• I really like trees. I love the satisfaction that comes from growing trees.  We have a small revegetation project on our property which we have put about 3000 natives into so far and am continually raising seedlings for each planting season. On the rest of our property I like growing trees for autumn colour and fruit trees (especially if they are cheap or free!). I also really enjoy the art of bonsai, although most of my projects over the last 10 or so years have eventually died  

• My favourite outdoor activity is caving. Being underground is cool. It’s not always squirming along in tight spaces being freaked out! Sometimes it’s sliding down waterfalls or walking through shallow streams. Sometimes it’s wandering through spaces big enough for a house or two, marvelling at the speleothems and glowworms. However, admittedly there are the more adventurous moments where you have to completely breathe out all your air just to fit through somewhere! 

• I’m a little bit of a petrol-head. I used to have a modified Volkswagon Beetle, had long hair and rode motorcycles! One day I’d like to have a classic car again, but for now I will enjoy teaching my three daughters to drive the go kart!

• Our journey into property ownership was in partnership with others. Our first house was purchased with another couple, and we committed to 5 years together before out-growing it with children and selling. That made it possible to then get our own place which we sold a couple years later and joined with my wife’s parents to buy where we are now. I’m always super grateful every time I think about how we have managed to get to where we are now. It’s definitely not something we could have done by ourselves.

• I love stories. Whether it’s a movie, a children’s book, a song or a novel, I’m intrigued by how much you can get caught-up in the characters’ worlds. I unintentionally wrote a 90,000-word story as a literacy assignment at university because I got so invested in the character’s lives and having to find them some restoration throughout the course of the story before I created an ending, it was a truly surreal experience. 

Jeff is the Operations Manager at our Auckland branch and is responsible for all the day-to-day things related to making our programmes happen. He originally trained with us as an instructor in 2006/07 and then spent a few years doing factory and manufacturing type jobs before going back to university to train as a teacher. He then spent a few years at a west Auckland intermediate before coming back to the Adventure Specialties Trust for his current role in January 2016.

The post Five Fun Facts about Jeff appeared first on Adventure Specialties Trust.

Five Fun Facts about Bex:

#1. “I used to be a military photographer in the Royal New Zealand Air Force. Back then, I could do 40 push ups! Sadly, I can only manage about 10 now, ha ha! Highlights include jumping out of the back of a Hercules plane in a tandem sky dive, yeeehaaaa! And playing football (soccer) for the New Zealand Defence Force. Plus travelling to Kiribati on a Search and Rescue mission.”

#2. “My husband and I spent 4 months working in a remote part of the Canadian Rocky Mountains. There were no roads; access was only by 2-seater airplane or by horse. There was no electricity; we had a generator that was allowed to be run for a couple of hours a day to keep the freezer cool. We saw bears. Lots of bears. Most of them ran away but one came for a closer look, which was possibly the most scared/alive I’ve ever felt. Also I accidentally sprayed myself with bear spray, it felt like death.”

#3. “I speak French. Badly, I admit. But I can at least hold a conversation with my 3-year-old French neighbour (who can speak it better than I can). I studied French and Spanish at Auckland University and then lived and worked in Provence, southern France, for a year. It was an amazing experience! I got to snowboard in the French Alps. I got to visit Carcasonne, a giant castle with an entire city inside it. I got to attend a church service, where I didn’t understand a single thing they said except for the word “Jesus.” I played football with a local women’s team who I didn’t understand and who didn’t understand me. It was great.”

#4. “I live at Bethells Beach, west Auckland, with my hairy husband, Tim, and my two beautiful kids, Malachi and Esther. We go for bike rides down to the beach; sometimes Tim takes one of his work spades (he’s a builder) and digs an adult-sized sand castle! Or we walk along the Hillary Trail which follows the west coast up over hills, through beautiful native bush, past sheep and cows grazing on farmland. Or we sit inside and watch Netflix. As you do. The Cat in the Hat is a current favourite!”

#5. “I love learning. About everything and anything. Gardening, personal finance, small business marketing, photography, human psychology, football techniques. New information captures my attention and I love diving in and absorbing as much knowledge as I possibly can. YouTube tutorials are great. If Tim (the CEO at Adventure Specialties) asks me to do something that I have no idea how to do, like use some unfamiliar software program, I reply, “Absolutely!” and head off to find a tutorial that will walk me through it!”

Bex is our new social media person. Currently writing this and speaking in third person. Like the Queen! Ha ha, I’m kidding …

Hi everyone! I joined the lovely team at Adventure Specialties a few months ago as the social media / website / communications / marketing person and I’m loving it!

Blogging and social media can often be a one-sided conversation, but I would really love to hear back from you guys! Can you introduce yourself to me? Who are you, where do you live, what do you do, how are you connected to Adventure Specialties? And what is one thing that most people don’t know about you?

– Bex

The post Introducing Bex, our new social media person! appeared first on Adventure Specialties Trust.