[B,G & J]

Hi all

I used to be a member of this forum more than a year ago, but as our plans were going nowhere, I kind of faded out.

Then this month my husband (the G in B, G & J) went to NZ to try to find a job, and on his last day before coming back home, got a job offer! The offer is from an accredited employer, who says my husband must apply for a 30 month talent visa, they're couriering all the documents we need from them to us this week.

They want him to start on 3 December..... eek. We have almost all our documentation, but how we're going to manage I just don't know. I resigned from my job, my boss freaked, and we hadn't told our 4 yr old daughter anything until this past Saturday. And what if our medical holds up the whole process? Terrifying stuff.

Anyway, that's my intro. I'd love to hear any comments/advice. I'll probably be posting a lot in the next short while. :D

Bergita.

[Hippywench]

I haven't had any experience of the application process. I'm sure other members will be able to help you. I'd be terrified too, only having a few weeks but I'm sure your husband's new employer must think its possible though.

[wilson182]

Welcome back Bergita, I glad things are working out for you.

When we first looked into coming to NZ, it was ooooh about 5 years ago. My daughter was only just one yr old or thereabouts. We carefully worked out all of our points (it was the old system then), sent off OH's qual to NZQa - they came back with the required amount. At the time you had to have 29 points to be able to apply and thats exactly what we had. We made the decision and told our families, and had a really bad reaction. OH's mum became ill and my mum barely spoke to me, but we had made up our minds and we wanted to give it a shot. Before applying we read an article about an immigration "expert" who was setting up a company in Portsmouth to help people apply and so we decided to go and see him, just for him to give every thing the once over (I think at the time we were going to use an immigration company and we wanted a second opinion). He checked through all our stuff and noted the comment that NZQA has put on OH's quals check. It basically ment that because welders in NZ had to complete 3 years work experience to gain their qualification - NZIS would take 3 years off of the work experience we were claiming for (I must stress that this was under the OLD system, I dont want to panic anybody now). It meant that instead of the required 29 points we had 28! I checked with NZIS and they confirmed this. Well, we were gutted. In our minds we were all packed up and on the plane to a new life, all the reasons that we wanted to leave were still there but we couldnt do anything about it.

A year or so later, I read that the NZ immigration were changing their method for immigration and just out of interest I checked it out. It turned out that with a Job, we would have enough points to apply. It lit the spark and we decided to have another go. But, as a welder we figured it would be impossible to OH to get a job from the UK. We cashed in our endownment policy for the mortgage!! told the family we were going on a months holiday to NZ and over we came.

The rest is history I guess. OH got a job and stayed here, I went back to the UK to rent out the house for a year. Faced the wrath of the family (which actually wasn't that bad, I think they accepted it was something we had to do) and came back. At the time NZIS were only accepting applicants with points over 180, and even with a job we had 140 at best. We got a work permit and sat tight, praying that the points would come down. Which of course they did and we got PR in February 2006.

:laugh I didn't mean that to turn into such a long post, sorry about that. I hope everything turns out how you want it, as it did for us

Debs XX

[Piper]

Gosh, how exciting, how lucky you are. Eeeeeeeek is right :eek: , but what an opportunity, eh? :clap

I waited 10 years for the only job to come my way - let's face it, there's little chance to get to NZ without the 'right' job if you're 'talented'!!!

Yippppeee aye oh ho!! Away we go!

You can do it - you will do it - just don't spend all your time on this forum - it's way too addictive!! :)

Good luck Bergita, there'll be people here to answer all your questions - everybody's amazingly helpful :yes

Piper

[Nienke]

Welcome back to the forum Bergita. Congrats on the joboffer! Whereabouts are you goint to live here?
We came to NZ with a Work to Residence visa, through an accredited employer. If you have any questions just ask!

[B,G & J]

Thanks everyone for the words of encouragement and welcome.

Luckily my boss has gotten over his freakedness and is back to his usual self now, so my last month of work is no longer to be dreaded. We're not selling our house here, putting it up for rent instead, so today we choose an estate agent and tell them to go ahead. We've given a month's notice on all our accounts, except 2 I think? Chest x-rays and blood tests on Saturday, medicals on Tuesday, take daughter up Table Mountain on Sunday.... we promised her she would go up to the top of the mountain one day, and now we must follow through!

OH stayed with some family of a friend while he was in NZ, and they sent him home with a map book and areas circled that have good schools and are nice to live in. I think the area is Pakuranga? All the places circled are north of Pakuranga road - SunnyHill, Farm Cove, Half Moon Bay, Bucklands Beach, Eastern Beach, Howick, Mellons Bay & Cockle Bay. That covers quite a large area from what I can tell, but that's where we will probably start looking.

Any comments / advice on the above?

I'll probably miss the weather here a bit. Today is going to be 29 degrees, but going up to 34 degrees in the sun, with a moderate south-easterly. Hot, hot, hot. A day when you wear as little as possible within the bounds of decency. :D

[ourquest]

Hope the process is going smoothly for you B,G and J. Sounds to me like it's meant to be, and you can relax now knowing that even if it happens on the last possible date...it will happen! And the mountain will still be there one day if you decide to return "home?".

[Bergita]

Hi

I'm the Bergita from B,G & J, finally managed to figure out my old login..... Yesterday we got the documents from OH's company in NZ, as well as their covering letter, etc. So I sat down to start filling in forms, an application to work for OH, one for me, but with different bits filled in, a student visa application for Jess and a partner sponsor form..... and then I realized that some instructions were clear as mud. Yay. Anyway, I'll slog through them this week-end, get OH to ask INZ in SA some questions on Monday (his last day at work was yesterday, lucky ***) and hopefully get everything off to INZ on Tuesday.

They've promised to have everything finalized within 5 - 7 working days. So maybe I can finally book the movers and the plane tickets in the week of the 26th, which incidentallly happens to be my last week of work. I guess starting 3 December is out of the question, so I'm kind of hoping OH's company will change it to 3 January, then we can spend December with both our families, who live almost 1500km away, and we won't be able to see them otherwise....
Plus this way, we get to be here for my daughter's ballet recital on Tuesday, and her Xmas concert on the 30th. They're so divinely cute, those concerts.
This is going to be a very interesting couple of weeks....

[kanatakiwi]

OH stayed with some family of a friend while he was in NZ, and they sent him home with a map book and areas circled that have good schools and are nice to live in. I think the area is Pakuranga? All the places circled are north of Pakuranga road - SunnyHill, Farm Cove, Half Moon Bay, Bucklands Beach, Eastern Beach, Howick, Mellons Bay & Cockle Bay. That covers quite a large area from what I can tell, but that's where we will probably start looking.

Any comments / advice on the above?



It seems lots of South Africans choose to live in the Howick /Pakuranga area, so you will probably find lots of people to make friends with. good luck.

[nonneiy]

Wow Bergita - Congrats
It was so ggod reading you mail - OH and I are in the same place and one of our friends as well.....
The paperwork is a nightmare, but we got ourselve a fantastic agent who is walking us thru all the hoops and barrels.

OH needs to be there in dec and I need to be there in Jan - so the pressure is on. Would love to make contact with you.
Kindly
Nonneiy