From the young age of 17, Melissa has been making a difference to families lives through cleaning. Her first job was at Ronald McDonald House® in Auckland, a “home-away-from-home” for families to retreat after a day spent in hospital. Melissa was later promoted to head housekeeper and team leader. The job was rewarding but demanding – it often meant working late nights and weekends. It was while she was on maternity leave with her youngest that Melissa made the leap to self-employment to work more family-friendly hours.

With some encouragement from her husband and great feedback from her clients – she wasn’t sure about being a business owner at first – Melissa moved from sole trader to business owner of The House Cleaning Company in 2023.

Her reputation as a reliable cleaner flourished through word of mouth. Melissa’s auntie jumped on board, she got her systems set up, and she’s now running a highly successful company helping West Auckland families – and, soon, businesses too.

For Melissa, it’s always been so much more than cleaning.

Melissa’s time at Ronald McDonald House® was meaningful because she could help provide a clean, comfortable and healthy space for families going through a stressful and vulnerable time.

Melissa says it’s the sense of relief families get from having a regular cleaner they can trust which makes cleaning such a beautiful service.

“It’s a relief coming home knowing you don’t have to worry. You can just relax and be with your family. It’s about giving you your time back.”

What business was like before working with Two Sparrows.

Although Melissa’s business grew through word of mouth, she was experiencing a major booking barrier: she wasn’t receiving enquiries from her website.

“I wasn’t getting any enquiries, phone calls, emails, nothing,” Melissa explains.

At one point, she assumed people had lost interest. But at the time her website was dark and unwelcoming, and the messaging was off. Search engine optimisation was non-existent. It didn’t reflect Melissa’s passion, personality, skill – or the value she brings.

This led Melissa to connect with Two Sparrows – and Katrina Pace at Collected Copy – to work on her website.

The results: the website ‘helps tremendously’.

Melissa has seen a sharp increase in bookings and enquiries. Where she used to have one or two bookings a day, she now has three or four.

She puts that down to, “How the website looks, how it talks to my customers and it’s easy to navigate. The information’s there and it’s clear. I think it helps tremendously.”

Melissa is also seeing great results with her Google rankings. She now appears as one of the top sites on Google for her chosen keywords.

Continuing the clean theme, her new website has a light digital footprint (it emits minimal carbon) making it cleaner page-by-page than 83% – 91% of pages tested worldwide. (Based on calculations by the website carbon calculator tool: websitecarbon.com)

Supporting families in West Auckland.

The House Cleaning Company is now officially a husband-and-wife team. Together they provide cleaning for clients in West Auckland including: Huapai, Kumeū, Whenuapai, Hobsonville, Massey, Muriwai, Swanson, Rānui and Riverhead.

You can choose from a quick refresh; a standard, premium or deep clean package; a move out or move in clean, and several add-ons.

Depending on your budget and why you need a cleaner, The House Cleaning Company can do anything from a light clean for your kitchen or bathroom to a deep clean which leaves no corner untouched. Don’t we all want someone else to take care of those jobs we keep putting off – like removing cobwebs, dusting skirting boards and cleaning windows?

If you’re not sure what you’re after, there’s a handy space on Melissa’s refreshed website which allows you to compare her cleaning packages.

What’s next for Melissa?

A year on from the launch of her new website, Melissa’s business continues to grow, allowing her to support even more families to reclaim their time, reduce their stress and live in a space that brings them peace.

Melissa now has several weekly clients. She’s taking move-out cleaning bookings up to November. And she secured her first commercial contract beginning next year.

Commercial cleaning is an area Melissa’s expanding into. She’s also keen to have enough work to hire a permanent part-timer or two (while keeping true to her small family-focused ethos) so she can step back from the tools in a few years.

With more traction, she will be in a position to hire someone and focus her time on the business. This will mean she can be flexible with her hours and spend extra time with her husband and children.

Melissa loves her new website and is confident it will support her ambitions of growing her cleaning business.

How to connect with The House Cleaning Company.

You can contact Melissa for a free quote here. You can also phone 022 584 1062 or email: thehousecleaningcompany.nz@gmail.com

Two Sparrows worked with The House Cleaning Company to design, build and host their new website.

The post A case study: The House Cleaning Company appeared first on Two Sparrows.

We spoke to social entrepreneur Nick Carroll about new initiative Life101 Launchpad – an e-learning platform for New Zealand rangatahi teaching fundamental life skills around money management, personality, work readiness and more. Launchpad was inspired by Nick and his Life101 team’s ten-plus years’ experience facilitating in-person life skills workshops in Aotearoa NZ’s schools, prisons and probation centres.

Launchpad artwork by Finick Creative

How did Launchpad come about?

I started Life101 with a friend ten years ago. Originally, we ran a few school holiday programmes and then we had an article in The NZ Herald, which got read by one of the education departments in a correctional facility. They were looking at getting something together for people who were in the last six months of their sentence to help build up their life skills.

Where schools will teach the theory of something – like how to save money for example – we teach the theory, the how-to and the motivation to want to use the skills, which means our learners end up with a tangible outcome. The motivation to want to use the skills is all that’s needed to begin the workshops.

With Life101, we delivered life skills in about 10 prisons across Aotearoa New Zealand: including Mount Eden, Ngawha, Pāremoremo, and Auckland Wiri Women’s Correctional Facility. But we wanted to make a larger impact so that’s how Launchpad came about – it’s online and it’s for young people.

Sounds like Launchpad is made for a different demographic?

It’s for 16 to 20-year-olds. The last year of secondary school and the first couple of years of university or apprenticeship – that’s where these life skills are needed most.

We wanted to reach all young people with what we were doing in a way that won’t take them away from credit time.

If students have a free period or form class, teachers could run one of our workshops in that time or oversee it if the students wanted to do it themselves. Or – because it’s online – young people can do it outside of school, on their coffee break at work, or even on the bus to and from school.

How significant is it for rangatahi to have these life skills?

[Lack of fundamental life skills] is such a problem in society. We set out to create a course that is online, as short as possible, motivating, and covers all life skills. Everyone learns in different ways – you’ve got visual learners, auditory, kinaesthetic – so you’ve got to try and create a balance for each workshop.

How do you make it so it’s not boring?

We set up scenarios – like those books where you choose your adventure!

For example, if such and such happens, what would you do? You can choose A, B or C and then go down a certain pathway. That way, you learn by doing. You might get there and realise you failed by choosing the wrong pathway. Then the learner finds out the reasons why they failed and can have another go.

Sounds fun. Can you give me an example?

One’s a horror scenario. They’re at home watching a movie and someone drops off some milk. They drink the milk, wake up on the pavement and they’re 65… and they’ve got to try and live off NZ Super alone. They figure out their accommodation and food would be really crappy and they can’t afford to fix their broken tooth.

And then we build on that with what would happen if they had KiwiSaver in place, and how to save money and make adjustments.

What about topics that are complex – how do you create something a young person can grasp?

We always have four sections in a workshop. And the whole workshop is about an hour long. In the share market workshop, for example, they do a scenario around Jack and the Beanstalk where they buy magic beans and plant them. There are four different colours. And they pay $5 for four beans at the market. One of them grows. On the next page they can go back to the market and buy more beans. They can decide if they want to buy four of one colour, or one of each colour. The next day it rains, rather being sunny, and the original colour hasn’t grown but a different colour is now bigger.

They learn they can’t control whether the beans grow or not.

It’s a fun way of teaching about diversification and what causes shares to go up and down.

How do you make it appeal to a diverse audience?

You try and motivate people with the content and make sure it’s visually appealing. It’s got some animated artwork throughout the whole thing. And Phil, our main facilitator, has placed short videos on every second page – holding the participants hand through the whole thing and explaining in more detail. Because some people just like to watch videos.

Our scenarios have sound effects as well, which add to the experience. It creates fun and an emotional reaction.

Can people get in touch if they have a question about a course?

When it’s live there’ll be chats available – and a community space – so people can meet and discuss topics with people who have done the course and who’re in the same space. We’ve got some software we’re looking at to create these communities.

What’s the big dream?

It would be great for it to be free for all young people. Then all people. If it’s free, there’s no barrier. One way we want to achieve this is through corporate sponsorships.

What do you help young people achieve?

We want them to feel confident in the real world. For example, one of our workshops is on flatting – so learning how to move out of home, understand their money, and use it wisely. And then set up automatic payments into investments like KiwiSaver and Sharesies, for example, which have the potential to make them a lot of money – over their lifetime – with very little effort.

We have a whole workshop on debt – so they don’t get stung by credit cards and buy now, pay later schemes. We even have an activity where it demonstrates the lifetime cost of something. Like what happens if you buy a coffee a day for $5, how much that will cost over a week, a month, or a year.

One coffee a day for 60 years is around $110,000!

What do you think about KiwiSaver?

It’s one of the best things the government’s ever done. For people, as well as the economy in general. Because that’s a pool of money that can be invested in businesses which will continue to grow the economy. All that money’s going into business to grow business.

A big topic is money and financial literacy. What’s another key focus?

Learning about personality types is also a big part of the platform. Young people do a personality quiz to understand themselves better. So they learn about their strengths and weaknesses, what annoys them and what motivates them. Everyone’s different. The quiz helps them understand why a certain friend gets frustrated with them – it’s because they’re the opposite personality type. And then we cover how to communicate better with teachers. One scenario is they’re a leader of a university or school project and they’ve got four people in their team. They’ve got one of each personality profile and they have to decide how they take charge and which personality profile should do each part of the project.

They’re learning how to identify what personality type someone is and how to communicate – and negotiate – with that person better.

It helps them understand themselves better as well, what they’re good at and which career pathways might suit them best.

How can people connect with you?

You can sign-up to our mailing list here. We’re on your usual socials: TikTok, Instagram and Facebook.

Two Sparrows proudly built the marketing website for Life 101 Launchpad. View the website here: https://101launchpad.co.nz

The post Life 101 Launchpad appeared first on Two Sparrows.

Photo above by Aneta Foubíková on Unsplash

Kia ora, it’s great to talk to you all today. Firstly, can you share a little about the people behind UWEN?

Until recently, we were known as the Upper Harbour Ecology Network and are now the Upper Waitematā Ecology Network (UWEN). We are a collective who care deeply about conservation, birdlife, and restoring our beautiful green spaces and waterways.

Our current community groups and member groups are:

• Sustainable Paremoremo/Kai Rākau
• Living Whenuapai
• Greenhithe Ecology Network/Greenhithe Community Trust
• Herald Island Environmental Group
• Habitat Hobsonville
• Centorian Reserve Group (Albany)
• Restore the Landing (Albany)
• Kumeu Small Landowners
• Pest Free Coatesville
• A Rocha (Unsworth Heights)
• The Legends of the Environment (Hobsonville)
• Kaipātiki Project (both our umbrella and member)
• Forest & Bird Youth
• North Shore Forest and Bird
• North Shore Golf Club

We constantly welcome new groups and have several volunteers that are part of our network but don’t belong to a specific community group. They too make a big difference in their local private and public land.

Who supports you?

We’re supported by Kaipātiki Project who are our Umbrella organisation (and a UWEN member group) and help us in many ways. We also have the support of Forest & Bird North Shore, Forest & Bird Youth, Iwi Hapū and Community Nursery Network (which is a collaboration between Uru Whakaaro and Kaipātiki Project). Finally, we wouldn’t be where we are right now without the support of Auckland Council and the Upper Harbour Local Board. Ultimately, any person or group or company who are trying to do their part and restore the mauri of the environment and care for native species are supporting our cause, so there are a lot of supporters we don’t know about out there​!

You’re very connected! How do you support Māori interests and aspirations too?

Supporting mana whenua for the upper Waitematā is a top priority.  There are nine iwi groups who have an interest in the upper Waitematā area who are: Ngāti Pāoa, Te Ākitai Waiohua, Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Whātua, Ngāti Whātua o Kaipara, Te Kawerau a Maki, Ngāti Whātua o Ōrākei, Ngāti Manuhiri, Ngāti Te Ata Waiohua and Ngāti Maru. We want to co-design projects together and believe that adopting a Māori worldview is essential to understanding and efficiently restoring the mauri of our natural world and of our communities.

Why was UWEN set up?

The network creates opportunities for us to get together, share ideas and collaborate on landscape-scale projects. Working together means we can streamline our work and share resources and knowledge which saves a lot of time and effort. We can all work towards similar conservation outcomes.

Landscape-scale (also known as ecosystem approach) is a way of managing land by working together at a large scale. Collaborating across landscapes means the public and private sector can achieve greater benefits and success than working in isolation.

How long have you been around?

We started in 2016 when a few locals realised they could have a real impact on restoration and achieve better outcomes if they worked together. They realised that when community groups coordinate actions, they can make a bigger difference.

What kind of outcomes are you working towards?

Bringing back the birds, connecting people to nature, reducing predators and pest plants, restoring balance, regenerating our waterways, mitigating climate change, and advocating for the environment.

Volunteers love planting trees – it’s always the sexy part of restoration. But there’s another part which takes as much time, if not more, and that’s keeping weeds and predators at bay.

What recent changes have happened to the network?

We just changed our name​! We used to be called Upper Harbour Ecology Network but are now Upper Waitematā Ecology Network.

Last year we went through a strategic planning process to work out our structure, roles and funding. That’s when we got to employ Carole – who has really got us sorted out!

We’re also excited to become an incorporated society by the end of this year (2021).

In what ways do you advocate for environmental change?

We see ourselves as caretakers of the Upper Waitematā area. We want to restore our land and water environments. We sometimes advocate at a political level, particularly around urban development. We’re trying to make sure nature has her place in these projects. It’s important to have another voice protecting the environment.

Moho Pererū (Banded rail) Photo: JJ Harrison, Wikimedia Commons

What are some of the biggest challenges you’re facing?

We see a wide range of issues. Different locations face different challenges.

Greenhithe is an established community, so we see a lot of pest plants escape from backyards into reserves. We’ve also got lots of little streams that connect with main waterways – they become corridors for rats and other rodents and pest plants.

Also, we need to defend our coastlines.

Over in Hobsonville, we’ve got issues around construction, litter and waste management.

Motorway corridors tend to be a dumping ground for rubbish – people, unfortunately, throw their takeaway packaging out the window.

And if you look at Herald Island, we have erosion – climate change is a big thing we need to confront more and more within the network. Plus, Whenuapai is also part of the UWEN. Whenuapai is rapidly intensifying – from previously being mainly farmland and horticultural to now light industrial, mixed housing and residential. Environmental outcomes need to be considered and made a priority to ensure healthy outcomes for us all.

The Upper Waitematā also has a lot of vacant land that’s just filled with animal pests and weed pests. And that’s become a real problem for us because these lots offer nursery grounds for these pests to thrive and they, in turn, have a negative impact on native plants and native birds.  This also increases the impact of climate change. Everything is connected.

And how do you manage these issues?

One thing we do is establish volunteer groups that look after reserves or areas.

We have a team of volunteers – we’re about empowering our community with the positive things they can do in their own backyard.

In Greenhithe, for example, we don’t have the rubbish issues Hobsonville has, and we’ve got a lot of locals who will pick up rubbish on their walks. We have lots of pest plants in the reserves, and volunteers meet weekly to help remove these and restore the native bush areas.

Greenhithe Ecology Network, Herald Island Environmental Group, A Rocha in Unsworth Heights and other places have backyard, community nurseries. We save native plants or grow native plant seeds that later can be planted in parks and reserves.

Volunteers are seeing a real difference in Herald Island since predator control has been in place. The volunteers tell us how incredible and delightful it is to see more native birds coming back – including kingfishers. All that is due to the combined efforts of many local residents (Herald Island Environmental Group volunteers) who set traps and bait stations to keep the predators off the island and save the birds.

We also work with other groups, networks and organisations to provide training opportunities. An example of this is the seed sourcing workshop series we’re currently involved in, alongside Uru Whakaaro and Kaipātiki Project (Iwi, Hapū, Community Nursery Network). This seed-sourcing training enables volunteers and residents to learn how to collect seeds and plants in a respectful and culturally safe way. Once trained, they can also help us increase the diversity of plants within reserves and upskill residents. When you give people more power to look after their own backyard, they gain a better understanding of what to do and why it’s important, so they can take meaningful action and feel part of the solution.

What’s your biggest goal… say if there were no funding and resourcing limits?

Native trees everywhere! An abundance of birds. Clean waterways and connected people. People who really like to go outdoors and respect their own backyards.

Also integrating a lot of indigenous knowledge, Te Ao Māori, to really learn more about our environment and how we can best care for it – we see our role as a contribution towards kaitiakitanga (guardianship or protection).

We’d also like to see a more progressive and environmentally friendly approach in policy design. We’re seeing a lot of development that has very little regard for our waterways and our green spaces. We need these spaces to enhance our biodiversity. And we’ve learned from Covid lockdowns that people need to be away from concrete and enjoy nature.

We need a forward-thinking approach to tackle climate change and address development and planning issues.

Do you feel our communities are engaged in these issues and passionate about making a difference?

We have a strong team of volunteers but there’s a gap for engaging our young people, our rangatahi. It’s important to give teenagers a place where they can express their needs and aspirations regarding environmental matters – what do they want their neighbourhoods to look like? What will inspire them to lead projects? It’s important we ask them how they’re feeling rather than just tell them what to do.

That so many of our teenagers don’t feel a part of our work is something we are working on.

The parks that we’re seeing come up now are tiny – pocket parks. They have swings and slides for young tamariki, but they don’t do anything for our young adults. They need more space to ride their bike, they need more land.

What are the major projects that you’re working on right now?

We’re working on a pilot project to restore the waters around the Waitematā.

Then there’s the Community Nurseries Project where the main objective is to increase the genetic diversity and type of plants in reserves. When forests and parks lack genetic diversity, they are more vulnerable to diseases and pathogens, and that’s what we want to avoid.

The third main project is the Rail Trail Waitematā which Two Sparrows gifted us the logo for! This project is all about helping our manu (birds) thrive through organised coastal predator control. We want to bring back Moho Pererū to the coastal areas of the Upper Waitematā. For that to happen we need to make it a safe place by eradicating predators such as stoats, rats and possums! Moho Pererū, or the NZ Banded Rail, is an umbrella species, so if we make our area safe enough for them to thrive many other birds will be able to thrive too.

Did you know that just one water bottle in the ocean can kill a whale? We can play our part in preventing this by clearing up bottles and other litter.

On the 10th of April 2022, we’re having an event – the Lucas Creek clean up. It was meant to be held in November, but we had to postpone it given the circumstances. Lucas Creek clean up is about bringing people together, while spending some quality time in nature collecting the debris around Lucas Creek and doing our part.

Everyone is welcome to the event. All you need to do is register on Facebook. Please keep in mind that most of the clean up is on kayaks so you may want to bring a SUP, kayak, boat, or canoe if you want to have the most fun, but you can clean up from the land as well.

We’re also part of the Environmental Weed Coalition.

And what areas does UWEN cover?

We’re growing. We cover all the area around the upper part of the Waitematā Harbour, from Greenhithe and Albany in the east to Paremoremo and Coatesville in the north, to Whenuapai and Hobsonville in the west and West Harbour in the south, so it’s mostly the Upper Harbour and Rodney Local boards. We’re always welcoming new groups.

How can people get involved and support your great mahi?

We’re always looking for more volunteers. If anyone has any ideas or wants to start a group – if they have a creative idea that could be done within our reserves or parks that would benefit our birds, our water, people and our environment, we’re always ready and happy to connect.

Please go on our website and complete the contact form or you can email Carole: upperharbourecology.manager@gmail.com

On the website you can also connect directly with the group in your local area.

We are actively looking for more volunteers in Albany, Albany Heights, Lucas Heights, Paremoremo, Whenuapai, Hobsonville or anywhere else in the Upper Waitematā. No matter how much or how little you know about nature and conservation, we want you on board!  We can provide you with training along the way.

What type of skills do you look for from your volunteers?

Volunteers can be anything from photographers to artists, to trappers, to health and safety specialists, to bakers for our morning teas, social media people, treasurers, builders, divers, arborists, gardeners and more.

Ultimately, we’re here to connect humans with nature so that we can all thrive.

Two Sparrows worked with the Upper Waitematā Ecology Network to develop a new logo for them. We also created a logo for Rail Trail Waitematā.

The post How the Upper Waitematā Ecology Network connects Aucklanders with nature so we can all thrive appeared first on Two Sparrows.