Making a positive difference in our communities
Living our values
Contact partners with a broad range of initiatives at both a national and regional level. Our partnerships reflect our connection and commitment to the communities in which we live, work and operate.
National
Contact is Principal Partner of Triathlon New Zealand. There is a strong alignment between our values and objectives. And already, we are both seeing some fantastic results.
Triathlon is one of New Zealand’s fastest growing sports. Combining swimming, running and cycling, it is accessible to most New Zealanders and our award-winning partnership has helped contribute to to double digit increases in participation rates. In 2009/10 Contact Energy extended its relationship with Triathlon New Zealand to include a Contact TriWoman's Series and a Contact 1:2:1 Series for children.
Through the Contact Tri Series, people of all ages and fitness levels can experience the satisfaction of completing a triathlon. Go on – give it a go, because you’ll never know until you Tri.
For more information go to www.triathlon.org.nz
Community
Cure Kids has helped save the lives of thousands of New Zealand children by funding critical research into life-threatening childhood diseases and conditions affecting New Zealand children and their families. We are proud to be a key partner of Cure Kids and last year helped raise over $75,000 for Cure Kids by sponsoring a dollar for every kilometre covered in the 2010/2011 Contact Tri Series.
We’ve been a proud member of the Taupo community for decades. So in 2010, we decided to ask the people of Taupo what organisation in the Taupo community needed our support. The winner was Swim for Life Taupo, a programme which aims to give all students between the ages of five and 18 the opportunity to learn to swim.
This programme has been so successful we have again invested $100,000 in the programme (recently renamed Contact Swim Well Taupo), so they can provide swimming and water safety lessons for 3,600 students in the Taupo area for free.
With Lake Taupo a stone's throw away and only one in five 10-year-olds in New Zealand able to swim to survive, we think that's a great result.
Contact has been involved with the Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge – one of Taupo’s most iconic and high profile events – for some time now, but in 2010 we kicked our support up a gear and became principal partner of the event.
The annual Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge attracts around 10,000 competitors and delivers over $4 million into the Taupo community. Contact also sponsors the 80 kilometre mountain bike section, the Contact Huka Challenge. The course takes competitors around, and at times over, our Wairakei steam field site.
Contact’s special focus in this event is our partnership with the more than 1,000 volunteers who are so essential to the event’s safety and smooth running.
The Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge is also heavily supported by Contact staff, particularly those working at the nearby Wairakei, Ohaaki, and Poihipi Road geothermal power stations.
For more information go to www.cyclechallenge.com
In 2008, Contact sponsored the first mountain bike race around Lake Hawea in Central Otago.
Now entering its fifth year, the 125 kilometre Contact Epic is a rare opportunity to race right around the lake, over Department of Conservation and private land, in one of the most beautiful parts of New Zealand.
Lake Hawea is controlled by Contact as a storage lake for hydro electricity in partnership with the Lake Hawea Guardians.
For more information, go to www.contactepic.co.nz
Contact has been the major sponsor of the Alexandra Blossom Festival since 2004 and in 2008 became “Principal Partner”of the Festival and Grand Procession, a street parade of locally built floats, traditionally covered with thousands of painstakingly applied individual blossoms.
In 2010, we also became Principal Partner of the family-oriented Contact Saturday in the Park.
For more information go to www.blossom.co.nz
In May 2009, we invited the Taranaki public to identify projects or organisations that they believed were worthy of support in the region. A panel of independent judges selected a shortlist and more than 1,200 locals cast their votes.
Image courtesy of Taranaki Daily News
The result was a new partnership between Contact Energy and the Waves Youth Health, Development and Support Service. Our partnership has since enabled the Waves team to develop and extend a wide range of health and educational programmes for the region's young people and their families. We have recently renewed our partnership for another year by which time Waves aims to be operating on a sustainable, self funding basis.
Contact is investing in the country’s future leadership and global connections by supporting the establishment of a United World College in New Zealand.
The Global network of 12 United World Colleges was established by Kurt Hahn, the founder of the Outward Bound movement, and its honorary president is Nelson Mandela.
The colleges take 16-19-year olds who have shown a passionate commitment to making a difference, mix them with their peers from around the world and produce an astonishing proportion of the world’s future leaders.
The New Zealand UWC will take 240 students drawn from 85 countries and students will take part in Outward Bound courses as a part of their experience.
The College aims to produce outstanding leaders who will help build powerful global networks into the future and who will carry a deep and life-long affection for New Zealand.
A site on the shores of Lake Wakatipu has been chosen for the New Zealand campus and Contact is proud to give support to make it happen.
