KEY POINTS:
As a recent resident to St Mary's Bay, I was chuffed to be invited to the Ponsonby News Entrepreneur dinner at Hopetoun Alpha. The News, for those who live outside the area, is a community monthly mag distributed into 15,000 letterboxes around greater Ponsonby. It's edited and published
by the larger-than-life Martin Leach, who is one of the many characters that the area of Ponsonby attracts.
So, when Leach phoned and invited me to be a guest at the top table, I was chuffed. I felt like my community was welcoming me in to the fray. "You'll be sitting next to Denise L'Estrange-Corbet," he says, "and Judith Tizard and Jaquie Brown too." Brilliant, I thought, it was undoubtedly going to be a great night with those three eccentrics.
Denise, better known as one half of the phenomenal force behind the successful World fashion brand, is a hoot. A real character. What she lacks in height, she more than makes up for in chutzpah. She's brutally honest and likes to have a laugh - a woman after my own heart.
And so the evening begins. L'Estrange-Corbet had the table in stitches regaling tales about her youth as a Brown Owl in '70s London where a bossy Denise led her group of Brownies in various "life-experiences" using a ball of string, scissors, matchsticks and a pen.
These days her life experiences have gone into an autobiography called All That Glitters, due out in a couple of months. Whispers on the fashion grapevine suggest certain names in the industry are terrified about what L'Estrange-Corbet will reveal. We do know, however, around about the same time, she'll be revealing her latest collection of garb at Air NZ Fashion Week. Hooray! She's been absent from the event for far too long.
Jaquie Brown is a bit of an enigma. She's always owned the "quirky" label, but, to be honest, I've found her anything but. Her wit is scissor-sharp, her fashion sense impeccable, and her manners are up there on the John Campbell scale of politeness. Brown is not quirky in the Lily Allen sense; nor the Helena Bonham-Carter sense where their star status forgives any lack in life skills and sensibilities. Brown is very self-aware in that she understands her strengths and limitations. She has a huge future on TV in GodZone and I hope her latest show - The Jaquie Brown Diaries - will be a huge success.
The dinner was aimed at celebrating and honouring Ponsonby's best entrepreneurs, and celebrate we did. Hairdressing guru Stephen Marr was declared the overall winner and the audience of locals applauded loudly. The evening was an enormous success and Leach and his team from Ponsonby News should be feeling very chuffed. And now that I'm here to stay in the community, I'm looking forward to my invite next year. Fingers crossed.
Here are some photos from the fabulous event, and below is the list of winners from Ponsonby News top Entrepreneurs awards:
1. Stephen Marr - Stephen Marr hair (overall winner)
2. Gerad Curtice - Silverfern Landscape Ltd
3. Luke Dallow - Chapel bar and bistro
4. Paul Manning - Ogilvy Metro
5. Chris Rupe - SPQR
6. Rebecca Purdy - Bare PR
7. Jacob Faull and Georgia Smith - Nature Baby
8. Louise Pilkington - Servilles Hair
9. Jillian Bashford - Bashford Antiques
10. Layne Stephens - Layne Stephens Properties Ltd
Ponsonby's best and most innovative business idea: Krista Johnson - Barkley Manor
Ponsonby's best emerging entrepreneur: Peter Taylor - Dorothy's Sister
Rachel Glucina
Photos / Norrie Montgomery