ISSUE 1
MANABUS.COM STAFF NEWSLETTER KEKO ON THE LOOSE! Our mascot will be out and about this summer... Pg 3
DECEMBER 2014 GETTING SOCIAL Our facebook ‘Send us your Selfie’ competition kicks off this week... Pg 3
STAYING CONNECTED Super support deserves our thanks! Without the help of many individuals and teams from our sister company’s in Souter Holdings, it is unlikely we would have reached the milestones we have to enable us to begin operation on time. These are people who weighed in when we needed it and for that we acknowledge with a huge heartfelt THANK YOU! At Howick and Eastern, General Manager Sheryll, Workshops’ Dennis, Operations Ash and Troy plus Trainer Dave, were tireless in their efforts. Particularly helpful to marketing was driver Troy assisting with full day video and photography shoots. At Mana Coach Services and Newlands Coach in Wellington, Chuds, a ‘man of many talents but little knowledge’ (his words!) went the extra mile with teamsters Bev in operations and Lynn in recruitment. We were also heavily supported by our cousins at Fullers, with DD and his supply chain contacts as well as his Freight shed team of Chris, Terry, Prince and Daniel. Behind the scenes, even more people are helping with Gavin and his entire Finance Team, Simran and Kefu in IT and Alfrey and Catlin in Human Resources.
Welcome to our first issue!
‘Staying Connected’ is the newsletter for all of us at ManaBus.com and we encourage you to share experiences, useful tips and photos for upcoming issues. As we are stationed in many different parts of the North Island, this newsletter is being delivered via email with the option to download and print a copy. With the final routes N3, N4 and N5 launching last Friday, we are now settling into the full service mode and this gives us an opportunity to scrutinise the way we are doing things. We expect there to be some tweaking needed to streamline our operations and your feedback on areas that may be improved would be greatly appreciated. It is vital to ‘stay connected’ over this busy holiday period, particularly with the text notifications around new rosters, traffic conditions and vehicle maintenance scheduling. The old saying ‘Communication is taking people with you’ is literally true for ManaBus.com and with vigilance it becomes yet another point-of-difference over our competitors. Overall, the ManaBus.com news is good, with a great response to our services from all regions and we have hit high occupancy rates already within a month. This is very encouraging and shows the Sir Brian Souter business model is working here in New Zealand. I realise many of you will be working over this Christmas holiday period and I hope you are able to spend some special time with family or friends as you transport many of our customers to their homes for the Christmas break. Meri Kirihimete and a Happy New Year to all!
Geoff GEOFF NORMAN, Chief Executive ManaBus.com