Congratulations need to go out to all the rafting operators and everyone who worked so tirelessly to get the rafting across the line on 1 October.
Operators from other activities will remember their first round of certification audits and the doubts and stress that came with this new set of regulations. This was compounded for the rafting operators with all the unknowns presented by COVID rearing it's head in the middle of it all. 
At AdventureMark we take pride in knowing that our auditors are also active in the outdoor industry and having such experienced, competent rafting auditors certainly helped give our rafting operators comfort that the people auditing them knew what they were talking about. 
For the most part, the audits have identified well-qualified guides with plenty of competence. This really highlights the value of having a high-quality national qualification. Areas that needed work were more around updating systems and procedures. Several observations were made that the SMSs were often bulky and contained outdated information or duplication that could use a good "haircut". 
This could be a good objective to include in your SMS to help make compliance with your own documented procedures more efficient.
The Adventure Activities Regulations will still be pretty new to some of you so please don't hesitate to contact Mike at AdventureMark if you ever have any questions at all.
Again, well done to everyone who put in the hard yards to get registered by the 1st October. Hopefully we'll have a bumper season getting Kiwis down our rivers and look forward to welcoming back international guests in the not-too-distant future.