Christmas Message from Chief Executive

Graham Seatter, Chief Executive, Hillary Outdoors

On behalf of all of us at Hillary Outdoors I wish you the very best for the festive season and the New Year that follows.

2014 has been a year that has brought many highlights – most of which relate to the more than 4000 young people that participated in one of our programmes this year.  It is a cliché – but none the less true – to say that every school group, and every student is different with their own priorities and needs.  Irrespective of that fact, we get consistent feedback that we are adding significant value to those that spend time with us, whether it be our standard 5-day programme, or longer programmes of anything up to (and including) 5 weeks.

We get a tremendous thrill to hear or read feedback after participation in our programmes.  Some recent examples of student comments in response to the question “What did you learn?” included:

•   “Realising I can push myself in ways I never imagined and I also loved having time to reflect on the more important goals I have for my life”
• “If you support each other the group does better as a whole”.
• “I am quite judgemental!  Before the camp I didn’t like people in my group, yet I didn’t know any of them!  At OPC I found out what great people they are!”
• “You need to be patient and continue to encourage others always.”
• “That I am brave then I thought, especially when it comes to helping others and trying new things.”

These comments came from some girls from Queen Margaret College.

In another piece of recent research we asked teachers from 150 schools:

Do you believe your students are able to transfer their learning from Hillary Outdoors to their everyday lives and communities?

93.75% of respondents answered “Yes”.  When asked how they know this to be true, their many comments included four very common themes:

•  Emergence of students as leaders within the school
• Feedback from parents
• Improved ability to relate to other students
• Displaying respect and genuine care towards others

At another level, our highlights for the year included:

•  Re-branding our organisation as “Hillary Outdoors” as an opportunity to elevate the name “Hillary” and establish our own branding as opposed to the generic term “Outdoor Pursuits Centre”, abbreviated as it was to the acronym “OPC”.
• Achieving registration with Worksafe through the audit process established in relation to Adventure Activities
• Continuing to grow bookings and revenue as we move towards a sustainable position for our business
• Enrolling our fourth school into a long programme – with our Tongariro Centre now also providing these programmes

Have a happy and safe festive season and I hope you get an nice break over summer.

Graham Seatter

Chief Executive, Hillary Outdoors