The Question: “I’m Bored, What Can We Do Today?”

From the desk of Leah Calnan, Director of Metro Property Management
With the school holidays coming to a close this weekend you may be asking yourself “What else can I do to entertain the kids?” (or maybe they are asking you?). Well we have found a few relatively inexpensive things to do to keep them active and occupied.

Firstly there is ‘The Enchanted Maze’ garden located at Arthurs Seat. Four mazes for you and the kids to get lost in (and hopefully find your way out of by dinner time!) It is something many children may not have experienced and so much fun will be had. Not only do the different mazes have different points of interest for the kids, ie: finding the 5 Buddhas in the Hampton Court Maze or stopping off to play on the beach hut and pier, complete with sandpit in the Turf Maze Labyrinth, but there are also plenty of other activities including an area with brain teaser challenges, a small animal farm, sculpture park which has large sculptures carved out of tree stumps and plenty of interesting little gardens for you to enjoy. There’s even a cafe if you don’t wish to bring along your own picnic. For more information visit their website at http://ow.ly/5E5Dk  

Our second idea is to take the kids to the ‘St Kilda Adventure Playground’. A great playground full of different things for the children to jump, climb, run and swing from. There’s a big aeroplane, wooden horse with saddle, big metal slide, trampolines, go-kart path, a small basketball court, they can ride on a dinosaur, have a zip on the flying fox, play on the pirate ship, big tepee and a big wooden castle. Open 10am - 5.30pm on weekends it is staffed & tea and coffee is provided. Again, for more info visit http://ow.ly/5E5dJ

Lastly have the kids ever ridden a pony? Well now’s your chance to take them. ‘Ace-Hi Ranch’ is a large property just south of Rosebud in the Mornington Peninsula. The experience is that of the Wild West and as for the kids they will just love it. They cater for all age groups and levels of horse-riding experience (or lack thereof!). Take a pony ride, a scenic horse ride or even a bush ‘n’ beach ride. The ranch also includes a free range style of wildlife park set on 10 acres and gives all visitors the chance to view their native animals in their typical surroundings. They have over 14 varieties of birds including- Emu's, Parrots, Cockatoos, Peacocks & Fowl. Visitors are welcome to feed & pat their furry friends - Koala's, Wombat's, Kangaroo's, Wallaby's, Deer & Dingo's.... a very cool experience for the kids to go to back to school and tell their friends about. Visit http://ow.ly/5E5CL  

So there’s our Top 3 ideas, we hope you enjoy them and if you don’t get a chance to do them these holidays maybe keep them in mind for the next lot of holidays when you are asked the age old question “What can we do today?”.

Until next time.....

Busy Bees this July!

From the desk of Leah Calnan, Director of Metro Property Management...
And here we are at July. As usual much has been happening and will be happening this month here at Metro PM. The first weekend of July saw the team head out to the Red Emperor for a beautiful Chinese banquet as a reward for all of their hard work this year. Many laughs and stories were told and a great time was had by all.

Leah & Matt

Rebecca, Eleanor & Melissa

Josh, Hayley, Tracey & Dave

June, Chen, Rod & Merryn

Peter & Jan

This month we continue with the office renovations – out go the carpets in the foyer and meeting rooms and in goes the crisp white tiling and funky new seating for our guests. Later in the month we will be also carpeting throughout the office entirely which will be lovely as we have lived with the pink, grey and mauve carpet for quite sometime now and you know what they say, ‘a change is as good as a holiday’.

Our team have been busy little bees as it’s all hands on deck putting together our End of Financial Year Packs from the 1st July onwards and we aim to have them all out by the 14th of this month, so keep an eye out in your mail box. In your specialised EOFY folder you will find the Annual Statement for your property/s 2010/2011, as well as some information on Metro Wealth and a handy checklist to help you prepare for your tax return.

In other news Samantha Taylor from our office and myself will be off to Sydney early August to attend a fantastic event called ARPM or the Australasian Residential Property Management Conference. The event runs over 2 days and I am looking forward to hearing from some world class property management and real estate gurus. I am also excited about discovering what fantastic new ideas myself and the team can implement into Metro Property Management in order to keep us at the top of our game in providing the best possible service to our clients. So we’ll keep you posted of what comes about from our little trip interstate.

Until next time...