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Connect |January 2023

Kia ora <<First Name>>,

Welcome to our first Connect of 2023. We're excited to be working with you and looking forward to another amazing year. First of all, our thoughts are with those of you impacted by the terrible flooding and weather events that have battered the top half of the North Island for the last week. If there's anything we can do to support your organisations through this, please reach out!

While summer has been a pretty mixed bag weather-wise for a lot of us, it's clear there's been a lot of people out and about enjoying the best Aotearoa has to offer. Below we're excited to provide some reflections on summer, and a look ahead to some upcoming key work. Enjoy!

#MakeItHomeNZ

A few stats from the summer

We have summed up some highlights of how our summer Plan My Walk campaign is performing (21 Nov - 2 Feb):

504 new track reviews
199,000 total users who had 308,000 total sessions
Direct users (more than 58,000 of them) spend an average of 4mins per session
Paid Google search is delivering a nearly 15% click-through rate
Most viewed track page: Tongariro Alpine Crossing (23,000 views)

Our mountaineering research is hitting the road

We have just wrapped up a large piece of research work about the attitudes and behaviours of the NZ mountaineering community towards avalanche safety, 'Above and Beyond'. Nathan and Tom will be sharing this in Wānaka, Auckland and Christchurch next week, and it will be available online soon.

'Stay out of the hills' Waitangi media release

The New Zealand Mountain Safety Council (MSC) has issued a warning to trampers this Waitangi weekend to avoid tracks in flooded and rain-impacted areas. Parts of the North Island have been hit by record rainfall and while forecasters are predicting the worst is over, many areas still face heavy rain warnings. Read our full media release on Stuff here

Wilderness Story Series: Mental Shortcuts

We have been producing a series of heuristic trap stories for readers, unpacking common yet harmful behaviours in the outdoors. Below are the first two launched this summer:

Would I do this if I were alone? Read the full story here
Avoiding over-commitment Read the full story here

Working with ACC to encourage people to Have a hmmm....?

We have been working with our friends at ACC New Zealand and their 'Have a hmmm?' campaign. This campaign is aimed at outdoor users to think how their injury might affect themselves and others. A specific set of awareness assets is pushing trampers to story with our assets.

Read the story landing page here

Te Tari Pūreke: a new Firearms Safety Authority website

A new website from the NZ Police as part of the firearms programme went live end of last year. It helps licence applicants understand the new 7 Basic Safety rules and much more. C heck out their new website here

A snapshot of our summer news features

We worked hard to produce proactive media for the summer period with a positive uptake of our content. This included our media release with NZ Police and various stories on Stuff.co.nz

Thanks to our funders for making it all possible

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Stay in touch and #MakeItHomeNZ #ShareYourStoryNZ | Header photo: Te Ara Pataka/Summit Walkway, Canerbury, Michal Klajban