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South Wairarapa Rotary Biennial Community awards

May 23, 2018 May 2018 Comments Off on South Wairarapa Rotary Biennial Community awards

Vicki and Edward after receiving their awards from Dame Lowell.

Sixteen individuals and couples were selected this year to honour their gifts of time and resource to the people of the South Wairarapa and on the 21st of March, they were assembled at the South Wairarapa Working Men’s Club to be publicly recognised.

Dame Lowell Goddard officiated and in her thoughtful opening speech, she acknowledged the Wairarapa region and its people and spoke of her links with the area. She referred to the long history of the South Wairarapa Workingmen’s Club which was founded in 1877 and illustrated by the pictures on the walls of the room. She praised the award recipients saying that volunteers help in all levels of society and make our community better. Dane Lowell said they are “distinguished by willingness, pricelessness and selflessness”.

The three local recipients this year were:

Scott Macdonald. Known as the “Mayor of Pirinoa” Scott is closely involved with the Tuhirangi Rugby Club, and the Tennis Club and is the present Fire Chief of the Lower Valley Fire Brigade.

Vicki Jones & Edward Allen. Vicki and Edward have lifelong careers in music and since retiring from the NZSO they are utilising their vast skill and experience in bringing music to schools and to the wider Wairarapa Community.

Review

May 23, 2018 May 2018 Comments Off on Review

A Short History of the NZ Wars

The  key word in the title is ‘Short’. While there are is already a number of  books on the New Zealand Wars, of which some are excellent – those by James Belich, James Cowan, Keith Sinclair and Claudia Orange for instance,

this  history by Gordon McLauchlan is by comparison quite short at 180 pages. However this highly regarded author’s story telling skills come to the fore, leaving nothing out he provides the story of our history through the 1800s in chronological order without becoming over descriptive.  

The book’s nice easy to read style makes it perfect for the generations who’s education was lamentably lacking in information on these formative years of today’s New Zealand. Gordon McLauchlin follows the colony’s history from 1809 carefully noting all the details of who did what , where, when and why. He is not judgemental but  gives all the relevant facts leaving the reader to come to a conclusion. It must be said that some of the early shapers of our history do not come out of analysis very well. 

His narration is enhanced by the inclusion of items secondary to the main story. For instance the seeming undue haste in the producing the Waitangi Treaty document was, as well as the concern of French intentions, in part driven by the worry of an increasing American interest in the country. Kororareka had become a base for dozens of American whaling and sealing ships and American warships also visited regularly. With a subsequent large number shore based Americans the dollar had become accepted as a local currency. The American government had even set up an official United States Consul in Kororareka. 

Highly recommended; an evening or two’s enjoyable reading will give you an excellent understanding of our nation’s early history.

Mike Beckett 

This book is available at your library

Regional Council notes

May 23, 2018 May 2018, Regular Features Comments Off on Regional Council notes

Mother nature delivered us another warning recently by way of a storm that hammered Auckland in particular.  It created havoc across the top of the North Island with 200km winds that tore of roofs and toppled trees leaving hundreds of homes without power; some for many days.

It gave the rest of the island a fair rocking too but, with nowhere near the ferocity, we came off largely unscathed.

In the following days we received news reports that many Aucklanders were still without power.  Sitting in a region, as we do, that is very accustomed to gale force winds, it was easy to guffaw at the television and tell them to get over it.  A bit of further investigation however revealed that actually the majority had their power restored very quickly and it was the more remote rural areas that were posing the problems.  It’s this bit of news that we should actually sit up and take notice of as it could easily happen to us. … Continue Reading

Now for some good news

May 23, 2018 May 2018 Comments Off on Now for some good news

In general the media seem to prefer to feed us the bad news however despite what we are being constantly told, except for the very real climate change problem, the world  is not going to hell  in a hand basket. Nevertheless the constant media depiction of bad news has clearly coloured our thinking. 

A study in Britain showed that  only 10% of people thought poverty had decreased, an American survey only 5% knew that poverty had actually halved  in the past 60 years and in Sweden three quarters though that it had increased.

Oxford economist Max Roser pointed out that Newspapers could legitimately run a headline ’ Number of people in extreme poverty fell by 137,000 every day for the last 25 years’.  Yes, there are some very cheering facts out there if we care to look for them.

For starters we can expect to live  much longer . The early hunter gatherers could only look forward to between 20 and 30 years, even by 1800 this had only risen to 33. By 1850 it had risen to 36 years in Europe and a century later almost doubled to 68 years. The world average is now 71 and climbing. In New Zealand it is 84  years for women and 81 for men. … Continue Reading

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Sports

Golf pro-am success _ without clubhouse

By Karen Stephens A record field of 172 players, including 43 professionals from New Zealand and Australia, battled light winds, warm temperatures and even light early-morning fog at Martinborough golf’s 2024 CER Electrical and Holmes Construction pro-am on February 1. At least that was the range of excuses for some …

Featherston wrestlers go offshore

Two members of Featherston Amateur Wrestling Club’s senior class have again been asked to join a New Zealand team overseas.  Wairangi Sargent and Angus Read will take part in the Journeymen Tournament and Training Camp over Easter in New York state.  Over the week they are there they will be …

Martinborough Golf Club has tumbled down

The demolition of the Martinborough Golf Club is complete. In the last days prior to Christmas a fully-insulated pole shed, much like a top end farm outbuilding, was erected to act as both office and temporary clubhouse. New septic tanks, internet connectivity, power, water, and Porticom loos were installed. On …

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EVENTS

Saturday 10 February: 10th annual Citizen Science Kākahi Count at Western Lake Shore Reserve, 18km …

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