There’s no denying that John Harrington, founder of Harrington’s Brewery knows a lot about craft beer. So when John and Derek McCullough, both long-time Mt Pleasant residents, got together to think of ways to raise money for the rebuild of the Mt Pleasant Community Centre, the conversation soon turned to beer.

From there, the idea of producing a Mt Pleasant series of beers was born, using the best and most popular of Harrington’s award winning craft beers.

Muritai Marketing, as local residents ourselves, decided to get behind this community initiative. On the 25th November 2015 to much fan fair, we launched four beers - Broad Reach, Ziraffe, Muddy Duck and Road Cone Red - under the by-line of ‘Good beer doing good.’

Combined with Mike McGurk’s stunning beer label designs, the beers are set to become a popular way to raise much needed funds to complete the centre.

Believed to be the first social enterprise initiative of its kind in New Zealand, every beer purchased equals a gold coin donation to the Mt Pleasant Community Centre rebuild. Timed to coincide with the summer time BBQ season these beers are a ‘hopping good’ Christmas gift for business clients and craft beer lovers alike.

Cup week kicked off with Sculpture on the Peninsula, the South Island’s largest contemporary outdoor sculpture exhibition held at Loudon Farm, 6 – 8 November.

With more than 70 exhibits covering several hectares of farmland, Sculpture on the Peninsula is a testament to the way imagination can transform the landscape. And for sponsors, Fox and Associates, land surveyors and land development specialists, it’s a sponsorship that’s perfectly aligned to their mission; creating legacies with land.

Cup and Show week has wound down to a close. And what a week it was, especially for the girls.

It started the week earlier with Michelle Payne on Prince of Penzance becoming the 1st female jockey to win the Melbourne Cup. Along with her brother and strapper, Stevie and their eight siblings, the win became an extraordinary family story.

The following week, women dominated with:

• Kerryn Manning becoming the 1st female driver to win the New Zealand Trotting Cup
• Lisa Allpress on Jimmy Mac winning the 152nd New Zealand Cup
• Sam Spratt on Addictive Habit winning the Couplands Bakery Mile

Social media is now a key promotional tool in many businesses' marketing toolkits. However, it's becoming harder to easily manage your social media, given the wide and ever increasing range of social media channels and platforms.

We reveal eight super social media apps we use to manage our social media channels from our smartphones. Some of these apps are similar, so we suggest you try them to find the ones you like best. 

1. HootSuite - You can monitor and post to several popular networks including both Facebook personal profiles and business pages, Twitter, LinkedIn and others. Hootsuite includes built-in custom analytics system, the ability to monitor selected keywords and the option to conveniently schedule posts.  

2.  TweetDeck - Similar to Hootsuite, TweetDeck is available for iPhone, Android and Chrome browser. With TweetDeck, you can watch your updates stream in real-time when you connect with Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. 

So you've decided to start an email newsletter. Good for you as email marketing is one of the most productive ways to stay in touch with your clients and increase sales and repeat business.

But for email to be successful, you must, of course, get your emails read. And like most things, success starts with getting the fundamentals right.

Before you push send, check out the 10 'must haves' for an outstanding newsletter. 

 1.       An attention-grabbing subject line

Your subject line is the first thing people see of your email. Your subject line must compel your readers to open your email; otherwise they won’t read it.  It also must be brief (no longer than 50 characters) otherwise your finely crafted subject line will get cut off if it’s too long.

Try giving your readers just enough information to make them curious. Use action words to inspire readers to click. Subject lines that address your readers concerns such as “How to …” or “Top 5 tips…” show you understand what they care about. Finally, another technique is to personalise the subject line with the reader’s first name.