Did you know

THE LIFE FLIGHT RESCUE HELICOPTER at cruising speed uses 300 litres of fuel an hour. It costs $138 for the fuel for a straight forward rescue trip to the  South Wairarapa. Mitre 10 is a major sponsor of the Life Flight Trust. 

AUCKLAND has less tree cover than Jacarta, Seoul or Shanghai and has higher levels of TPM2.5, two toxic compounds emitted by combustion engines. These compounds are absorbed  by the lungs into the bloodstream to 

’affect respiratory and cardiovascular systems and the central nervous system. 

‘BLESSED IS the man who having nothing to say abstains from giving us worthy evidence of the fact’ – George Elliot … Continue Reading

Digital Seniors – Meet the Coaches: Roger Fraser

Martinborough resident Roger Fraser is one of the coaches for Digital Seniors, the voluntary organisation that offers free coaching to seniors to help them with their smart phones, tablets or laptops.  The goal for Digital Seniors is to enable older people to get full value from their digital devices, and so close the “digital divide” between many retired persons and the contemporary world where so much has to take place “on-line”.

Roger is well placed to help; his business career spans the initial arrival of computers in the work place.   

“I recall the first word-processor we had in our Auckland office; a big ‘Wang’ word-processor, with a black screen and fluorescent characters. That would have been early 1980’s, perhaps earlier. It was an era where we sent our business reports to HQ in the USA via telex tapes! The first processors were not connected to the internet, so really were just fancy typewriters. … Continue Reading

Overshoot day

The 29th of July was Earth Overshoot Day 2019. It is the day for this year when human consumption has outstripped what the planet can reproduce. We will have devoured a year’s worth of resources, such as water, fossil fuels and fibres like cotton, to produce everything from the food on our plates to the clothes we’re wearing and the gas in our cars in seven months. 

Basically that means that from the 29th of July until the 31st of December, we are in debt with our planet.  Earth Overshoot Day is calculated by Global Footprint Network, an international research organisation that observes humanity’s use of natural materials, as well as the environmental damage they cause. As humans use more and more of the Earth’s natural resources, this date is arriving sooner each year.

You will know the small steps you can take to chip away at your impact on the planet: walking and cycling, planting a tree, reducing use of plastic, not wasting food and eating more vegetables. … Continue Reading

Featherston Community Centre Charitable Trust AGM

Please join us at our AGM, Thursday 25^th July at 7pm to hear about the past year at the Featherston Community Centre, talk with the governing board, and enjoy a presentation from our guest speaker and Featherston local – Dr John Ryan McLane.Dr McLane will speak on his experiences and the reality of modern China and New Zealand’s relationship.

Ryan has worked in a range of settings over the past three decades, including managing a public health unit in the Alaskan arctic; leading a clinical team in an Ebola Treatment Unit in Sierra Leone; leading international response teams following disasters; and providing direct care for populations as diverse as indigenous Siberians, undocumented agricultural workers in California, and civilians caught in civil conflict in Guatemala.

During his ten years in New Zealand he has worked with the Southern DHB, the Ministry of Health’s Communicable Disease Team, and the University of Otago Medical School. While with the Ministry of Health he focused on disaster response capacity and pandemic preparedness, and worked closely with the WHO as well as serving as an expert adviser to New York City and the government of Fiji regarding disease mitigation.  … Continue Reading