Blenheim, Marlborough, New Zealand. A beautiful town in the South Island, home to some of New Zealand’s finest wines, and the home of Equus Industries Ltd. The Equus Applicator Conference 2016, held at the Scenic Hotel Marlborough, brought together applicators from all over the country for a weekend of networking, learning, and demonstration – with international guests Oliver Verdickt from De Boer Belgium, and Tony Clayton from RPM Belgium.
Thursday 1st September
The first night consisted of a registration and meet and greet, hosted by De Boer. De Boer had sponsored a range of Belgian beers (Leffe Blond, Hoegaarden, Stella Artois, and Duval), and some traditional Belgian finger food. This was a great start to the weekend for everyone to get to know each other, socialise with Equus staff, other applicators and our international partners.
Friday 2nd September
The Friday conference program included a welcome to all the delegates and an introduction to the Equus staff and branches.
Our first guest to present was Oliver from DeBoer. His presentation covered the Duotherm Warm Roof system, Duo two layer system, and introduced the new range of De Boer accessories that will shortly be available from Equus.
Tony from RPM then presented to the applicators a fresh approach to selling floors and covered how to get the best solution for your customer. He also gave us some useful information and ideas for use of the Matacryl Carpark system.
During the afternoon session, Rob covered a presentation on the Equus range of Schomburg products, this included some that are relatively new to the Equus range. He then introduced the Sealboss range, this range is currently sold from the Southern branch, where is has been thriving due to the crack repair needed after the Christchurch earthquakes. The products are very effective and we are hoping to spread them into other areas of the country!
We had organised for the partners to spend the morning on a Marlborough wine tour, which took them to four different wineries. Then they were able to spend the remainder of the day exploring the Blenheim township.
We finished off the evening with dinner at the Raupo Café, on the Opawa river waterfront. A great restaurant to visit if you are wanting a delicious 3 course meal, or just a few drinks in the sun by the waterfront. This event was kindly sponsored by our internation partner, RPM Belgium.
Saturday 3rd September
On Saturday morning we took our applicators for a tour of our factory. The Equus Factory has been located in Riverlands Industrial Estate in Blenheim since it began in 1982. It is here that all of our specialist coating systems were created and are now manufactured. Throughout the morning Michael and Chris, who work in the factory, made up a batch of Chevaline Dexx.
This was a great opportunity to show our applicators exactly what happens in the factory and how products are made. Lisa, who is our Laboratory Technician, talked the applicators through the rigorous testing process each batch of product goes through to ensure that everything going out the door is up to standard.
Being at the factory also gave us the opportunity to set up some product demonstrations.
(Image 1:Matacryl used in concrete control joints. Image 2: The compatibility of Matacryl and De Boer DuO membrane. Image 3: The De Boer Shrink Sleeve from the new range of accessories.)
From here we spent the afternoon at the Omaka Aviation Heritage Centre. Brian is very involved in the centre and he and Equus are proud to have played a part in its history. We were lucky enough to take a guided tour through the Knights of the Sky display at this beautiful aviation museum and have our afternoon function at their new Dangerous Skies display, which is not yet open to the public. They supplied us with great finger food and beverages and the displays kept us entertained all afternoon. This great event was sponsored by two of our international partners, Schomburg Germany and Recticel Belgium.
Saturday night was the final evening of the conference weekend. The Scenic Hotel put on a lovely set menu for us and we were able to enjoy the evening socialising with great food and wine and some local live music.
Overall the Equus Applicator Conference 2016 was a very successful weekend for all and we would like to thank everyone involved in making it happen.
