Recycling days

Thursday      June 9th     Wheelie bin

Wednesday  June 15th  Glass

Wednesday June 22nd  Wheelie bin 

Wednesday June 29th    Glass 

Letter to the Editor

It’s been more than 2 years now since COVID hit NZ.   Since then we’ve had a roller coaster ride through lockdowns, border closures, mask mandates, and now traffic lights.   All that time, our community has been able to carry on with as little disruption as possible thanks to our wonderful local businesses and their staff.

Every one of them has gone the extra mile.   While many of us were able to stay safely out of harm’s way, P&K staff for example, and many other workers were out there on the front line, facing the ongoing risk of COVID every day for our benefit.     … Continue Reading

From the Mayor

This month, the Star management have asked for an overview on 3Waters, and what I think of it. As there is limited space, I can really only give you an overview of my thoughts – I could go on for pages.

Council as a whole has not come out with a definitive stance on 3Waters for the following reasons:

Government has declared they are the consulting body with public and iwi, not Local Government.

The information we require to form an opinion has been drip-fed and is still incomplete, especially in areas of asset transfer, costs to public, future standards, and water races to name but a few.

There is a high level of distrust in Central Government over the way the process has been started, advertised, discussed and progressed, and the likelihood of South Wairarapa’s opinions being able to change the direction is considered to be minimal. … Continue Reading

Under The Martinborough Stars

The Sun, NASA images.

Another glorious summer is here! I’m saying this while sitting my cold office listening to the rain pound on the roof. We expect summer to be, well sunny don’t we?

Stars create heat and light by combining simple elements in their core. All the stars we see in the sky do just this. Our sun is a star, but it is the only Sun. We can also call the Sun Sol, hence the name of objects that use the Sun, like Solar panels, Solar glasses, Solar System etc. 

Our yellow Sun is pretty much an average star, not too big or too small, too old or too young, or too big or too small- very average actually. It is approximately 150 million km from the Earth and is so massive that it holds 99% of all the mass in the Solar System. You could fit 1 million Earths inside the Sun.

Our Sun is busy changing hydrogen into helium and a little sprinkling of carbon, nitrogen and oxygen to boot. It does this via nuclear fusion, very simply, by ripping atoms of hydrogen apart and then squishing them back together to form a new element helium. It has been doing this for 4.5 billion years and is expected to keep going for another 4.5 billion years.  … Continue Reading