The Waikato Times has tested the Post Press area, but this too is falling into place under the guiding hand of Blair Evans and his team.

SWUG and PANPA Successes Ellerslie has continued her great run of success in print awards with a major gong at both the PANPA and SWUG New Zealand conferences (as pictured below). The New Zealand Chinese Herald took out the Double Width Community section at PANPA,

with the ever-consistent Weekend Sun collecting the runner-up Highly Commended prize.

We followed this up a few weeks later with The Vision China Times picking up the top Broadsheet Print Quality award at SWUG New Zealand. Both these awards are hotly contested by some of the best print sites in Australasia.

It just goes to show how hard work and attention to detail are more important than the latest press technology when it comes to delivering great quality. Well done everyone involved.

Think With Ink Ellerslie sent a big contingent along to the SWUG New Zealand Conference in Dunedin. The twoday print forum covered a range of topics from rollers to OH&S and lots in between. There was a site visit to the Otago Daily Times as well as history lessons at the Speights Brewery and the Railway Sports Museum.

The conference featured the SWUG Print Awards and a networking dinner which created fantastic opportunities for everyone to mingle and share their print experiences and problems. Inspirational sports personality, Steve Gurney (pictured below), was the guest speaker and he took us on a journey of how to achieve your goals.

As the outgoing SWUG New Zealand Apprentice of the Year, Edmond Huch (pictured overleaf) gave a presentation to delegates on his year with the title and the opportunities the achievement has provided. Edmond had glowing praise for DSChemport who sponsor the award and for SWUG New Zealand for creating this opportunity. The awards dinner was held at the magnificent Larnach Castle complete with a distinctly Scottish theme to proceedings.

continued on next page 7

our people | new zealand continued from previous page

the Year at the recent conference in Dunedin. Molisi was overwhelmed with pride and emotion when named and delivered a very good acceptance speech to the conference gathering. This is Ellerslie’s third-consecutive SWUG New Zealand Apprentice of the Year success which validates the training and industry exposure given to our apprentices.

City Mission Food Drop We recently made our second food drop to the City Mission as part of our ongoing commitment to this worthy initiative. Representatives from Media Services joined Print staff to meet with City Mission Chief Executive Diane Robertson and pass on our latest collection (as pictured below).

The Mission is truly grateful for efforts that are being made to help them help others less fortunate. I was very impressed by the positivity and enthusiasm gof the staff at the

Mighty Molisi APN Print Afternoon Shift Post Press Team Leader Molisi Saulala (pictured) was named the SWUG New Zealand 2014 Apprentice of

8

Mission. They do a great job and I thank you all for your assistance and generosity helping to support this cause. We will continue to collect up to early December when we will do a final drop for 2014.

Stitch and Trim Options Expanded The life of the well-used and very over-worked Ferag trimming drum has got a little easier with the commissioning of the Muller Martini stitch and trim machine (facing picture). This kit is ex-Tauranga and has been installed to give us some redundancy and added firepower when the full FFX production workload is onboard.

The machine is in pretty good nick and once the Post Press teams get to understand its quirks and nuances, will become another important part of the arsenal. The quality of the finished product is excellent and it also gives us options to sectionalise large or difficult products.

our people | new zealand

Site BBQ Ellerslie held a site BBQ recently to acknowledge the latest print award successes and the naming of

Molisi Saulala as the 2014 SWUG Apprentice of the Year.

We also took the opportunity to recognise all of the hard work

that has gone into getting the FFX products bedded in and running to expectation. continued overleaf

9

our people | new zealand

ellerslie achievers • Bruce Florian was initially nominated by Fred van Rooyen (pictured below) as recognition for Bruce’s help in running the Day Shift in his absence. Numerous others have also put Bruce forward for the same reason, making Bruce a very popular nominee this month

• Allan Deacon (pictured below) was nominated by the Day Shift for his efforts getting the reel stand workload completed on a very busy Saturday

• Mafi Sukavula (pictured in middle column) was nominated by Joyce Wallace for his intuitive decision making. Mafi found a barcode scanner that was misplaced and put

10

it away in a safe place until it was returned. While Mafi did not know what the scanner did or who it belonged to, he was alert enough to realise it would be important and needed to be secured

• Electrical team members (some pictured below) have been nominated by Stewart Irvine as recognition of the enthusiastic efforts they have displayed getting the wrapping and bagging machines up to a consistent standard. These machines are critical to the bagging of the FFX products and have needed some TLC and attention to get them performing • Mark Bahn (pictured top of next column) was nominated

by Russell Wieck for alerting his supervisor that contract staff were coming on site in jandals. Mark’s attentiveness to OH&S standards is a positive sign and makes him a worthy recipient of an Achievers’ Award

• Mechanical team members (some pictured below) were nominated by Will Wilson for their efforts getting a seamless replacement of the TTR chains completed in the scheduled timeframes.

There is some work to go with another round of chain replacements to start soon