IT’LL BE SUITE
Supporting the local community has come into focus for many small businesses navigating the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic. One Southland couple has made that a priority in charting the survival of their classic business.
Invercargill couple Brenda ‘Bren’ Mathers and Scott Flynn have met the challenge of economic restrictions, and a significant move turned out to be a great solution not only for their Suite Southern Designs upholstery and auto trim business but also for level 3 apprentice Bronwen Coe, as Bren explains: “Our apprentice is staying on board with us. It’s the reason we shut our workshop and moved back home to set up business in our garage. Not having to pay the lease where we were enabled us to keep her on. We wouldn’t have been able to keep Bronwen otherwise.”
Bronwen is in the second year of her apprenticeship with industry training organization Competenz. She has three school-age sons and works a couple of days each week.
Industry training organization MITO recently campaigned to encourage more apprentices into the motor-trimming industry, which is struggling to attract trainees, so the gesture that the couple made was a timely one. They have also recently decided take on another new apprentice, Jazmyn Autridge. She starts officially in the new year, but can already be found helping out in the
