The Team's Board Report - Mainfreight

29Somehow juggling balls found their way onto theagenda.The concept of juggling was designed to takethe team out of their comfort zone and to learn anew skill. Whilst juggling is an individual activity,the process of learning and developing the skillwas channelled through teamwork resulting inthe team learning the importance of individualsuccess/progress from a team effort.Debi Fitzpatrick and Mahe DrysdaleThe big message was that anything is achievablewith the right attitude and a lot of commitmentand hard work. Watching him at the BeijingOlympics will be extra special knowing hispersonal story.Similarly to New Zealand, Australia have also beenholding Driving Force meetings. Due to the size ofAustralia and the geographical spread of the teamwe bring all the graduates to Melbourne to spendthe day together learning about the businessalong with networking and discovering about eachother’s careers, roles and backgrounds.The latest meeting took place in April inMelbourne. The focus was on leadership stylesand learning how to manage their careers.Grads with their balls in the air!Our first school leaver programme is now wellunderway after forming a relationship withPakuranga College in 2007. We found that a lot ofyoung people knew very little about our industryand the services we provide. Our target audiencewas those that didn’t know exactly what theywanted to do at the completion of their schooling,or those that wanted a break before embarking ontertiary study. The School Leaver Programme issimilar to the Graduate Programme in that schoolleavers must start in an entry level position andwork their way through the different areas withintheir branch.We have taken on seven school leavers inAuckland and have already identified some realpotential in these young team members. We hopeto put together a similar programme around NewZealand and further develop the scheme alreadyin place in Australia.Cure Kids Adventure race in April of this year sawMainfreight enter a team for the fifth consecutiveyear. This annual event follows hours and hoursof running, cycling and navigation training thatthe team does to be competitive during the sixmonths leading up to the event.The Mainfreight Mavericks (Trudy Burt – MFIWestney Rd, Carl George – National team,Cameron Hill – MFI Tauranga , Rowan Cooke –MFT Tauranga ) raced a very strong race. Thedifficulty of navigating through swampy terrain ledthem up the wrong tributary for about 30 minutes.However the “never say die” Mainfreighters puttheir heads down and defied all odds to come ineventually in 4th place out of a field of 42 teams.Anyone interested in joining this band of sickpeople is welcome to make contact with the team.