The Waiheke Working Sail project plans to match the need for alternatives to fossil fuel-based transport to and from the island with a long overdue revival of a productive working sail industry capable of providing a livelihood for local young people.

Waiheke Working Sail is the beginning of a journey back to a low carbon, low energy, coastal shipping future while creating boatbuilding apprenticeships and sail training.

The project members will be giving an introduction presentation as part of the Sustainability Festival on Monday, 16 January, 7pm at the Oneroa Bowling Club. The evening will cover an overview of the project and ways to get involved.  Also, Waiheke sailor and designer, Bernard Rhodes will share his new ideas for a custom-made, wind-powered cargo ship.

WWS was started in 2011, with the aim of reviving a Waiheke-based shipping programme using purpose-built vessels. The project is still in its conceptual stage but has already brought together people with a variety of skills, from boat designers to RYA sail instructors, to working sail enthusiasts. The presentation hopes to engage interest in the community for the possibilities within the realm of coastal shipping for the 21st century. Ever-rising petrol costs have alerted many on the island to a pressing need in the future for alternatives to fuel-based transport. Already there has been interest among businesses pursuing low carbon and CarbonZero policies. Many find it an added selling point in a market that is increasingly aware of the need to cut down on fuel usage.

Although coastal sail shipping cannot hope to compete in the immediate future with fossil fuelled shipping methods, the timely pursuit of alternatives might just leave Waiheke in a strong position in the long term, as well as encouraging new business and trades. In 2012 WWS will be hosting historical reenactments of Shipping voyages around the Hauraki Gulf. Information is available on the website: http://waihekeworkingsail.onewaiheke.org

Anyone interested in the possibilities of Coastal Shipping please come along!

Are you worried about who owns and controls New Zealand’s assets?  Maybe you should be.  Remember how our waste and recycling services contract was taken off our community-owned company and an Australian company took over?

Murray Horton, from the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aeoteroa, (CAFCA) will be including Waiheke in his NZ Speaking Tour. We are obviously a place not to be missed. The Waiheke Greens will be hosting Murrary at Surfdale Hall, 3rd April at 2:00. He will join us to speak to, and discuss, the urgent issues of the day.    Hopefully he’ll manage to join us for a  cup-of tea before he has to be back to Auckland on the 4:00 Ferry.

Murray will cover:

• The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement and the dangers it poses to the NZ economy and to our very democracy
• Privatisation of our public assets
• The relentless takeover of NZ businesses and land by transnational coporations.

He is positing that a change of government in the November 26th Election will not, in itself be enough to change the disastrous course on which this country is set. Murray will be giving us the background of information and the means to meet the most important challenge as he sees it  ”how the New Zealand people can fight back; it’s too important to be left up to the politicians”.

Make this whistle stop worthwhile, by coming along to the Surfdale Hall on the 3rd, and giving Murray the benefit of a lively Waiheke discussion.

For more information contact Carol Weizel <carolweitzel at hotmail dot com>

Colin Beardon will be petitioning the local board to pursue a 6-month moratorium on the proposed project to enable the community to look at the possibilities and engage in substantive consultation.

Please try to attend the Local Board meeting this Monday, 17th Jan at 4pm to give support to this effort to secure a library that works for Waiheke.

Regards,
Millie Watkins

Photos courtesy Linds Redding
The Dept. of Motion Graphics
www.dmgltd.co.nz

Waiheke Local Board Photo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 New Zealand License.

The board members are already here, milling around looking stiff and awkward. They look like they just want this to be over and I can’t say I blame them. You can already tell that over half the people here have protest in mind and even Denise is looking nervous despite the obvious support she’s getting. Don McKenzie is wearing his Sunday best. In a suit, he looks diminutive, almost fragile. Jim Hannan seems to have aged decades in less than a month. There’s a slump to his shoulders that he keeps trying to straighten and he can’t seem to get comfortable. He sits, then stands, wanders about a bit and sits down again.
Faye Storer is determined to show her professional thick skin. She’s well turned out, a far cry from her low key look during the campaign. The fact that she knows most of the council staff milling about the front of the hall clearly helps.
The biggest presence is Jo Holmes. Jo isn’t wasting any time trying to appear tough. She IS tough. Her outfit, though colourful, seems well suited to the possibility of a bar brawl, and she knows she has a decent number of supporters in attendance. I’m still proud that she’s made it to the board. I may disagree with her judgment over the last week or two and some of you may roll your eyes at this but I’m damned if I’m going to regret voting for her and I’m still sure she’s going to prove herself in the long run.

2.45 and Len Brown arrives with Mike Lee. Their reception is loud and heartfelt. You can tell right away that both of them know that this is going to be different from the other ceremonies that they’ve sat through recently. The new Mayor works the room well and seems energised. Mike Lee seems relaxed and clearly in his element. The hall is now seriously full and I’m wondering why we couldn’t get this many in for the campaign meetings.

By five to three the crowd is still trying to fill the remaining spaces and the mood of expectancy is tangible. There’s tenseness for sure, but a lot of good humour too. A bit like the Roman Coliseum must have felt during a Christians V Lions final.

Council chief Doug McKay looks amazed at the turnout as he begins his opening remarks. The Maori protocol stuff happens with considerable gusto. Then the crowd sits down and waits for the ref to blow the whistle.

As the new board are introduced you can see the way the crowd sympathies lie. The applause for the Gang of Four is light to say the least but as Denise Roche is introduced the uproar must be audible in Onetangi. Looking around I can see there are those who are not happy with the way this is going. I’m sitting next to Tony Sears and his face says it all. Len Brown on the other hand looks like a kid on Christmas day. He hasn’t had this much fun in ages. Doug McKay then returns to his prepared remarks. These are worthy but dull and the crowd seem restless as he waffles on.

Then it’s on to the declarations. Jim Hannan lurches to the podium first and I almost feel pity for the lad. The actual declaration is a limp and bloodless thing to have to read out, full of dry legalese and devoid of any big words or soaring rhetoric. Jim stumbles through it drawing derisive laugher at the word ‘impartial’. He looks like he’d rather be mopping up regurgitated tourist lunches from the deck of the Superflyte during a northerly swell than doing this and you can’t blame him.

Each board member is entitled to have their supporters join them for a photo after their declaration and Jim has to summon his two from the back of the hall.

Jo Holmes goes next and also draws a few derisive snorts as that word impartial is uttered. But the applause is more determined and her supporters make a decent go of it as they line up behind her. Jo really does have some ‘core support’ and they have seen that they need to make their presence felt.

Don McKenzie gets it over with quickly and sits down. I almost can’t watch. Don is a decent and admirable man and deserves to be on the board. That his induction to it has to be under these circumstances is little short of tragic. Let’s hope he can put Faye-Gate behind him and show us his true worth.

The order is alphabetical so we all know who’s up next. The collective intake of breath in the sweltering hall is so intense you can almost feel your ears pop. Denise Roche is called and this time the noise can be heard in Orapiu. For over half the people in attendance to stand behind her is impossible. Yet somehow it happens. Clearly emotional, Denise makes her declaration. She’s not a powerful speaker. She doesn’t have that Toastmasters knack of hammering words home like nails into thick timber. Yet that hardly seems important right now. The clumsy machinations of her rival have turned this woman into the focal point of huge community feeling and she now has a power beyond anything she could have dreamed of.
The rest of the board are expressionless. They can’t be enjoying this yet they made it happen. Just a slightly different approach two weeks ago and Denise would be making her declaration simply and resuming her seat like any of the rest of them instead of standing at the centre of a huge vortex.

Faye Storer cuts straight to it. She rattles her declaration out in seconds to light applause, stands for a few moments with about fifteen supporters and sits down again. If any of this is hurting then she doesn’t let it show. Faye may have made some disastrous miscalculations of late but she has a hide a rhinoceros would envy.

Can it get more intense? Hell yes! That was just the declarations. Now it’s time for the real meat of the business. Time for the new board to elect a chairperson. There will be no surprises of course but then that’s what caused all this. Doug McKay gets the ball rolling. Now you can see that his carefully prepared remarks are of little use and he’s into the realm of politics. Faye is nominated and the heckling begins in earnest. Any other nominations? Denise stands and nominates herself to huge cheers. But the audience’s voice is not what works in this case and she’s not getting any traction where it counts.

Faye Storer it is and the mood is now plain ugly. As she begins her speech the hall begins to empty. Many stay to listen though and there are some who try and match the feeling by catcalling those departing. Which is as it should be. Faye’s speech is businesslike but strangely embarrassing. It sounds like she wrote it the moment she knew she’d been elected and felt no need to alter so much as a word to reflect all the upheaval of the last two weeks. Controversy? Never heard of it. So the platitudes come thick and fast. Moving forward. Challenges that lie ahead. New era for Auckland etc etc….

Finally it stops and its time for Len Brown to speak. What a contrast. No fudging the issue for this Mayor. He begins by removing his tie. He must be glad to. The heat and humidity are now close to unbearable. His speech is heartfelt and inspiring. He has the ability to speak without recourse to the well worn bag of political clichés and it goes down well. And unlike the new chairperson he goes straight to the heart of the debate that’s kept us all enthralled of late. There is division and while that may be healthy for the democratic process it is now time to put it aside and work for Waiheke.
Jim Hannan rises and makes his way over to shake hands with Denise. The rest follow. Does it all seem a bit forced? Maybe too little too late? Time will tell.

Ultimately, Waiheke is better off for what has happened. All too often we go into these elections, choose a board then forget about it for three years. This time was different. We debated, we got involved, we had opinions and we chose sides. We got reminded of how good it is to live in a democracy.

As someone just said, You Had To Be There.

Faye: "Jim we want you to go up first to hug Denise, if you survive we'll all follow"

Posted on behalf of Joan Kirk.

Concerned about water, mining, climate change?

HAVE YOUR SAY

Hosted by:

• David Parker MP (Labour Spokesperson on Conservation)
• Jacinda Ardern MP (Labour List MP based in Auckland Central)

*Wednesday 14th April
Surfdale Hall
6 Hamilton Rd,
Surfdale
7pm — 9 pm

ALL WELCOME (contact — 360-1641)

An informative public meeting on the forthcoming ARC Bellbird release in Whakanewha Regional Park is to be held on:-

Thursday 25^th March,

6.30 pm

at the Rocky Bay Hall

Speakers will include Mike Lee and scientists from ARC and DOC.

There will be an opportunity for questions.

To make a stand on climate change, meet at the council service centre on Belgium St on Sat 24th from 9.30am for a parade of 350 steps around the Ostend Market, departing from the service centre at 10am.

ALL WELCOME – CHILDREN, PARENTS, WALKERS, DANCERS, SINGERS,MUSICIANS AND PERFORMERS

WEAR BLUE AND GREEN AND BRING DRUMS AND INSTRUMENTS, flags & banners etc. (wear green/blue face-makeup if you wish)
Prizes for most original Adult and child costume, Prizes for Best and Most Original Costume for Adult and Child. Take the bus, walk or cycle to the event- Think Global, Act Local!Bike, walk

We’ll be joining more than 2000 communities in over 150 countries taking action to urge world leaders to take bold and immediate steps to address climate change and reduce carbon emissions. 350 parts per million is the most carbon dioxide we can safely have in the atmosphere. The current CO2 concentration is 390 parts per million.

Photos of our event will be displayed with other 350 photos from around the world on MASSIVE screens in the heart of New York City.

For further info, see www.350.org .  Under ” Find an Action’ you can find the Waiheke 350 Steps event listed and rsvp to register your interest in taking part

Representation on the Super City Council – What Do We Want?

Public meeting: Sunday 11th October, 2pm
Ostend Hall, Belgium Street, Ostend

In the shake up of governance in the Auckland region the Waiheke community can claim a victory because all of the submissions we’ve all made over the last year and a half has resulted in Waiheke keeping a local board when the Super City comes into force in as year’s time.

The Local Government Commission is currently developing plans on how the Super City can be divided up into wards and how the 20 councillors that the government says will make up the Super Council could be allocated across the region. Before they decide their proposal they want feedback on how this could work.

I want your thought’s on this – because your elected representatives have a unique opportunity to try to influence the proposal that the Local Government Commission will put out for public submissions so we need to represent all views adequately.

In the next few months there is a lot of work for all of us to do – so this meeting is also about continuing the discussion about democracy and how we can best be represented at a local government level.

The Government is pushing the Super City arrangements through in a helluva rush so the timeframes for our input is tight:

October 16th – last day for informal feedback from elected representatives to the Local Government Commission
November 20th – Local Government Commission releases draft proposal on wards and boundaries and numbers of local boards for public submissions
December 11th – Submissions close (no verbal submissions)
January/February wards/boundaries etc announced

And on top of all that in November we can expect to put in submissions on the the next Auckland Governance bill – which deals with the responsibilities and powers of local boards.

Please come to the meeting on Sunday if you are able to. It’s about democracy.

Naku noa na,

Denise Roche
Auckland City Councillor
Hauraki Gulf Islands ward

ph: 372 6578 or 027 209 7554