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Time for some accountability

September 23, 2019 September 2019 Comments Off on Time for some accountability

Richard Rudman’s letter in the last issue of the Star rightly pointed out the over 5% rise in this year’s rates, which is well ahead of any inflation. This is only the latest in the annual rates rises, which are always ahead of inflation.  

 Taking for instance my rates figures, which I would think to be being pretty much average: 

In 2011 they were  $2,016 a year or $504 a quarter ( breaking the $500 for the first time).

Inflation adjusted this would be $2,225 in in today’s dollars.

However my 2019 rates are $2,696 which means that my rates have risen $471 above the rate of inflation over the period. A $471 rate rise in real terms. 

Backing up the conception that South Wairarapa rates were on the high side were figures produced during the referendum on the three Wairarapa Councils combining. These claimed that South Wairarapa rates were 14% higher than Masterton, 22% higher than Carterton, 56% higher than Upper Hutt. These figures, which are presumable correct, would seem to indicate that it is time for some spending accountability.

The ten year plan indicates that rates are expected to automatically keep rising each year. It appears that the management expects to be able to demand more money as of right.

It is to be hoped that among the newly elected council there will be men and women with business and/or accountancy experience. People who can read and dissect the screeds of figures which will be made available – and, when necessary, question spending.  

Mike Beckett

Team Festival

September 23, 2019 September 2019 Comments Off on Team Festival

L. Brendan Smythe and Andrew Morrison with the Bill Board they have just erected.

“…it also helps to have a wicked management team that knows what they are doing” STAR, June 2019 wrote 19 years old cello prodigy Matthias Balzat when listing the reasons he accepted an invitation to participate in the Martinborough Music Festival (MMF) again. This remark made the team smile. It also led to several readers wanting to know just who the team was/is behind the MMF- a list of names on the website just did not cut it for some inquirers.  

When I spoke of this idea with the team, there was a pregnant silence. As a prompt I suggested leaving out the stuff of CVs, a short bio was all that was required AND short they were. For those who do not know, the MMF team is led by Ed Allen. Other members are Sharon Cuzens, Andrew Morrison, Murray Pashby (all new on the team), Brendan Smythe, Marion Townend and me. Vicki Jones, with Wilma Smith, is Artistic Director. 

There are common threads. These are people who have achieved in their work environment as well as contributed to community. 

Ed Allen is known for his addiction to cycling as much as for his skills with the French Horn.  It is Ed who plays The Last Post at our local ANZAC ceremony.  His cycling has seen him involved in successful fundraising ventures, notably to help raise funds for the Martinborough Medical Centre. … Continue Reading

South Wairarapa Rebus Club

September 23, 2019 Regular Features, September 2019 Comments Off on South Wairarapa Rebus Club

At our next meeting on Friday 27 September members will hear from John Reeve who spent his professional life as a regulatory toxicologist and risk assessor in NZ Government service. Risk assessment covers pesticides, veterinary medicines, human exposure to foreign chemicals that find their way into food and natural toxins such as those produced by plants and marine species. He was accepted onto the WHO roster of expert toxicologists in 2011 and was leader of the New Zealand delegation to the Codex committee on contaminants of food from its inception in 2007. This committee establishes food standards for toxins in foods in international trade. His talk will include some tales from his working life including toxins in honey and some food additive concerns together with some insights into what went on to combat a blackmail threat to put compound 1080 into infant formula.

At our August meeting Trudie Jones, Manager/Coordinator at the Wairarapa Resource Centre in Masterton, fascinated members with stories from her seven years with the Centre since it started. Now in King Street, Masterton, the Centre has a three pronged mission: reducing waste going to landfill, providing inexpensive secondhand goods for sale and preparing their volunteer staff for employment. As evidence of her success in the latter role we learned that a total of 66 volunteers had progressed from training in the Centre to paid employment, 65 of whom were still in their jobs. That is a noble contribution to the Wairarapa community. Volunteers learn skills in the shop. Volunteers assist with estate disposals on site. Volunteers are used to disassemble old small appliances and electronic equipment to recover and recycle valuable parts and materials. Copper is salvaged from old electric cords. The shop itself is full of bargains, not the least of these is Trudie herself. Her enthusiasm was magnetic.

The South Wairarapa Rebus Club meets in Greytown at the South Wairarapa Working Men’s Club on the fourth Friday of each month. Anyone in the retired age group who may be interested in our activities is welcome to come along to a meeting as a visitor.  Contact David Woodhams 06 306 8319.

School Strike for Climate Change

September 23, 2019 September 2019 Comments Off on School Strike for Climate Change

It’s the year 2040, only 20 years from now. You have gone to work in a self-drive shared electric car using New Zealand’s 100% renewable energy, tonight there is meat for dinner from a farmer using regenerative agriculture and this year you going on a holiday in New Zealand in a high speed train  also using renewable sources of electricity. You are saving your allocation of “flight kilometres’ this year to go on a holiday to Australia next year in a biofuel plane. This is a carbon zero future. We can achieve this carbon zero future if we work together. Collective action does work. 

There have been many social movements in our past that have changed our world for the better: the suffragettes and abolitionists, the civil rights movement and more recently the anti-vietnam war protests and the LGBT movement. Youth have been involved in many of these movements and now they are protesting to build a new way of life for humanity: one that does not take our planet for granted and works to protect it for future generations and for other species.

Due to the passivity of most of my generation, climate breakdown and ecological collapse has seemed inevitable. Now, thanks to the school strikers, the leaders in the environmental movement and the climate scientists we can turn this around.

On Friday the 27th of September we are being asked by school students to join their strike for climate action. This emerging crisis affects us all. Climate activism may be the most important movement in the history of humanity. Let’s march with them on the 27th, starting 11.00am Civic Square Wellington. 

Either we make history or we’re history.

Jude Brown

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Sports

Golf pro-am success _ without clubhouse

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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

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