Bull Rush Chocolate on a new beginning...

So it's been a difficult journey so far. The birth of Bull Rush Chocolate would not have been quite the spectacle it was if it hadn't!
I, Nadine Porter, am proud to call myself owner of this amazing business though, despite the lost sleep, the nightmares about chocolate stairs that lead up to a business hell (I'm not kidding) and sometimes a lack of confidence!
But - in the past three months I have learnt something about myself and about business and that is that it is not who you are, not what you sell that marks us out from each other, but rather how we react to the situations we face.
On February 22nd Christchurch suffered the largest natural history disaster New Zealand has ever faced. We too, being 45 minutes down the road, felt the quake - I have never seen our old shop bend so much.
It changed much among us - it changed many among us. For the past month I have been privy too the most blessed stories of survival and of just sheer courage. These are not people who were buried in rubble but people who have the task of carrying on.
I am not one of them, but I feel that we, collectively are the shoulders they need to rest upon.
As such Bull Rush has found it's own identity. We are not just a chocolate shop. We care about every single chocolate we make. I think about how and when these chocolates will be eaten.
We don't have fancy machinery - we don't have a lot of staff nor a lot of cashflow, come to that, - but what we do have is empathy, and an entirely new direction that embraces our community and lives with it, rather than outside it.
I am proud to be a handmade chocolate shop that concentrates on you, the person sitting in front of the telly wondering if the world will ever come right.
Enough of the soppy stuff...it's time for business.
Aroha to all of you out there. I look forward to meeting you all!