Meet the NZCNA Executive Team
Executive Committee
President Richard Thomas - Mountain Scene
Born in Queenstown, Richard is a director of Skyline Enterprises Ltd, a Queenstown-based tourism and casino company with operations in Singapore and Canada. He’s also general manager/owner of the award winning Mountain Scene newspaper, Queenstown’s only locally owned mass media.
Educated at the University of Otago he completed a Bachelor of Commerce in marketing. He has since completed a number of strategic marketing and management courses including the Icehouse Owner Manager programme.
Prior to moving back to Queenstown 2001 he spent three years in the UK and Europe where he held various sales and marketing roles. He has strong connection with the business community and an in-depth understanding of the challenges they face. He is also Queenstown Chamber of Commerce Board member.
John Spring - Whakatane Beacon
John Spring. B.Com. CA. Managing Director of The Beacon Printing & Publishing Co Ltd. The Beacon was first started in 1939 by John's father Leicester Spring. The Beacon group is made up of 5 companies including 5 newspapers and 2 commercial printing businesses. John joined the company in 1990 and took over from his father as managing director in 1994. Leicester passed away in 1997.
The newspapers are made of The Whakatane Beacon (paid, circulation 8500), Opotiki News (paid, circ 2500), Bay Weekend (free, circ 20000), Waitomo News (free, circ 7500), Kawerau Voice (free, circ 3000).
We have benefited from membership of CNA for many years. The highlight is the annual conference where we get to meet other newspapers, share ideas and stories, receive training, and participate in the award ceremonies. Our staff take a lot of pride in the work they do and really look forward to entering the awards and competing against the other newspapers. We try to maintain a high standard of work and have been fortunate to receive the over all best community newspaper in 2005, 2006 and 2007 (shared).
The CNA association has a hard working and very experienced newspaper person in Nancye Pitt and she organises a lot of information and activities for the members during the year.
It is important for the newspaper industry to have a community newspaper organisation, not just for the benefit of its members but also as a representative body, acting and lobbying on behalf of the members.
Mark Julius - Timaru's The Courier
Liz Waters - Gulf News
Ewan McDonald - The Aucklander
Ewan McDonald is Editor in Chief of The Aucklander, APN's community newspaper division based in Auckland.
The Aucklander, with an editorial staff of 14, is published in four weekly editions targeted to the region's four cities (North Shore, Waitakere, Auckland City and Manukau). It is distributed with the Thursday edition of the New Zealand Herald and its weekly readership of 465,000 in June 2008 makes it by far the country's largest community newspaper.
It is also the most successful, winning the Norske Skog Award for Best All-round Newspaper at the 2008 NZ Community Newspaper Association Awards and Best Community / Suburban Newspaper at the 2008 Qantas Media Awards. It was also a finalist for New Zealand's Newspaper of the Year. The Aucklander and its editorial staff have won almost 30 journalism awards in their five years of publication.
The Aucklander is significantly different from all other NZ community newspapers - it is a combination of magazine and newspaper, with hard-hitting local news coverage and a bright, sassy, irreverent look and style.
In previous lives, Ewan McDonald has been Features Editor of the NZ Herald, Chief Sub-editor of the NZ Woman's Weekly, News Editor of the Waikato Times, flipped hamburgers and made coffee. Outside the office, he is an awarded food and travel writer, listens to far too much music, and has been a national councillor for NZ Soccer, as well as serving on a number of other community and sporting organsations.
Karla Wairau – Times Newspapers
Karla is the Sales and Marketing Manager for Business Media Press Ltd with a prominent role overseeing sales strategies with sister company Times Newspapers Ltd.
Karla has 18 years industry experience covering both radio and print. Her TNL/BMP career has incorporated a wide range of roles giving her in-depth knowledge of the newspaper industry and the critical understanding of both sales and editorial directions.
A strong supporter of the companies involvement with the New Zealand Community Newspapers Association she says membership has provided many benefits for both the company as a whole and individual staff members over many years.
“As an independent newspaper company we appreciate having a forum in which to share ideas and resources. Not only do we enjoy the support of peers but we feel that through the association we can give something back to the industry.”
Karla says CNA conferences put company leaders in touch with old hands and newcomers to the print arena with workshops providing information on the latest technological developments as well as highlighting the changing face of newspapers.
“The awards themselves these are one measure of our success as a paper and provide a benchmark from which to work. They also give individual staff members something to work towards as well as rewarding and honoring their abilities and success”.
Executive Secretary
Nancye Pitt
Managing the head office for the NZ Community Newspapers Association is part of Nancye’s portfolio of predominately newspaper related business functions.
Following a 25 career in the Newspaper Industry, Nancye set up her own Training and Marketing Business NRP Training & Marketing Ltd in 2002.
Nancye held key positions as Advertising and Marketing Manager and Company Manager of a daily paid newspaper, and trained with the NZ Institute of Management.
A career highlight is her work experience in Newspapers in the States of Hawaii, California, Nevada, Arizona and Mexico.
She has attended many NPA Sales and Marketing Conferences in NZ and PANPA in NZ and Australia and enjoyed being chairman of the NZ NPA Sales and Marketing Conference in 1996.
Nancye has continued using her experience and skills within the newspaper industry through presenting newspaper training seminars on Advertising Sales, Copywriting and Customer Service for newspapers, throughout New Zealand and Australia.
NRP Training & Marketing Ltd also presents Sales and Customer Service seminars for corporate and retail companies, along with assisting various businesses with Personal Business Coaching, and Marketing and Branding of new and existing products.