Martinborough Community Board

Water, water everywhere but to drink it boil it first’…. The second water contamination incident in Martinborough this year has been a major cause of concern and frustration for residents, businesses and South Wairarapa District Council. This is a public health issue that has the potential to impact our most vulnerable residents the most, with the possibility of serious consequences.

I attended, and spoke at, Council’s emergency meeting on 24 April to discuss temporary chlorination of the Martinborough water supply.  The complexity of the issues and the difficulty in identifying the source of an intermittent contamination of the supply were clear. There will be some more disruption ahead as Council flushes the system to remove the build up of manganese in the pipes prior to temporary chlorination.

 In the short term it is clear that chlorination is the only option for lifting the boil water notice whilst a permanent solution is found. The independent report into the first boil water notice makes it very apparent that there is no quick fix for the problem, we should all expect chlorination of the supply for 6 months or more and it may be that permanent chlorination of the supply will be the only acceptable way forward for the safety of our water. 

In the meantime the boil water notice remains in place, please do not become complacent.  The Council website (swdc.govt.nz) is the place to find the most up to date information, whilst Council will be using a range of methods to share important information with all residents, please share updates with friends or neighbours who may not have access to the internet. We can all play a part in ensuring that no illnesses result from this event. 

Lisa Cornelissen

Lisa.Cornelissen@swdc.govt.nz, (028) 2553 4857 (calls only, no text messages).

Martinborough Golf Report

As autumn rolls away into it’s last month and we embrace winter; the nights are getting longer and although this last week has been pretty mild, the colder weather is keenly waiting in the wings!!  Hopefully you’ve swept your chimney out and might have enjoyed some nights in front of the fire – remember the club are selling cords of firewood to raise money for the club, so get in there and order yours today.  The greens have been cored and are already bouncing back incredibly quickly – special thanks to the group of guys who volunteered to step in and helped the greens staff with the process.

Grumpies winners this month have included:- Phil Reid, Ray Matthews and Malcolm Bridge.  

9-holer winners have included:- Tingay Davidson (twice) and Adrienne Sisson.  They went to Masterton Lansdowne to play in their annual Southey Honda Trophy Tournament – unfortunately the main prize stayed in Masterton this year but a few of the prizes were taken out by our girls; nearest the pin – Tingay and longest drive Elizabeth Goodall.

Ladies winners have included:- Pamela Messervy, Susan Dinnison, Marion McKenzie and Georgie Wadey. Unfortunately, the ladies have been plagued by a number of pennants matches being abandoned due to bad weather – generally after they have turned up at the opponent’s courses – better luck going forward ladies!!

Thursday Club winners have been, Johnson Williams, Tony Taylor, Davis Lester Clarke, Keith Rayner & Shane Hartnell – they are holding a ‘Friendship Tournament’ on 16^th May – come along! … Continue Reading

Martinborough Business Assn.

Last Month our front page story detailed the camera project and saw the launch of our Give a Little page, we are returning to say a big Thank you!

The community both businesses and residents have been in touch to congratulate the initiative and have wholeheartedly got behind it which has been fantastic. The give a little page has raised $5040 to date with nominations coming in all the time. 

We feel this confirms that everyone supports keeping Martinborough safe and being proactive to deter crime. We will continue our mission to raise funds this coming month in the hope we can push go very soon. If you are keen to make a donation please head to our give a little page  https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/martinborough-cctv-project#

This month we have our AGM on 29th May at the Martinborough Hotel. We will be previewing our new website which we hope to launch in Spring. The coming months we will be focusing on gathering all the content for what will be a fabulous showcase of all things we have to offer and the people who make it special.

 So if you are not a member its a great time to jump on board and be part of what is going to be a big year. Contact Charlotte on info@martinboroughnz.com if you need any information.

Charlotte Harding 

Maree’s musings

SIZING IT UP …

Many big things have happened recently, lots of them serious or sad, so maybe it’s time to be light-hearted again. With big stuff; trying to get our heads around exactly how large and finding the best words to describe these enormities is not easy. Understandable when you are small because nearly everything is bigger, often much bigger. Kiwi youngsters in one tv advert said ‘she’s a pretty big job’ which I’m sure building a retaining wall is. However, the big word, overused, becomes boring and mundane, as does its replacement ‘huge’. Instead nowadays it’s ‘ginormous’, or frequently ‘humungous’. I struggled with that one, but my Oxford dictionary – with 1700 pages, humungous too – revealed the combination of huge and monstrous. Of course. Silly me!

Recently in a newspaper account of a large fire, someone worked out that the flames had the heat equivalent to 100,000 one-bar heaters. The one-bar bit doesn’t sound like much, but I get the feeling that so many of them would be horrifying. Volcanoes, which fortunately only rarely go off, have a measurement scale of zero to eight – when it’s all go! The biggest ever recorded (so far – which is a bit scarey), Mt Tambora, ranked at seven and was described by the experts as ‘super-colossal’; harking back to ancient statues which aren’t that massive in modern terms. Humungous is more apt, I think. Talking of disasters, we all know about the ill-fated Titanic. Maybe the ship itself wasn’t so large but its name has a way of sticking to any sizeable event. 

Then we have weighty things like a ‘ton of bricks’ which today would be a tonne. I’m old enough to recall the metric changeover, but a ton or a tonne still weigh an awful lot. Give or take a few bricks probably makes little difference if you’re underneath. … Continue Reading