Apr 07 Welcome to our new Bowater Hyundai Showroom, officially.

The new tiled floor sparkled, the new range of Hyundai's gleamed, and the 300 invited guests mingled happily as the opening event for Bowater Hyundai's new showroom got underway last Thursday evening at our recently refurbished showroom on the corner of Rutherford and Hardy Streets.

Amongst the crowd was a strong representation from the Hyundai head office team, with many from the top management tier travelling down to support the opening. Also on hand were many of our valued customers, as was our local MP, and Hyundai Santa Fe driver, the Hon Dr Nick Smith, as well as Tasman Mayor Richard Kempthorne.

The evening got underway just after 5.30 with the showroom filling up quickly. The guests were treated to delightful nibbles provided by Blinc Catering, and fine local wines from Waimea Estates and Stoke Beers from McCashins Brewery.

Take a moment to scroll through the slideshow - we managed to sneak a few photos of the guests during the night, and keep on reading as we have heaps more photos to share further on.

We were so pleased with the turnout and impressed that close to 300 people decided to come along to our opening party. Bowater Hyundai have certainly grown over the last several years, with more and more locals falling in love with the fluidic design of this great range of impressive vehicles. This has been the prime motivator for the need to move to a newer, larger showroom - the Top of the South is clearly in love with Hyundai!

The opening event was a great chance for those that worked on the renovation as well as our valued Hyundai clients to come together and enjoy some of our hospitality. Check out some more photos from the night.

The official part of the evening, welcoming one and all.

With any kind of launch event we had our fair share of official speeches to make our way through. This was a delight and punctuated by some excellent speaking, of notable mention the hilarious speech from the Hon Dr Nick Smith, our local MP, who delivered a lovely message from the very first Bowater Hyundai customer from back in 2007, as well as adding in his own anecdotes as a bone fide Hyundai driver.
We also heard from Bowater Hyundai CEO Chris Bowater and Hyundai NZ General Manager Andy Sinclair, who had some very kind words to say about the local Bowater operation.

The launch event was also a great opportunity to introduce the whole Bowater Hyundai team to all those in attendance. 

From left: Jayne Collier (New Car Sales Manager), Chris Bowater (CEO), Pete Cantrick (Parts & Service Manager), Trevor Shreuder (Sales), Lana Smith (service reception), John King (Sales), Hoogz (workshop technician), James Duncan (Sales), Steve Watkins (groomer), Daryl Pritchard (Used Car Sales Manager), Sharon Hayward (Admin).

Celebrating our involvement in the community.

Bowater Hyundai CEO Chris Bowater addressing the guests.

Bowater Hyundai is a keen supporter of many different local community groups and organisations, and the launch event was an occassion to celebrate some of these, as well as to celebrate the launch of the new showroom.

Chris Bowater took the opportunity to present a new Hyundai i20 to Nelson College for Girls principal Cathy Ewing for them to use for the year as a part of Bowater Hyundai's commitment to our local youth.(pictured left. Photo courtesy of The Nelson Mail).

Bowater Hyundai have set up the Spirit of Adventure Trust Scholarship to help two Nelson College for Girl's students a year attend the Spirit of New Zealand training ship.
Bowater Hyundai, and the wider Bowater Motor Group, are very pleased to be able to support this wonderful charity. Each year we get to help dedicated and hard working teenagers to achieve their dreams and enjoy a berth and a series of life lessons on this unique training vessel. The local students must work hard to be selected, and even harder if they are lucky enough to get a berth to raise the necessary money to cover the costs. This is where we come in, meeting the costs half way, and enabling our local achievers a slightly easier road to success.
Click here to go to this section on our website where you can learn more about this scholarship.

Nelson College for Girls principal Cathy Ewing (below) gave a speech at the launch event detailing some of the aspects to this scholarship programme, and what benefits it brings the community as a whole.

This is an absolutely awesome, life changing experience, and we were all treated to a short speech from previous scholarship winner Georgie Holdaway (below) - who delighted the crowd with her Tall Ship Tales.

Georgie Holdaway detailing her adventures at sea.

Thanks for coming. Then we gave away some Hyundai Family Time.

As a thank you to those that came along we had a business card draw and gave away some Hyundai merchandise and some family time in way of a wonderful weekend away at luxurious Hanmer B&B Cheltenham House, complete with the use of a brand new Bowater Hyundai demonstrator vehicle to get the winners there and back, as well as a $100 fuel voucher, gourmet breakfast and two $50 dinner vouchers to use at Hanmer restaurants and a family pass to the Hanmer Thermal Pools! What a great prize.

The big winner on the night was Anjela Sharma.

The other winners certainly enjoyed themselves - Neville & Margaret Parry (pictured below) came away with a wonder Hyundai Picnic Prize and Bill & Jo Lawrence also won a great State Cinema package.

All in all we had a fantastic night, and it was a suitably wonderful launching of our new showroom, a place we are immensely proud of, and a showroom we feel suitably showcases the wonderful Hyundai range, as well houses the efficient and professional Bowater Hyundai Parts and Service division.