Gisborne's only accredited self storage facility.
Our People & Sponsorships
Peter (Director) and Sylvia Jex-Blake
Founders and owners.
Self Storage Gisborne is a family owned company, opened by Peter and Sylvia in 2006 with just 20 units in Disraeli Street. As demand grew, another facility was opened at Makaraka, with the company now having over 305 storage units and leasing out over 50 shipping containers. Peter and Sylvia strongly believe in providing exceptional customer care, and providing a professional service, second to none.
Polly Taukamo
Facility manager
Polly started with the company in June 2015, having had previous experience managing a national retail store in Gisborne. Polly shares the company ethos of providing customers with exceptional customer care, and has a high level of integrity. Often people come into her office stressed out with decisions around moving, where to store, how much space needed. Polly's empathy and professionalism take a huge weight off their shoulders and makes moving, what is undeniably a stressful business, a whole lot easier.
Blair Reid
Dedicated cleaner
Blair is Self Storage Gisborne's dedicated cleaner. She takes great pride in ensuring the facilities are kept in a clean and tidy state, and even goes to the extent of strategically placing fragrance around the facility to enhance the exceptional customer care experience.
Outward Bound to help local kids reach their potential
17 October 2019 - Sunrise Foundation
Peter Jex-Blake and Polly Taukamo of Self-Storage Gisborne hope others will join them and
the Clark Charitable Trust to send some of our young potential leaders on a
life changing Outward Bound course.
Self-Storage Gisborne and Clark Charitable Trust have seeded an endowment fund at Sunrise to help local students attend the renowned Outward Bound course in the Marlborough Sounds.
Outward Bound has been transforming the lives of New Zealanders since 1962, with more than 65,000 young Kiwis attending courses designed to help them to reach their full potential through challenge and adventure in the outdoors.
The Tairāwhiti Outward Bound School Course has been developed in partnership with our local secondary schools. Each year fourteen local Year 12 students – a ‘watch’ - will be selected because they show commitment at school, but are not necessarily achieving to their full potential.
Self-Storage Gisborne director Peter Jex-Blake sent facility manager Polly Taukamo on an adult course earlier this year to celebrate her five years at the company.
Polly’s initial thoughts when Peter offered it to her were ‘gee that feels more like a punishment rather than a reward” and that “a holiday at a resort would be just dandy’.
However, she took up the challenge and thoroughly enjoyed the experience, coming out with a massive sense of achievement and pride.
Peter says that “Polly came back fizzing” and he wondered how they could give more people the same opportunity.
He believes the schools course is important as “with the social needs this region has, we thought if we can reach children before they leave school, this is an opportunity to turn young kids into role models.”
“The good thing about it is Outward Bound actually work with the schools to choose the kids. They will be kids that don’t have the resources to attend something like this. They could also be under-achievers at school but have been identified as having potential to become leaders at school, and then when they leave school they could go on to be leaders in their community or in their workplace.”
The regional schools programme helps teens to build courage and resilience, and experience success as a member of a team. They also learn to identify their own values, develop an appreciation for the natural environment and gain experience being of service to others.
Peter says the “aspirational goal is to build the Tairāwhiti Outward Bound Fund up so it could continuously provide the $60,000 needed each year to fund a fourteen person watch”.
“Self-Storage Gisborne and Clark Charitable Trust have each committed to donating $10,000 a year, $20,000 in total. Half of this will go into the endowment fund for future students and half will be used for that years intake.”
“The challenge now is to get other businesses, individuals or charitable trusts on board to fund the rest. As more donors become involved it will become self-funding eventually.”