Martinborough awarded for Emergency, Resilience plans

By Angela Brown

The Martinborough Community Board were proud recipients of the Partnering with Councils

Award at the recent local government conference – for a collaboration with SWDC and WREMO (Wellington Region Emergency Management Office) to offer events promoting Resilience in the community. 

“The real stars of this award are each and every one of you, our community that came along to support and engage with the workshops and participate in last years practice day – big thank you to everyone involved.”

Nigel Carter, Lead Advisor Emergency Management for SWDC, said the events “were incredibly successful engagements with the Martinborough community thanks to the fantastic group of locals and the huge amount of energy from the Martinborough Community Board, and in particular, Angela Brown.” … Continue Reading

Shearing stories and the logistics of 5,500 sheep

Rebus Club’s guest speaker on 23 August was Roger Barton, the well-known Wairarapa farmer and stud sheep breeder, who talked about shearing and told a few stories about the Golden Shears, Masterton’s “ultimate shearing and wool handling event in the world.” 

The first competition was held during the A & P Show in Masterton in 1958, the result of a number of the Wairarapa Young Farmers’ Club members who had participated in similar competitions around the country. 

It was so successful that in 1961, with the assistance of Federated Farmers, the event was moved to the Masterton War Memorial Stadium where there was more room for the expected audience and the name Golden Shears was agreed. 

In March of that year nearly 300 shearers from NZ and Australia competed. Ivan Bowen, beating his brother Godfrey into second, became the first Golden Shears champion. It became an annual event of increasing importance in this new sport.  … Continue Reading

Pathway to failure? GWRC offers Net Zero emissions plan

By Ray Lilley

Greater Wellington has set out a “pathway” advising what the Wellington region and central government must do to play their parts in cutting transport emissions by 41 percent by 2035, on the path to net zero emissions (across all sectors) by 2050.

The initial top two regional targets are:

* reduce the amount of passenger vehicle kilometres per person by 25% by 2035;

* reduce all road transport-generated carbon emissions by 35% by 2030.

It immediately admits that these ambitious targets can’t be reached by the combined efforts of the nine councils and GWRC only.

“We need central government to set in place the necessary legislative and regulatory changes, to fund public and active transport infrastructure and to incentivise the shifts we need across all sectors.” … Continue Reading

Raising Parkinson’s Awareness

A Parkinson’s diagnosis is a life-altering event but not a life-threatening one.

It is a chronic and progressive condition with no known cure at present _ although research is moving in leaps and bounds.

Parkinson’s is not an easy condition to understand as not everyone has the same symptoms, and not everyone deals with this diagnosis in the same way. Some people are naturally positive and take each day as it comes, while others struggle with the ins and outs of it all. 

And, for some reason, ‘Murphy’ has great delight in giving us more than one challenge at a time. … Continue Reading