Salon celebrates our women

PROTEGE TEAM: From left, Lia Gillam, Jess Pettit, Kate Watson, Tiffiny Spencer, Alice Hyland and Robyn Collins. Absent: Angela Gray, Rachel Austin.

This Saturday, as part of La Fiesta, the girls at Protege Hairdressing are offering a 30-minute miracle appointment consisting of express styling, complete with tips, goody bag and glass of sparkling wine, all for $20. The money goes to the Women's Network.
It's their contribution to the celebration of Wanganui women - but it's not all they do.
"We did our first event for the Women's Network last year," says Tiffiny Spencer, co-owner of Protege. They put on a hair and make-up tutorial evening complete with catwalk and three live models, plus one-on-one consultations, but their association goes back a little further than that.
Carla Donson, manager of the Women's Network and driving force behind La Fiesta, explained the beginnings of their relationship.
"From time to time Protege makes up gift packs and offers them to charities to raffle or give away. Two of our supporters, one being a former chairperson of the Women's Network, and the other a current committee member, happened to go to Protege within about a day of each other. Tiffiny mentioned to both of them that Protege was looking for a good charitable cause to give a gift pack to, and, of course, they both suggested the Women's Network."
Tiffiny then contacted Carla with the offer of the gift pack.
"When I went to pick it up and met them for the first time, we had a bit of a chat and I said, by way of thanks for supporting us, I'd like to book myself in. Since then we've had more conversations while I'm a customer, and that has firmed up a relationship that has been mutually beneficial in lots of ways.
Protege is run by Tiffiny and business partner Kate Watson, along with six staff.
"Every year we try and do a fundraising event in aid of a local charity, and each year we supply between 10 and 20 gift baskets valued at between $150 and $170," says Tiffiny. "This year we've got 15. We donate them to schools, clubs and organisations that directly benefit our community. We did one for Property Brokers to auction for the Relay for Life." The gift baskets are professionally wrapped by the staff at The Flower Room.
"This way we can support community groups without having to invest too much time in every single event; we try and do one big event and support other groups through this [gift basket] type of method.
"We're only here because the community supports us, and we've had such a huge response from clients from Wanganui. We opened during an economically challenging time and we've been really well supported. Kate and I are firm believers that it should go both ways; if you're getting the love, you've got to give the love as well."
Two days after the La Fiesta event, Protege turns five years old.
"We're taking our team out for a day on Monday to celebrate," says Tiffiny. "We're going to brunch at Cracked Pepper, then glass blowing with Katie Brown [at Chronicle Glass], then a private yoga session with Melissa down on the river ... and then we're going to Element."
All the staff, bar one new member, are all long-term members of the "Protege family", and everyone is donating their time to Saturday's La Fiesta event.
"We're fortunate to have a team of relatively young business women that are just so visionary," says Carla Donson.
To book a 30-minute La Fiesta miracle appointment on Saturday, phone the salon, 345 4045.