Inaugural Nordic Open Golf Day

Posted on 10/06/2016 by faccadmin in News

mooreparkgolf

After a wild week in Sydney, we were blessed with sunshine and light winds. A perfect winter’s day.

Peter Vainio, from the Finland Australia Chamber of Commerce welcomed players at around 8:00am and introduced Moore Park Golf’s Barry Bradford who outlined the golfing arrangements. An Audi was on offer for each player who got a hole-in-one on the 10th, with a longest drive prize on offer on the 18th and nearest to the pin on the 5th. Players then formed groups of 3 or 4 all groups of players teed off simultaneously from different holes in a shotgun start.

A large support contingent started arriving at the Club House around 11:00am to welcome weary players who started arriving back at about 12:30pm. By the loudness of the conversation at our 19th hole celebration there were many stories of outstanding golf, skilful putting and remarkable drives.

Paul Crawford of Thailand Golf Tours presented the prize for longest drive to Matt Boardman, representing Norway. Then Geoff Stone of Finnair presented Mikael Samuelson, representing Sweden, with the prize for nearest to the pin. Finnair, together with Rapala, Fiskars, Thailand Golf Tours and Audi were all event sponsors.

As the day was drawing to a close, Ulf Varding from the Norwegian Australian Chamber of Commerce presented the prize for Net Score Female to Eriika Wathen, representing Finland, with a score of 29. Alan Chamberlain, representing Norway, with a score of 40 was awarded the prize for Net Score Male by Shane Herbert from the Swedish Australian Chamber of Commerce and Michael Dahlgren, representing Sweden, was awarded the prize for Scratch Male.

The Nordic Open trophy for team of the year went to Team Norway, comprising Alan Chamberlain, Johan Schyberg, John Candi and Matt McMillan with net scores of 40, 32, 32 and 31 respectively. The teams representing Denmark, Finalnd and Sweden have some work to do to win back the trophy next year.

Many thanks to all those involved in organising the event from the various chambers, the super friendly staff at Moore Park Golf and, of course, sponsors Rapala, Fiskars, Thailand Golf Tours, Audi and Finnair.

Check out our Flickr account for photos
https://www.flickr.com/photos/finncham_australia/albums/72157670056988175

FACC Annual General Meeting

Posted on 22/09/2015 by faccadmin in News

The 2015 Annual General Meeting of the Finland Australia Chamber of Commerce, Inc. is being held on Thursday, 22 October 2015.

The meeting will be held at TressCox Lawyers, Level 16, MLC Centre, 19 Martin Place, Sydney NSW 2000. The meeting will commence at 5:30pm sharp, and run for approximately 30 minutes. Member drinks will follow.

The Notice of Annual General Meeting and proxy form can be downloaded by clicking on the links below:

Notice of Annual General Meeting
Proxy Form

If you are unable to attend, then please ensure that you complete a proxy and send it in. You can nominate any member as your proxy or, if you prefer, the Chairman.

FACC Executive Committee nominations now sought

Posted on 18/09/2014 by faccadmin in News

The Annual General Meeting of the Chamber will be held in Sydney on Thursday, 30 October 2014.

In accordance with the Chamber’s governing rules, all existing members of the executive committee will retire from office at the AGM. Elections will then be held to appoint up to 10 members to the executive committee. Those people retiring will be eligible for re-election.

We are now seeking nominations from eligible persons for appointment to the executive committee. Nominations must be made using the approved form that you can download here. Each nomination must be signed by the nominating members (two are required) and the nominee. Only members, or representatives of corporate members, can be nominated.

The executive committee is the Chamber’s equivalent of a board of directors. The executive committee meets ten times a year and has a very important role in shaping the future of the Chamber nationally.

If fewer than 10 people are nominated, they will be automatically appointed to the executive committee. If there are more than 10 nominees, an election will be held at the AGM.

Please submit your nominations in the approved form as soon as possible and by no later than 5:30pm on Thursday, 23 October 2014.

Geoff Charnock
Honorary Secretary
Finland Australia Chamber of Commerce, Inc.

Inaugural Scandinavian Film Festival

Posted on 22/05/2014 by faccadmin in News

The inaugural Scandinavian Film Festival is set to heat up the Australian Winter this July with the coolest films from Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Iceland hitting screens nationally.

Presented by Palace and screening exclusively at Palace Cinema locations, the Scandinavian Film Festival will delight audiences with the best drama, crime and comedy of the region.

With Scandinavian crime drama the hottest property of the last few years, it only made sense to delve even deeper into Nordic film. Australian audiences will have the chance to experience the breadth of style, humour, action and mystery that Scandinavian film has to offer. Here are a few titles from the 2014 edition to whet your appetite…

The Festival will open with the Swedish blockbuster The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared (Hundraaringen som klev ut genom fonstret och forsvann). A delightful, colourful comedy of unexpected surprises based on the hugely successful international bestselling novel by Jonas Jonasson which was published in more than 35 countries. This is the unlikely story of Allan Karlsson (played by popular Swedish actor/comedian Robert Gustafsson), a 100-year-old man with an eventful past who keeps stumbling into extraordinary circumstances.

Easy Money III: Life Deluxe (2013) is the final installment following JW, an economics student who falls into the seductive world of drug running. To celebrate, the entire trilogy will be screened starting with Sweden’s top-grossing film of 2010 Easy Money (Snabba cash) and Easy Money II: Hard to Kill (2012) all of which star Joel Kinnaman (RoboCop, The Killing). Based on Jens Lapidus’ international best-selling novel, Easy Money is a taut, intelligent feature, which went on to be presented by fan Martin Scorsese in the USA and UK.

From Finland, director Taru Mäkelä’s August Fools (Mieleton Elokuu) is a smart, uplifting comedy set in the context of the Cold War. Marvellously multilayered, the story is loosely based on real political events, paired with a delightful romance. Set in 1962, a middle-aged milliner, part-time clairvoyant, is forced to revisit the past when the man she loved 20 years ago and thought dead walks into her little hat shop in Helsinki.

The rugged, isolated beauty of Iceland is showcased in the powerful family drama Metalhead (Málmhaus) – a story of loss and grief led by a breathtaking and award-winning performance by Thorbjörg Helga Thorgilsdóttir. As a 12 year-old, Hera (Thorgilsdóttir) witnesses the tragic accident that kills her older brother, Baldur. But not long after the loss, it is as though the heavy-metal-loving Baldur has never left her side as Hera takes on her brother’s identity, claiming his wardrobe, record collection and electric guitar.

A complicated tangle of race, love and family is explored in I Am Yours (Jeg er din) from Norway. Amrita Acharia’s (Game of Thrones) multifaceted performance is captivating and sympathetic in the taut, intelligent relationship drama by director Iram Haq.

Denmark’s Mikkel Norgaard demonstrates Danish suspense at its best in The Keeper of Lost Causes (Kvinden i buret). Scripted by Nikolaj Arcel (the original The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and A Royal Affair) and based on the international bestselling crime-thriller of the same title, the film follows a police officer who gets reassigned to a dead-end new department for old, terminated cases. Although given explicit orders to only read and sort through the cases, not a single day passes before he is thrown headfirst into a mystery of a well-known female politician.

The full program launches in early June.

For more information visit www.scandinavianfilmfestival.com

Dance artists exchange between Australia and Finland

Posted on 07/04/2014 by faccadmin in News

The Finnish–Australian exchange project brings together three Finnish and three Australian dancers and choreographers.

The artists at a welcome BBQ at Campbelltown Arts Centre, 6 March. #idancex

Jane McKernan (AUS), Maija Hirvanen (FIN), Lizzie Thomson (AUS), Timothy Darbyshire (AUS), Satu Herrala (FIN) and Jarkko Partanen (FIN) have been in residence at Campbelltown Arts Centre for three weeks in an artistic exchange program which will continue over two years. The artists will continue working together next November in Helsinki.

Along with the artistic collaboration the Finnish and Australian dancers seek to learn from each other eg. about community work and inclusive dance practice. The participants will get involved in the local communities and environment.

At the second phase of the exchange programme the leading specialist Philip Channels from Dance Integrated Australia will deliver workshops in Helsinki and Kuopio for dancers with and without disability.

The notion of exchange itself was unpacked in Artists’ Salon organized by the dance research centre Critical Path. What do we exchange? Why would we exchange?

Jane McKernan and Maija Hirvanen shared a ”pavlova”, talked about their individual practices, and entered into discussion about discoveries and surprises during the exchange. Maija and Jane touched on global/local similarities and differences – family, childcare, education, food, communication, the shorthand language within western dance practice and dance community, and observed this exchange – instigation, participating artists, conversations, group dynamics and intersections of interests. [See the video below.]

This first step of the dance exchange is hosted by Zodiak – Center for New Dance and Campbelltown Arts Centre.

During two years the Australia–Finland Dance Exchange will include several partners from Kajaani to Oulu in Finland and from Melbourne to Perth in Australia. The programme is jointly coordinated and partially funded by the Australia Council for the Arts and Dance Info Finland.

ARTISTS’ SALON – INTERNATIONAL DANCE EXCHANGE (FINLAND/AUSTRALIA) 2014-2015:
JANE MCKERNAN (AUS) and MAIJA HIRVANEN (FIN)

6.00pm, Thursday 20 March, 2014.
Presented by Critical Path
Partners: Campbelltown Art Centre and Zodiak – Center for New Dance (FIN)

Article courtesy of Dance Info Finland

Kone rises high in Sydney

Posted on 21/01/2014 by faccadmin in News

KONE
Kone has lift-off for the Sydney project which is due to be built by the end of next year

Finnish elevator and escalator company Kone has won an order to supply 14 eco-efficient elevators for two residential high-rises in Sydney, Australia.

The 47-story tower will house residential apartments, while the 32-story second building will house five-star serviced apartments.

The order includes 11 Kone MiniSpace elevators, which are well suited for traveling long distances.

Five of the elevators will travel 136 meters from the underground car park up to the penthouse apartments.

Centrium Apartments is being developed and constructed by Meriton. The apartments have been designed by PTW Architects in collaboration with Meriton. The project is expected to be completed in late 2015.

www.kone.com

VL

News courtesy of Finnfacts / Good News! from Finland.

19th Biennale of Sydney Reveals Details and Participating Artists

Posted on 30/10/2013 by faccadmin in News

Juliana Engberg, Artistic Director of the 19th Biennale of Sydney, today revealed details for the Asia Pacific’s largest contemporary visual arts event, to be presented free to the public from 21 March until 9 June 2014 at five venues across Sydney.

Announcing a vibrant list of more than 90 artists from 31 countries, Engberg commented at an event held at the Sydney Opera House: ‘At its heart, the 19th Biennale of Sydney celebrates the power of artistic imagination. You Imagine What You Desire is an optimistic biennale that presents an exploration of the world and contemporary aesthetic experience through the inventions and desires of well-known artists, as well as many exhibiting in Sydney for the first time.

‘For me artists are active philosophers who seek to engage the audience and viewer in an exploration of our world through metaphor, narrative and poetry. They do this so that we might find inspiration in the sensations and intensities produced by art, and so that we might, temporarily, step aside from our commonplace experiences and feel something uncanny and unusual.’

Marah Braye, Chief Executive Officer, Biennale of Sydney added: ‘Juliana Engberg is curating a much-anticipated exhibition that will be remembered by audiences for many years to come. We are thrilled to be working with a group of exceptional artists, many of whom are developing new projects especially for Sydney.

‘As we celebrate our 40th anniversary in November – making the Biennale of Sydney one of the oldest exhibitions of its kind – we are proud to present one of the world’s truly great biennale experiences.’

Finnish artists participating in the 19th Biennale include Henna-Riikka Halonen and Anna Tuori.

www.biennaleofsydney.com.au

Alexander Stubb to visit Sydney, Canberra and Perth

Posted on 25/10/2013 by faccadmin in News

Finland’s Minister for European Affairs and Foreign Trade, Mr. Alexander Stubb, will visit Sydney, Canberra and Perth, for meetings with Federal and State government representatives and with senior executives of the Australian business community, from 1 – 3 December.

Alexander Stubb

While the primary objective of the visit will be to seek new opportunities in trade and investment, between Finland and Australia, the Minister will also speak at a high-level European Australian Business Council luncheon in Sydney on 2 December and at a business event in Perth on Tuesday 3 December. He will also attend a Finnish Australian Chamber of Commerce business networking event in Sydney to celebrate the Chamber’s 10 year anniversary.

The Minister will discuss, with his Australian counterparts, Finland’s growing trade relationship with Australia and also the role Finland, as a dynamic Nordic country, can play in assisting Australian organizations enter the European and Russian markets. He will also talk about Finland’s innovation policies, which has seen it ranked in the top 3 of the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report (2012-13), and how the country has become a global leader in education – continuously ranked on top of the OECD’s PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) survey.

Further, as Minister Stubb is considered to be Finland’s leading ‘Brussels-insider’ he will share his personal insights on the EU and the future of the Euro with his Australian audience.

The Minister will be accompanied by a business delegation which will be lead by Mr Pekka Lundmark, global CEO of Konecranes, a world-leading high technology company supplying equipment to ports, which already has a strong presence in Australia. The delegation will comprise companies from sectors such as mining equipment & technology, healthcare and ICT.

Background on Minister Stubb:

Dr. Alexander Stubb M.P., 45, has been a Cabinet minister in the Finnish Government since 2008. He served as Minister for Foreign Affairs for three years and has been the Minister for European Affairs and Foreign Trade since 2011. He was a Member of the European Parliament in Strasbourg and Brussels from 2004 to 2008. He earned his Ph.D. at the London School of Economics and has been a Lecturer/Visiting Professor at the European College in Bruges.

Minister’s Details: http://www.alexstubb.com/en/
Minister’s Publications: http://www.alexstubb.com/en/publications/

Helsinki again amongst top ten most liveable cities in the world

Posted on 29/08/2013 by faccadmin in News

HELSINGIN KAUPUNKI/CHRISTIANA MESINO
Helsinki gets best possible ratings for its healthcare and stability in the latest EIU survey.

Finland’s capital Helsinki has again been ranked amongst the top ten most liveable cities in the world. The report just published by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) reveals that Helsinki has maintained its position as the 8th most liveable city in the world.

The Australian city Melbourne maintained its top position third year in a row. Syrian capital Damascus was ranked as the least liveable city. EIU report surveyed a total of 140 cities under five categories: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure.

Helsinki received overall rating of 96 out of 100, and it got full marks (100) for the healthcare and stability. City’s infrastructure received 96.4 points, education 91.7 points and culture & environment 90 points out of 100.

The most liveable cities in the world 2013:

1. Melbourne (Australia)
2. Vienna (Austria)
3. Vancouver (Canada)
4. Toronto (Canada)
5. Calgary (Canada)
6. Adelaide (Australia)
7. Sydney (Australia)
8. Helsinki (Finland)
9. Perth (Australia)
10. Auckland (New Zealand)

www.eiu.com

MM

News courtesy of Good News! from Finland / Finnfacts.

Konecranes delivers cranes to Sydney and Melbourne

Posted on 24/07/2013 by faccadmin in News

KONECRANES
Konecranes has received an order from Pacific National which is Australia’s largest private rail freight operator.

Konecranes has received what the company calls a groundbreaking order from Australia.

The Finnish company is delivering four cranes to Pacific National which is Australia’s largest private rail freight operator. The investment in these cranes is part of larger modernization projects in the company’s terminals in Sydney and Melbourne.

— With the new cranes and other upgrades in systems and infrastructure, we will significantly improve the productivity of our largest freight terminals, says Rodney Burfoot, Pacific National’s Crane Project Manager.

— Intermodal business is growing globally and this order will further strengthen our position on the market, says Ville Hoppu, Konecranes’ Sales Manager, Port Cranes

Pacific National is fully owned by the Australian Stock Exchange listed entity Asciano and operates a rail freight network between key cities in Australia.

During the last three years Konecranes has handled repair and maintenance of the Australian company’s current cranes at Sydney and Melbourne.

Konecranes specializes in the manufacture and service of cranes and overhead lifting equipment. The group has 12,100 employees in 48 countries and is headquartered in Hyvinkää, Finland.

www.konecranes.com

MM

News courtesy of Finnfacts / Good News! from Finland