More Skills up here you probably aren’t aware of.

It’s nice to write about positive go-ahead people. Takes your mind off the things that really hassle you, like opening 42 separate letters from the council covering 42 separate rate demands for 42 titles in the one subdivision. The concept of a statement on the front showing what the invoices behind add up to has yet to arrive in Kaikohe. Imagine receiving a separate letter for each item that one buys as a builder each month from Placemekers!

Anyhow, I just had the pleasure of a chat in the street with satellite TV guru, Bob Cooper who owns the local cable TV network, plus Doubtless Bay Community Radio on 100.0 FM. We were discussing the major cock-up on Optus D1, the recently launched satellite supposed to fix up Sky TV coverage and be one of the delivery platforms for Free to Air Digital TV next year using the transponder booked by Kordia, a company that I chair.

There are probably only a handful of Kiwis who would like to chat about the wiring mistake on this expensive satellite where the vertical and horizontal polarities have accidentally been reversed and it’s a long way to send a serviceman, however it actually affects almost every Aussie and Kiwi household. Optus technicians are busy working to patch up a fix so that our Kiwi programs actually show here and the Aussie ones there, so we can get the Free to Air digital TV service expected next year.

We are lucky to have Bob here among us and few are aware of his input into satellite TV as the inventor of the home dish and the editor of Sat Facts, his well informed monthly, serving the Pacific ring satellite TV technical industry participants. Sat Facts is really worthy a read for the technologically minded among us. We are often bombarded with bunkum from various political leaders waffling on about broadband, yet without any local techno experience to base their opinions on, yet here we have Bob telling the world!

This week Wellington’s Dominion newspaper featured Kaitaia entrepreneur Sean Kennedy who has driven the surf-clothing brand, Coastlines, that he founded and that some of us are lucky enough to be supporting shareholders in. Sean stepped out of long-term ownership of Kaitaia’s surf shop, Aquapulse about three years ago with the vision of creating a global brand from Kaitaia.

Now the brand covers men’s and women’s, summer and winter clothing, surfboards, wetsuits, snowboards, shoes, accessories, bags and is being sold in over 65 Kiwi surf shops and a growing number off-shore in Australia, USA and Europe. It has been a privilege to support this runaway workaholic and it is with some pride that a brand born here is now attracting business interest for its rapid growth and global reach.

The Far North does count!