Ever since our humble beginnings in downtown Nelson in 1945 the Bowater Motor Group has been very focused on community involvement. We believe that you are only ever as successful as the support that you can give back. It is with this philosophy that we continue to be as involved as we can be in the wider Nelson / Tasman community.
This section of the website houses stories, links and content from a collective of organisations and events that we are involved with or support through sponsorship or partnerships.
The menu to the right has got comprehensive articles from those events, organisations and charities that we regularly involved with, click on the menu items to read more, or scroll down this page to keep up with events as they unfold.
If you think you have an event, organisation or group that would benefit from our community interest feel free to contact us.
Toyota Racing Series - a short run down
Victory Motor Racing's Damon Leitch in full flight in the 2014 season.
The very first International Motorsport Series contested in 2014 is the always exciting Toyota Racing Series, held over 5 consecutive weekends.
For the first time the Toyota Racing Series (TRS) program partly intersects with the brand new Toyota 86 series sponsored by Toyota Finance. The 86 series is spread over 6 months and logistics are relatively straightforward, but for the TRS program there is a massive exercise in mounting 5 events in 5 weekends.
Immediately following the final race on Sunday evening, rain, hail or shine (often all three at Teretonga) pack out starts, and once complete, the TRS circus and associated convoy, consisting of several shipping containers, race car transporter, hospitality truck, merchandise and show car trailers hits the road destined for setup at the next venue by Tuesday evening to be fully operational for crew and team breakfasts early on Wednesday morning. Part of this convoy is the Victory Motor Racing (VMR) team with their Bowater Toyota Box Body Gear Transporter, and the Toyota Hiace crew transport.
Guy Griffiths from VMR was stoked to have the additional support from Bowater Toyota and has kept us in the loop with a great array of images thus far, which we will share with you either here or on our Facebook Page, or both!
Meet Georgie, our 2013 Spirit of NZ Trust Scholarship winner
From left: Brad O'Leary (Assistant Principal NCG), scholarship winner Georgie Holdaway (year 12) & Chris Bowater (CEO Bowater Hyundai).
The opportunity to sponsor a student into any positive endeavour is always a real bonus. The Bowater Motor Group has always been driven by supporting the community for generations, so when Hyundai came on board as a major sponsor nationally of the Spirit of Adventure Trust we were excited as it meant we would also be helping students out locally to get involved with the programme through Bowater Hyundai.
Recently we met our latest new scholarship winner, Georgie Holdaway.
She is a Year 12 (6th form for the older ones of us that still know school by those standards) student at Nelson College for Girls. She is a lovely girl with bright ambition, and is very much looking forward to her spot on the Spirit of New Zealand. She has provided us with a bio so we all here at the Bowater Motor Group, and everyone else interested, can get to know her a little better.
$10 buys you a chance at prizes galore, but more importantly helps someone directly.
It only costs $10 to buy a chance in the BMG Mini for Nelson Cancer raffle.
A chance to win this wonderful, fully restored mini.
Or $18,000 worth of travel as second prize.
Or 3rd prize of a weekend for 2 at Awaroa Lodge with water taxi transfers worth $1250
Or 4th prize of a Hanmer Springs Pamper Pack.
That is an awesome range of prizes right there for just a $10 raffle.
However that $10 is also a ticket to helping someone directly affected by cancer.
And that is what it is all about folks.
All proceeds from this years Caffeine Crew Relay for Life fund raiser go back to local people via the Cancer Society Nelson. The aim is to sell all of the 20,000 raffle tickets for the BMG Mini for Nelson Cancer and raise $200,000.
Tickets are on sale from November 1st through to Tuesday 29th January, with the draw taking place at 1pm on Thursday the 30th January 2014 at the Wakefield Police Station.
You can pick up a ticket from any one of the 6 Bowater Motor Group outlets around the district.
Movember brings out the mo's and the money. We are joining the MoBros
Every year a handful of guys from the 75 strong staff down at Bowater's has a crack at Movember. The opportunity to grow some ridiculous facial hair that is not part of their everyday "normal" look is too good to pass up it seems.
This year we have decided to make it all official and get involved in Movember properly, with a proper Movember account and everything! This means that more of us are doing it this year than ever, including the head honchos Bowater brothers Tony and Chris. It is such a good cause that we feel that the entire Bowaters Team can take the matter seriously and do it properly which means some fund raising and moustache growing for a good cause.
Follow our journey by checking back at this page as we will keep a track of the Bowater's Mo Bro's as they develop and cultivate their moustaches. Please take a couple of minutes to visit our official Movember page (click here) and make a donation to us - we will appreciate it and feel that all of the itchiness and scornful looks from our wives and partners will be worth it!
Scroll right down to the bottom of this page to see the beginnings, the latest photos are right here at the top. Haven't they all done well! Appreciate then go and donate!
Famous MoBros - we get snapped for the paper.
We had the pleasure of getting together as many of the Bowater's MoBro's as we could for a photo for the Nelson Mail. With 6 different locations spread out across the region it is always hard to co-ordinate all of our MoBro's but we managed to get about a third of those participating this year to the photo shoot.
Hopefully this photo and resulting article in the paper will generate some more donations to our Bowater Motor Group Movember page, which if you click here will take you through to where you can donate. It is easy, safe and secure and will only take a couple of minutes and we will be most grateful.
Click here to read the full story.
We have started with a clean slate, and took a bunch of photos of those that were around and keen to participate on the 1st of November. As the month has progressed so too has the moustachiness with a clear moustache style coming out ontop as the Bowaters Favourite. Some of our team have the serious slo-gro-mo, others are having to get into some industrial manscaping to keep it all in check.
More Articles ...
- It is time to get the show on the road.
- We have rebuilt the car now can YOU help us?
- BMG Mini a colourful step closer to completion
- Gentlemen, start your engines!
- Relay for Life Mini's restoration in full bloom
- FC Nelson are ready to play with help from BMG & Sport Tasman
- Z Bowater Motors fuels the local RSA for another year with Poppy Day donations
- Brook Sanctuary & Bowater Honda launch the fund raising drive to Get behind the Fence
- The two sides of the fence - the Nelson Mail reports
- From Germany to the Sanctuary of Nelson
