The Star: July 16, 2020

Thursday July 16 2020 The Star
Latest Canterbury news at starnews.co.nz
NEWS 13
City shooting survivor
among Istanbul
mosque celebrations
CONTENT MARKETING
Each week we profile a local Christchurch organisation
to give them a plug and see how they’re going as
the country eases into recovery. This week we spoke
to Rick Hill, a director of accounting and business
advisory firm Hargreaves
On the up
• By Louis Day
A MOSQUE shooting survivor
was among celebrations in Turkey
around the decision to convert the
historic Hagia Sophia back into a
mosque.
Hundreds of Muslims, including
mosque shooting survivor
Wasseim Alsati, have gathered
outside the historic site after
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
announced it would be converted
back into a mosque following a
High Court ruling which stripped
the site of its museum status.
Mr Alsati and his four-yearold
daughter suffered multiple
gunshot injuries at the Al Noor
Mosque during the March 15 terror
attacks.
Photos posted on his Facebook
page show him waving a flag
outside the Hagia Sophia while
wearing a face mask.
Turkish authorities made wearing
facemasks compulsory in
Istanbul and 46 other provinces
as cases began to climb following
the reopening of businesses last
month.
Mr Alsati did not respond to
requests for comment from The
Star.
The first Muslim prayers are set
to be held at Hagia Sophia next
Friday.
Hagia Sophia was built as a
Christian cathedral nearly 1500
years ago and turned into a
mosque after the Ottoman conquest
of 1453. It became a museum
in 1934 under Turkish Republic
founding father Ataturk.
While the move to reconvert
the site to a mosque has been welcomed
by the Islamic community,
it has been opposed by Turkish
secularists and the Catholic
Church.
At a service in the Vatican, Pope
Francis said he was “pained” by
the decision to convert the site
back into a mosque.
The World Council of Churches
has also called on the Turkish
president to reverse his decision.
One of Turkey’s most famous
authors, Orhan Pamuk, also told
SURVIVOR:
Wasseim Alsati,
who suffered
multiple gunshot
wounds in the
March 15 terror
attacks, was
among the
hundreds of
people celebrating
outside the historic
Hagia Sophia in
Istanbul after it
was announced
it would be
reconverted into a
mosque.
the BBC that the decision would
take away the “pride” some Turks
had in being a secular Muslim
nation.
Burglars target retail outlets
• By Matt Slaughter
RETAIL SHOPS and other
businesses in the central city have
been hardest hit by burglaries
over the last few months.
New data from police shows 26
per cent of the premises burgled
between April 1 and June 30 had
electronic security equipment
that was not on or not working,
while 88 per cent of construction
sites had no electronic security
features.
Data released from police has
revealed there were 396 burglaries
of commercial premises during
this time period.
Retail shops were hit in 31 per
cent of these burglaries, other
commercial premises came in a
close second at 21 per cent.
Detective Senior Sergeant
Damon Wells said the reason
central city retail and commercial
premises were targeted most
for this three month period was
because there were far less people
around as a result of Covid-19
restrictions.
As a result, empty businesses
such as car yards were some of
the main targets.
Of these burglaries, 69 per cent
took place in Christchurch city,
while 17 per cent took place in
more rural parts of the district
including Selwyn and Banks
Peninsula.
The statistics cover some areas
outside of Canterbury including
Mackenzie District, Ashburton,
Timaru and Waimate. Fourteen
per cent of these burglaries occured
in these areas.
The methods used to break into
non-residential premises have
been simple during this time,
with doors being used as entry
points 47 per cent of the time.
However, the number of nonresidential
burglaries was 39.8 per
cent less than between January 1
and March 31.
Tell us about Hargreaves
We are a small longestablished
accounting
and business advisory firm
operating from Christchurch’s
CBD fringe. One little-known
fact about our business is that
until recently we ran the New
Zealand arm of Interflora.
We’re part of the team that
made sure those flowers and
box of chocolates you sent
your mum always arrived on
time.
The recent lockdown has
been tough on everyone,
what was the toughest aspect
for Hargreaves and its
people? How did you adapt?
Lockdown was in some
respects deja vu – it wasn’t
that long-ago businesses in the
CBD were scrambling in the
aftermath of the earthquakes.
Thankfully, we learnt our
lessons from that episode
and were able to transition
swiftly to at-home work. The
technology side of things was
relatively painless – just pick
up a laptop and go. What’s
more, Zoom, Facebook
Messenger video and chat
minimised the feeling of
isolation.
Now that lockdown
has been relaxed, are
you expecting to operate
differently? What aspects of
your business do you think
will change permanently?
We’re back in the office,
though with a new outlook
on workplace flexibility.
When it makes sense to work
at home – when someone is
sick, for example – then we’re
geared up to do it. We can
trust our staff to be
productive, but sometimes coordinating
work is a challenge,
when people in remote
locations are working on the
same set of accounts.
Supported by
What role does technology
play at Hargreaves? Which
technology has been most
helpful? Are you using any
new technology now?
In the days after the
earthquakes we relocated our
servers to CCL’s data centre
and rolled out Windows
Remote Desktop, which gave
us the ability to work from
almost anywhere. Now we’re
planning our next move to
Microsoft 365, which will
further simplify workplace
flexibility and document
sharing. We’re also looking
forward to using Microsoft
Teams.
Do you have a sense of
what the future looks like for
Hargreaves?
The future of workplace
systems is in the cloud.
Correctly done, cloud
services run trouble-free,
flatten running costs, and
give everyone the tools
and information they need
wherever they choose to
work.
Finally, what lessons
have you learned from
this chapter in our
history?
More than anyone else,
Cantabrians know to expect
the unexpected. You’ve got to
be resilient – and that means
having a plan in place. That’s
how we were able to cope
with lockdown. However,
the one proviso is that
everything must be set up
correctly. Security must be
right from the start. Cloud
systems might be a quick way
to get up and running but
the untrained operator will
leave them full of holes. There
are plenty of horror stories
out there. Our partner CCL
ensures everything is done
properly.
www.hargreaves.co.nz
Email: reception@
hargreaves.co.nz
Phone: 379 7484