Hutchies teams up with watchmaker Adina to reward staff

Construction giant Hutchinson Builders has teamed up with another Queensland business icon Adina Watches to recognise its long-serving workers.

Adina Watches boss Grant Menzies

Construction giant Hutchinson Builders has teamed up with another Queensland business icon to recognise its long-serving workers.

Hutchies commissioned Woolloongabba-based Adina Watches to produce a bespoke timepiece for its workers to mark 15 years of service to the builder.

Adina Watches general manager Grant Menzies says the watches come individually engraved with the recipient’s name and milestone year underneath.

Menzies says the idea for the Hutchies watches came after he ran into Hutchinson director Jack Hutchinson at the Lord Mayor’s business awards a few years back.

“The Hutchies boys, including (chairman) Scott Hutchinson and Jack, love watches and wanted to recognise people who had been with the company for an extended period of time,” says Menzies. Menzies says designing the Hutchies watches required a trip to a specialist movement maker in Switzerland to get things perfect.

Adina Watches boss Grant Menzies at his Woolloongabba base.

In the end, two watches were produced - a classic dive watch known as the ‘Jack’ and a GMT time zone watch known as the ‘Scott’. “The people who qualify for a watch can choose between a Scott or a Jack,” says Menzies.

The 54-year-old firm’s watches have become popular as long-service and graduation gifts with the company now supplying time pieces to a variety of companies besides Hutchies including rail giant Aurizon, Bond University and several Brisbane private schools.

Adina, founded by Grant Menzie’s father Bob Menzies in 1971, is stocked in retail outlets across the country and is the only mass manufacturer of watches left in the country.

Bob Menzies initially visited trade fairs in Switzerland to source components and Adina – based on an Aboriginal phrase for “very good” - was born.

Grant Menzies says his father was able to compete against cheap Japanese Seiko and Citizen watches because of Adina’s medium-range price and top quality.

Hussars hurrah

The Polish Club in Milton is set to officially launch its famed winged hussars this Sunday, February 23.

The club commissioned a mural of the Polish warriors in battle for the club’s recently revamped courtyard in an attempt to highlight more Polish culture and history.

Club president Stan Macionis tells your diarist the mural by artists Garry Dolan and Thomas Alexander will be officially blessed by a military chaplain as it is unveiled to the public. The hussars were the ultimate warriors defending Poland down the centuries.

Macionis says the hussars’ most famous battle was the Siege of Vienna in 1683, when they took part in the largest cavalry charge in history and repelled an attack by the Ottoman Empire. “The hussars were armoured cavalry and to make them more scary they had these huge feather installations on their backs that rustled,” says Macionis, a former Medibank and RSL Care executive who took the reins of the club in 2022.

“One of the theories was that when they attacked the opposing cavalry, the rustling feathers made the enemies’ horses skittish.”

Polish Club president Stan Macionis in front of the Hussars mural. Photo: Glen Norris.

Law hires

Sunshine Coast law shop Travis Schultz & Partners has welcomed associate lawyer George Hain to its growing Brisbane office.

In other staff movement Tara McKean joins the firm’s community and brand team as head of events while lawyer Georgia Coen joins the Sunshine Coast office. Jemma Barnard, who joined the firm back in 2020, was promoted to partner in October.