Oct 19 Bowater Honda helps out. Car maintenance skills welcomed by refugees

Horrible weather last Saturday did little to dent the enthusiasm of 16 former refugees who attended a 90-minute car maintenance course organised especially for them at Bowater Honda.

The session covering the basics, including changing a tyre, was organised by Nelson Multi Cultural Council Ignite worker Dev Mehta and run by Bowater Honda automotive technician Martin Stevenson.

The former refugees from Bhutan and Burma gave the session top marks.

Bharat Timsina said by learning some simple skills, the men could save money.
‘‘Most of the people here don’t even know how to change the water or oil, to be honest and they have to pay for it,’’ he said.

Bowater Honda helps refugees

Useful skills: the crew at Saturday’s Nelson Multi Cultural Council’s car maintenance workshop for former refugees. Clockwise from centre left, co-ordinator Dev Mehta, Bharat Timsina, John van Lian, Govinda Regmi, La Guie, La Quare, Khuri Maunghlg, La Ruan, Ngun uk Thrang, Caw Tu, Biak Hlawnceu, Narayan Timsina and Bowater Honda automotive technician Martin Stevenson. PHOTO: MATT LAWREY

Ngun uk Thrang said it was a very good idea.
‘‘There are lots of things I want to learn. I want to learn everything,’’ he said.

Oct 11 Honda CR-Z Hybrid gets supercharged

The tuners at Mugen are set to unleash a supercharged high performance version of the 2013 Honda CR-Z Hybrid.

Only 300 of these little fliers are initially planned and the shame for us in New Zealand is that Mugen will be selling them exclusively in Japan when they go on sale on November 26.

Mugen, who specialise in tuning Hondas, has increased power of the CR-Z Hybrid, improved the handling and added its own unique touches to the look both inside and out.

The car will be officially known as the Honda CR-Z Mugen RZ and features a supercharger added to the 1.5-litre i-VTEC engine which lifts his output to 154 horsepower while the electric power provides an extra 20hp for a 174 hp total, an increase of 52hp on the standard model.

Sep 22 Bowater Honda goes to the Richmond Mall to be in the centre of it all!

Nick at The Richmond mall Yesterday we took the all new 2012 Honda Jazz S out for a lunch date to the Richmond Mall to check in with Bowater Honda salesman Nick Devereux who was out there letting the good folks of Richmond all about the brand new Honda Euro Civic Hatch.

It was a lovely day for a drive, with an afternoon of rare sunshine, so the quick trip out to Richmond took a detour via Tahunanui Beach for a wee photo shoot in the sun and sand. Click here to take a look at some of the action and learn more about the all new 2012 Honda Jazz.

The Honda Jazz is quite a stunner in the colour range available, today we drove the Fresh Lime Green model. We certainly got stopped to talk about it as we took photos in the car park, the general consensus from those that took the time to chat was that this colour is a total winner! Everyone could not believe how much space was in the back as well - this little car is quite deceptive in that regard. Check out the Jazz page to see just how much you can fit into a jazz - it is quite impressive!

Honda Jazz

The mall was busy, lunchtime on a Friday is peak times, so Nick had his hands full talking to interested locals about the brand new 2012 Honda Euro Civic Hatch - it is a very European looking car and makes quite a statement.

Sep 19 Bowater Honda plants more trees at Tahunanui's Back Beach

Today Bowater Honda held another successful Honda TreeFund tree planting day at the back beach of Tahunanui Beach as a part of the council's sand dune recovery programme.

To date Bowater Honda has provided over $70,000 worth of funding for over 13,500 trees which have been planted on Tahunanui Beach, in Appleby, the Moutere and on Haulashore Island.
Today the team from Bowater Honda, along with some dedicated local customers, turned up at the "Raised Carpark" on the Back Beach Road to literally plant a truck load of trees into the sand dunes to aid in the sand dune recovery.

As one of the local customers commented "it is a whole lot easier planting trees in the sand than in the Moutere clay!", referencing a previous Bowater Honda TreeFund Tree Planting Day.

Maarten van Geldermalsen & Martin Bonny from Nelmac planting the dunes
The Raised Carpark with the Nelmac truck full of trees & grasses to be planted
Part of the treefund planting brigade - what a day to be doing this!
Local Bowater Honda customer Maarten van Geldermalsen
Martin Bonny from Nelmac, Maarten van Geldermalsen holding the grasses, Matt Enright from Bowater Honda & Janny van Geldermalsen
Martin Bonny from Nelmac, Maarten van Geldermalsen, Matt Enright from Bowater Honda & Janny van Geldermalsen
Some of the trees & shrubs planted to help build the sand dunes back up.

The planting day is a result of Honda’s unique TreeFund initiative. Passionate about restoring bio-diversity, Honda developed TreeFund as an opportunity for customers to become involved in the greening of their own local community and to encourage the planting of native flora. With 13 native trees planted for every new car sold, Honda has been funding tree plantings nationally since 2004, and to date over half a million trees have been planted around the country.

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Supporting the Brook Sanctuary

The Brook Sanctuary is returning nature to the Nelson Region. They are undertaking a very ambitious and visionary project, and amongst other very important projects they are currently working on raising funds to place a 14km predator-proof fence that will create a 700ha native wildlife experience close to Nelson’s city centre.

The Bowater Motor Group are right behind them on this project, and we have injected our own support during the initial public fundraising phase of the project by enabling them to have a campaign office downtown in the heart of Nelson.

Click here to go to the Brook Sanctuary section of the BMG website where you can learn more about the Sanctuary as well as catch up the news and events.