BayBuzz #28 Mar-Apr 2016

Issue No.28 • MAR/APR 2016 • $8.00 Including GST

9 772253 262016

02

Velodrome . . . Spinning Wheels?

HB Housing Issues

GM Free HB

Education Review

Treaty Settlements

Councils Spend $$$

Patients Rule

Preparing Hawke’s Bay for Global Warming

we are excited about the potential for cool climate syrah in new zealand, especially grown on the gimblett gravels of hawke’s bay. while as a region we are relatively new on this path... the future looks exciting.

2013 craggy range ‘le sol’, gimblett gravels, hawke’s bay 98 points | bob campbell, mw

craggyrange.com

Issue No.28 • MAR/APR 2016

THIS MONTH Most of us have the global picture on climate change, but what will be the effects in Hawke’s Bay? Velodrome is long way from the finish line. Housing … can we afford it? Councils looking at some mighty big spends … do they have a case? Education Review: Are HB schools delivering?

Plus health, upcoming events, food, travel, fashion, arts and culture.

FEATURES

22 CLIMATE CHANGE: HOW THE BAY WILL FEEL THE HEAT

Bridget Freeman-Rock

Sea rise and coastal impacts just the beginning.

30 HOUSING IN HAWKE’S BAY

Mark Sweet

Sweet for some, misery for others.

38 VELODROME: SPINNING WHEELS?

Keith Newman

Is this how to plan and fund regional sport infrastructure?

46

POLITICAL BUZZ Tom Belford Big spends for Opera House, dam, velodrome reviewed.

52

EDUCATION REVIEW Six commentators offer views on HB’s educational performance.

Page 1 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

Issue No.28 • MAR/APR 2016

LIZZIE RUSSELL Lizzie is writer, project wrangler and arts promoter. She’s been living and working back in her home ground of Hawke’s Bay for five years, initially with Hastings City Art Gallery and more recently as a freelancer.

She also co-ordinates the Wildflower Sculpture Exhibition and Pecha Kucha in the Bay. KEITH NEWMAN Keith is a journo with nearly 40-years’ experience across mainstream and trade media.

He’s won awards for writing about hi-tech, produces Musical Chairs programmes for Radio NZ and has published four books, one on the internet in New Zealand and three others on New Zealand history.

> BEE in the KNOW 08 Sally Jackson … Deco Dynamo. Wellness index. Hot/Not. Where to retire.

MARK SWEET Napier-born, Mark worked overseas in Hong Kong and Scotland, before returning to Hawke’s Bay, and establishing Pacifica restaurant.

Re-creating himself as a writer, Mark’s first novel Zhu Mao was published in 2011; an extract from his next novel, Of Good and Evil, has been short-listed for the Pikihuia Awards, will be published soon.

NZ Edge. NZ’s most Instagrammed spots. Who’s wired? What women want.

Gov’t wants your water views. Renewable fuels. Mozzie myths.

Buymeonce.com. China returns HB water. Obesity and the fizzy tax.

Hot, hotter, hottest. Campbell Street news. Events not to miss..

> CULTURE & LIFESTYLE 62 THE SCENE Lizzie Russell

National Youth Drama School. Napier’s newest gallery. Ghosting at HCAG.

BRIDGET FREEMAN-ROCK Bridget is Hawke’s Bay grown, and a bookworm by vocation, or a ‘literary scientist’ to borrow a German term for the ubiquitous arts degree in English. She freelances as a writer, editor and translator (German), and proofreads BayBuzz, alongside postgrad study and ventures in poetry and fiction.

Café news. Sea wall murals. Bard in the Bay. Brainfood. Waipawa memories.

Book reviews. Pistol packin’. Fane Flaws gigs again.

74 TRAVEL: MAKING A CRUISE CONVERT Jim Moyler 76 FOOD: TASTE PUNGENT! Kent Baddeley 80 FASHION 96 NOT 35 ANYMORE Mary Kippenberger

> IDEAS & OPINIONS

MANDY WILSON Mandy Wilson manages advertising and store sales for BayBuzz. She’s worked in print media in the Bay for 20 years or so (Wow!). In her leisure you can spot Mandy walking or cycling one of the numerous tracks throughout Hawke’s Bay or sipping hot chocolates in any number of cafes. 027 593 5575

84 LEARNING FROM THE PAST David Trubridge 86 THE PATH TO TREATY SETTLEMENTS Rick Barker 90 GM FREE HAWKE’S BAY Bruno Chambers, Scott Lawson, Will MacFarlane 92 THE HEALTH CARE YOU SHOULD EXPECT Graeme Norton 94 GRABASEAT VERSUS TRUSTED EXPERT Matt Miller Follow us at: FACEBOOK.COM/BAYBUZZHB BayBuzz articles are archived 30 days after publication at: WWW.BAYBUZZ.CO.NZ For editorial enquiries contact Tom Belford: editors@baybuzz.co.nz For advertising enquiries contact Mandy Wilson: mandy@baybuzz.co.nz, 027 593 5575

ISSN 2253-2625 (PRINT) ISSN 2253-2633 (ONLINE)

THE BAYBUZZ TEAM EDITOR: Tom Belford. ASSISTANT EDITOR: Lizzie Russell. SENIOR WRITERS: Bridget Freeman-Rock; Jessica Soutar Barron; Keith Newman; Mark Sweet; Tom Belford. COLUMNISTS: Anna Lorck; Damon Harvey; David Trubridge; Mary Kippenberger; Matt Miller; Paul Paynter; Sarah Cates. EDITOR’S RIGHT HAND: Brooks Belford. PHOTOGRAPHY: Tim Whittaker; Sarah Cates.

ILLUSTRATION: Brett Monteith. CREATIVE, DESIGN & PRODUCTION: Ed. ADVERT ART MANAGEMENT: TK Design.

ADVERTISING SALES & DISTRIBUTION: Mandy Wilson. ONLINE: Mogul. BUSINESS MANAGER: Bernadette Magee. PRINTING: Format Print.

COVER PHOTOGRAPHY BY TIM WHITTAKER Page 2 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

This document is printed on an environmentally reponsible paper produced using Elemental Chlorine Free (ECF) pulp sourced from Sustainable & Legally Harvested Farmed Trees, and manufactured under the strict ISO14001 Environmental Management System.

Jeff Gray BMW

Hawke’s Bay Manawatu Wellington Christchurch

MORE X APPEAL. THE ALL-NEW BMW X1 HAS ARRIVED.

The all-new BMW X1 is now more X than ever. Redesigned inside and out, it inspires adventure within the city limits or beyond. New features include restyled LED headlights, automatic tailgate and Parking Assistant. With an increased ride height and bold styling the all-new BMW X1 makes its X Range lineage known without compromising its compact urban practicality.

FROM $65,500*. START YOUR ADVENTURE. BOOK A TEST DRIVE TODAY.

*Recommended Retail Price based on BMW X1 sDrive 18d and includes GST, excludes on-road costs. Vehicle shown with optional extras.

Page 3 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

BMD0096_JGHB_BAYBUZZ

Jeff Gray BMW 822 Karamu Road North, Hastings. (06) 873 0055. www.jeffgraybmw.co.nz

FROM THE EDITOR TOM BELFORD

Serious stuff

Readers say

I’d like to draw your attention to the ‘serious’ content in this edition of BayBuzz.

Our in-depth features look at the impacts of climate change right here in Hawke’s Bay, our housing situation, the dam, the case (or not) for a velodrome, and the politics of funding ‘big ticket’ items – like velodromes, Opera Houses and dams.

Plus commentary from Pure Hawke’s Bay on keeping our region GM free, from chair of HB’s Health Consumer Council Graeme Norton on patient-centred health care, from Crown negotiator (and regional councillor) Rick Barker on the Treaty settlements that are progressing here in the Bay, and from David Trubridge on the lessons of ocean sailing versus science and technology.

Plus, in a special Education Review, we’ve asked a variety of commentators – educators, parents, and a politico – to address the challenges for education in Hawke’s Bay. The Education Review is led-off by our resident curmudgeon, Paul Paynter, who suggests that what we really need is more failure! Says Paul: “Failure is the best teacher and what we need is more of it, earlier.” I wonder if this will lead to any invitations for Paul to speak at school prize-givings?! I can guarantee he’d deliver a memorable speech. If Paul doesn’t provoke, we cut his food ration.

Plenty of brainfood in the above content, but we do aim for a certain mix of content, as I’ll explain further in a moment.

So there’s plenty of information bits, reviews, personalities to meet, oddities to discover, travel, food, fashion, and news from our arts and culture scene. And actually, even much of that even aims to be provocative and intelligent.

Now for some comments about BayBuzz.

As you can review on our Letters to the Editor page (next page), we’ve received heaps of valuable feedback from our Readers’ Survey.

The issue most important from an editorial standpoint is whether we’re getting the balance right between ‘serious’ and ‘in-depth’ issues analysis versus our ‘soft’ and ‘entertaining’ coverage of Hawke’s Bay lifestyle, personalities and happenings. We asked that question directly in our Survey, with the response that 80% thought our content mix is just fine, 9% preferred more ‘soft’ and 11% preferred more ‘serious’.

I think it would be tough to get much closer to the bulls-eye than that! So, for now, what you see is what you’ll get.

I was also struck by the ‘connectedness’ of BayBuzz readers – 70% own smartphones, 70% laptops and 50% tablets. 55% have Facebook pages and 43% have LinkedIn pages. Those are the ‘virtual’ connections.

But, in the real world, 44% also volunteer to community groups often or very often.

BayBuzz is one well- ‘connected’ community!

Page 4 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

If you want to preview what BayBuzz Digital will look like, visit here to view our Jan/Feb edition: bit.ly/1LqtpZE And speaking of digital, have you checked BayBuzz’s growing online presence lately?

We’re slowly managing to add videos to the website – more to come – and Tom’s Blog lives there (sign-up to get it in your email), with my interpretation of HB’s politics, politicians, and issues. Responsive-designed for viewing on any device.

And then there’s our Facebook page, which is creating quite a buzz these days, thanks to the help of social media whiz, Liz Nes. I hope you enjoy this edition of BayBuzz.

BayBuzz.co.nz Facebook.com/baybuzzhb

Announcing BayBuzz Digital Which brings me to an important announcement about BayBuzz. Starting with this edition, we’re offering a digital version of the complete magazine. Using the gorgeous ISSUU reading platform, subscribers can ‘page’ through BayBuzz from cover to cover on your favourite digital device.

BayBuzz Digital will be free to our $50 subscribers (you’ll be getting your access info by email), and is available on a stand-alone basis for $30. See details in the BayBuzz subscriber ad on p16-17. Tell your overseas relatives and friends about BayBuzz Digital … it’s the perfect way for them to keep in touch with the Bay.

TOM BELFORD Tom’s past includes the Carter White House, building Ted Turner’s first philanthropic organization, doing heaps of marketing consulting for major nonprofits and corporates. Tom writes an acclaimed blog for professional NGO fundraisers and communicators in North America and Europe, and is a HB Regional Councillor.

MOTIVATION FOR SUCCESS Bayleys Hawke’s Bay are recruiting.

If you’re dedicated, experienced and passionate, we want to hear from you.

P 06 834 4080

E napier@bayleys.co.nz

Coast to Coast Ltd, Bayleys, Licensed under the REA Act 2008

Issue No.28 • MAR / APR 2016

BAYBUZZ READERS’ SURVEY Thanks to all the BayBuzz readers who have given your feed back in our Readers’ Survey.

Here’s a sampling of what we’ve heard. As you’ll see, we don’t – and can’t – please everybody!

Most readers commented on editorial issues. But it’s clear, our new paper, with the flexibility it brings to the mag, is a huge user-friendly hit!

Love that you have changed the paper or way it is bound so I don’t have to use both hands to keep it open when I read it!!!

I preferred the older format. It feels too magaziney. I liked the no fuss, local issues focus, well debated and not scared to offend.

I feel the new format has somehow softened and compromised that approach. The new softee paper is nice!

I am grateful that we have a publication of this calibre in Hawke’s Bay that is thought provoking and so encouragingly supportive of the region’s welfare.We must all ‘grow’ as a result.

We don’t care about a mix of “lite” and heavy - keep it as heavy as you like.

Some of the longer articles could do with some editing.

I like the interrogative nature of your articles, although sometimes they seem to push buttons for the sake of it. Would like to see more in-depth arts reporting - not just the ‘usual’ suspects.

The shorts at the front are a good way to introduce a topic and perhaps lead to other reading. Not everything important can be covered in depth. Not really supposed to be a humorous magazine but some cutting or telling cartoons certainly have their place and can say more than a lot of writing.

Sorry editor, I do think you put your own opinion a little too much.

I enjoy the mix and feel you could pick up Bay Buzz and open any page and be engaged with the content.

Always impressive range of articles and topics - and great to see growing stable of writers. The fashion thing is a skip over but, hey - someone will love it!

The Bay needs a one-stop shop for upcoming events. Not possible to do well with bi-monthly magazine but this is something BB website could and should offer!

Are you trying to be all things to all people?

I home in on the analytical articles covering important local issues and only glance at the up-market cultural coverage and ‘lite’ material.

When writing on “serious” matters it is always better to point out that most of the articles are a point of view/opinion and not necessarily facts. I prefer facts rather than shock tactics or gross exaggeration and personal opinions.

I like Paul Paynter’s articles, though half the time I find them politically annoying.

Different stories from as wide a range of authors as possible gives diversity and interest. I note that you are already good at this.

We like the lighter element, or the female input - less like eating dry muesli!!

In depth analysis needs to be less biased against Napier.

The contrast with other widely available sources of comment in Hawkes Bay. Brilliant. Keep it up.

Looks like plenty of variety to me - local issues political / social are definitely what keeps bay buzz the best mag of all time!

Seems to be angled to a market of very class conscious people, with green aspirations. The articles are lacking substance to be honest.

Profile and interviews of people with a bigger perspective (rather than personalities). Focus on learning, raising awareness, engagement and encouraging curiosity and differences in thinking, beliefs and social “status”.

Don’t mind a bit of cultural lifestyle stuff but maybe dominates a bit much now? More indepth HB issues please, particularly local government /MPs.

I want to be better informed about my community, hear & understand people’s opinions/ideas and contribute to growing an underrated and underperforming region.

There is no other viable source. We can get the soft stuff anywhere.

Maybe look at a youth perspective page?

There’s plenty for adults, but what about tapping the students across the region for somewhere to highlight their concerns?

Maybe a couple of international success stories originating in the Bay - either people or products that are flying the flag for the region.

Definitely no more soft content. There’s plenty of HB lifestyle rubbish in other publications and looking at how the wealthy choose to spend their time and money is meaningless to those on the breadline.

HB needs a “bomb”. Could you provide it within the context of “soft” and “serious”?

You’re doing great. Don’t give up ‘sticking it to them’. They are too smug and need razzing to let them know you’re watching.

If you didn’t take our online survey, there’s still time. Just go to baybuzz.co.nz and respond to the survey prompt. Or you can always send your suggestions to: editors@baybuzz.co.nz

Page 6 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

BayBuzz

Needs You! And Yours.

Of course, anyone can just read BayBuzz. And we’re delighted that you want to ‘bee in the know’. But here are some other ways you … or someone you know … or your organisation or business … can help inspire content for the magazine.

Foreign Correspondents Hawke’s Bay sends a steady stream of emissaries out into the wide world beyond our region. We’re not talking Dannevirke, but rather Dubai, London, Shanghai, California, New York … even that weird place called Oz. And they’re both taking in the world, comparing it to home (pluses and minuses), and representing Hawke’s Bay to the ‘unwashed’ who live beyond our borders.

Can they write? If so, we’d like to read their stories and observations. Can they shoot a photo (or even a video) or take a selfie of something we need to see to believe? If so, we’d like to view it.

In short, BayBuzz is looking for ‘foreign correspondents’ who can show us the world as seen by Hawke’s Bay expats. And either make us envious of their good fortune, or make us happy to be right here!

Maybe one of those emissaries is your daughter, son, sister or cousin.

Get ahold of them. Tell them BayBuzz wants to hear from them. We have a magazine and a website eager for their dispatches.

Returnees Some Hawke’s Bay expats have ‘seen the world’ … and seen enough!

And home they’ve come.

We’d like to know about them too, and hear their stories. What was their overseas experience? Why are they back?

Just back from Sydney? We’ve probably heard that one … but give it a try.

Just back from Uzbekistan? We’re all ears!

Generally, we’ve published ‘returnee’ stories in groups of three or so, under the rubric …

They’re Back! We’d like to do this, with your help, with more regularity.

Again, they could be your daughter, son, sister or cousin. If they’ve returned to the motherland in the last year or so, get them on our radar screen. By ourselves, we can’t monitor all the borders all the time.

Spies Finally, we need domestic spies.

The BayBuzz team is pretty good at scanning the local scene and knowing who’s who and what’s what.

But we have blinders just like everyone else … our network needs constant expanding and refreshing.

We need BayBuzz readers to alert us to upcoming events, identify individuals and organisations whose special achievements deserve recognition, clue us in to new and

innovative businesses that will help put Hawke’s Bay on the map … and yes, share juicy gossip of community relevance.

Naturally, we can’t cover everything and everyone. We’ll leave the ‘normal’ stuff – like hatches, matches and dispatches – to Hawke’s Bay Today.

Instead, BayBuzz is looking for the bold, the brash, the brilliant … the undiscovered, unnoticed and unusual. We think our readers have the inside scoop on this kind of stuff.

And we hope you’ll share it with us and your fellow readers.

How? It couldn’t be simpler.

Whatever kind of content you might be able to share – Foreign Correspondents, Returnees, Spies – all it takes to get our attention is an email. Our computers are never turned off! Of course, we can’t promise that you’ll see each and every submission in print. But nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Don’t be shy.

We’re at editors@baybuzz.co.nz Or: PO Box 8322, Havelock North And we’d love to hear from you and yours.

Page 7 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

BEE in the KNOW

Deco Dynamo

tim.co.nz

Hearty congratulations to Art Deco Trust general manager Sally Jackson and her team for yet another stunning celebration. The 2016 Tremains Art Deco Festival drew strong crowds and terrific ticket sales to the collection of more than 200 events over five days.

Forty-six new events this year is proof that the festival is going from strength to strength. The 35-40,000 people who attended the festival are sure to agree!

Page 8 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

Ms Jackson has been running the show for six years, having previously worked as marketing manager at Hastings District Council and manager at Hastings City Marketing.

“The Trust is a fantastic organisation to be involved with,” she says, “It’s a wonderful charity that pumps everything back into the community.”

BEE in the KNOW

Hawke's Bay Wellness Index Jobs on Seek.co.nz

Homes For Sale

[23 February 2016]

[Realestate.co.nz]

Lamb price at Stortford

272 1,106 $86 191 42 157 253 8,697 2,785 23 February 2016

[ Up 52 from December]

AVERAGE [ 22 February ]

[ Down 80 from December]

Drunks Taken to Detox/Home

Dwelling Assaults

[REINZ]

in January 2016 [Down 73 from December]

in January 2016 [ Down 2 from Jan 2015 ]

in January 2016 [ Up 30 from Jan 2015]

Burglaries

HB Hospital Emergency Department presentations

Giant jaffas given away by Pipi in Havelock North in January

[ 17 Dec 2015 to 23 Feb 2016 ]

[ Up from 2,120 in September ]

Homes Sold

January 2016

[ Up 30 from Jan 2015 ]

Visitors to MTG

Admissions, January

4,647 [ Including FREE children ]

[Family violence indicator]

[ Up 441 from same period last year ]

112.5 1,637 GB

Gigabytes of data downloaded, in November, on average, by NOW residential customers.

Bay Espresso coffee sold [Jan 2016]

[ Up 179kg from November ]

kg

Visitor Nights

Commercial & Private

UP 5

.3%

[ Over YE December 2014 ]

What's Hot

What's Not

Treaty Settlements

Unfinished business

Humus

Dams

Well drillers

Desktop modelers

Patient-centred

Physician-centred

GM Free

Market blind

Road cycling

Track orbiting

Tree planting

Soil erosion

Blue cod

Red cod

Tourism curve

Dairy curve Page 9 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

BEE in the KNOW

Where to Retire

NZ Edge

This site was set up in 2009 by SweeneyVesty co-founder Brian Sweeney as his personal nation-branding campaign.

It sought to explore and identify a contemporary narrative for New Zealand – a new image that highlighted the innovation of this little country at the bottom of everyone else’s world.

Wondering where to wander to make the best of your twilight years? The 2015 Global Retirement Index, produced

by Natixis Global Asset Management, suggests you might be wise to stay put in Aotearoa.

The GRI ranks countries across 20 performance indicators, including health services, safety and comfort. The countries are also scored based on their economic performance. New Zealand sits at number 10, having ranked 9th in 2014 and 22nd in 2013. According to Natixis, the favourable placing is thanks to our “relatively low levels of public debt and inflation, high income equality and a strong welfare system”.

The top 15 countries to retire in, as assessed by the GRI are:

1. Switzerland 2 Norway 3. Australia 4. Iceland 5. Netherlands 6. Sweden 7. Denmark 8. Austria 9. Germany 10. New Zealand 11. Luxembourg 12. Canada 13. Finland 14. Korea, Rep 15. Czech Republic In case you’re up for more of a challenge in your retirement, the ten countries at the bottom of GRI’s ranking are all Sub-Saharan African nations – Togo, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Comoros, Lesotho, Sierra Leone, Niger, Burundi, Liberia and Mali.

Page 10 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

Want to know what kiwis are achieving elsewhere in the world?

Check out NZEdge.com

Over time it has grown into an enormous online hub of NZ news, resources and opinion mostly used by our expat communities around the world as both a virtual meeting place and showcase for our best and brightest offshore talent and achievements.

The site does a comprehensive job of pulling together all the international news about Kiwis making it big around the globe – from Gin Wigmore making music in California to Royal Bank of Scotland head Ross McEwan to the ongoing success of Lydia Ko.

Brian Sweeney

NZ’s most Instagrammed spots

Waiheke Island

1

The results are in! Hawke’s Bay has some work to do. The following places make up the ten most Instagrammed spots in the country over the last year. Could the new Napier viewing platform make the cut next time around?

Mount Maunganui

2

Hobbiton movie set

3

Sky Tower Auckland

4

Takapuna Beach

5

Lake Tekapo

6

Piha Beach

7

Wanaka lakefront

8

Te Papa Tongarewa

9

Queenstown skyline

10

BEE in the KNOW

Who's Wired?

Actually this question is already a bit archaic as wireless access to the Internet has quickly become the norm globally. And New Zealand is no exception.

According to Nielsen NZ, fully 70% of New Zealanders now own a mobile connected device – 64% own a smartphone, 33% own a tablet device, and a quarter own both, a fivefold increase since 2012. Chart below shows how they access the Internet: Interestingly, at least some Hawke’s Bay residents seem even more

connected. Results from our recent BayBuzz Reader Survey indicate that 70% own a smartphone and 50% own a tablet, both higher than the national average. Further, 55% have a Facebook page and 43% have a LinkedIn page. And 50% check online sources for news ‘very often’, another 29% ‘often’.

Nielsen shows how. This one looks at online shopping practices in 26 countries (not NZ I’m afraid), 57% of whom say they’ve made an online purchase from an overseas retailer.

Hawke’s Bay is clearly (un)wired!

bit.ly/1L5dpS0

For more reading follow these links: Mobile Keeping Kiwis Connected

Apart from checking the news and Connected Commerce Is Creating weather (and their social media), Buyers Without Borders gatherIng and deal seeKIng are what do people do online? Shop, ofInforMatIon PrIMary onlIne shoPPIng actIvItIes course. The chart below right from bit.ly/1S8KsXR global * toP and bottoM onlIne shoPPIng actIvItIes for selected categorIes shoPPed or Purchased In the Past sIx Months travel produCts or servICes

Consumer eleCtronICs

beaut y & personal Care produCts

fresh groCerIes

ClICked an emaIl advertIsement to fInd out more

looked up produCt InformatIon 63% 60% 54% 38%

10% 7% 9% 10%

CheCked/Compared prICes

subsCrIbed to produCt/store emaIls 52% 52%

44%

8% 5% 7% 7%

39%

searChed for deals/ promotIons/Coupons 46%

lIked/tWeeted/Commented on a produCt or store on soCIal medIa 4% 4%

34% 35%

7%

30%

8%

*See page 36 for countries included in global average Source: Nielsen Global Connected Commerce Survey, Q4 2015

Page 11 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ 8

Global CoNNECTED CoMMERCE

BEE in the KNOW

What Women Want

Academics at the University of Worcester have attempted to answer the age-old question of what women want. In the study 202 straight women (mostly in their early 20s) were presented with images and narratives about how men behaved charitably, or failed to, in various scenarios.

Needed: Your Views on Freshwater Management The Government has just issued a 45-page discussion and consultation paper on fresh water management – Next steps for fresh water. The document tests a wide range of changes in how – at both a national and regional level – this resource might be managed and regulated in the future.

One possibility of clear relevance to Hawke’s Bay would allow differential treatment of water allocation according to “higher valued uses”. Here’s the pertinent language: “Allowing water and contaminant discharge allowances to be transferred between users enables resource users to adapt to changing circumstances, market conditions, technologies and business practices. Enabling such transfers will increase incentives for existing users to invest in efficiency improvements beyond those specified in the technical efficiency standards, and transfer excess water or discharge allowances to others. It will also provide incentives for existing users to temporarily transfer water or discharge allowances if they do not need them for a while. This would increase the economic value that we get from the available resource.”

Submissions close on 22 April. You can find the document and submission instructions here: bit.ly/1OpB0Ys

Page 12 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

The results suggest that while physical attractiveness rates highly, given the choice, most women will go for altruistic men. It will come as little surprise that the report also concluded that being both attractive and altruistic made a man more desirable than just the sum of the two desirable parts. “A handsome guy volunteering at a soup kitchen will catch a lot of women's eyes.”

BEE in the KNOW

When you only want to buy once Renewable fuels take the driver’s seat We’ve finally reached a positive tipping point, the International Energy Agency has reported, with 60% of new global investment in new energy sources now going to renewables.

The IEA projects “turbulent times” ahead for coal: “Coal has increased its share of the global energy mix from 23% in 2000 to 29% today, but the momentum behind coal’s surge is ebbing away and the fuel faces a reversal of fortune.” The IEA predicts coal will be down to a 15% share by 2040. That’s modest improvement for the planet.

Part of the shift has been put down to the slowdown of China’s massive growth in energy demand, but weight is also being given to the fact that China has the largest efficiency programme in the world, as well as a major nuclear programme and projected growth in unconventional gas.

IEA executive director Fatih Birol also points out that the direction India takes will have a major global effect. India is set to become the main driver of coal consumption and oil demand by 2040, and it also accounts for 20% of the world’s solar power installations.

“The choices India makes will be important for all of us, and therefore there is a need for supporting India’s push for clean and efficient technologies.”

One thing is clear, with renewables taking the lion’s share of new investment, they’re no longer a niche product, but now mainstream fuel.

Mozzie Myths Busted Many of us will have heard the advice at some time during the long, hot summer: eat more garlic, try B vitamins, take a sip or two of apple cider vinegar. Surely there’s an easy way to keep from being eaten alive by mosquitoes, right? Wrong.

Recent research published in the Annual Review of Entomology explains that apart from insect repellent, there is no simple antidote to these summer pests.

There are hundreds of species of mosquitoes, and all have slightly different preferences as to what (or who) they are attracted to. But only the females bite; they need the nutrition to develop their eggs. The initial attraction comes from the carbon dioxide we exhale, and from there,

Like many of us, Londoner Tara Button is fed up with today's disposable society where everything from clothing to whiteware is thrown away rather than repaired. Unlike most of us, she decided to do something about it by launching the Buy Me Once website.

The website features products that “don’t break the bank, don’t break the planet…that don’t break at all!” These are products which are guaranteed by their manufacturers to last a lifetime or be fixed by the maker and returned to the purchaser at no extra cost.

Think Le Creuset ceramic cookware, Davek umbrellas, Doc Marten boots, Patagonia jackets, Briggs & Riley luggage and even gorgeous teddy bears by UK toy company Merrythought. If you love them, you’re in luck because you can find them all in one place and you’ll only have to buy them once.

Button’s site sells these products and acts as a place to learn about “throwing away our throwaway culture”.

Buymeonce.com

the specific aromatic notes of each of us draws the mosquito.

The research did pin down that for one common species of mozzie, beer drinkers, pregnant women and people with blood type O appear the most striking.

And as for those people who claim they never get bitten? The study shows that while some people are less sensitive to the itchiness and discomfort of a mosquito bite, this is simply down to the fact that we all differ in our reaction to the saliva mosquitoes spit while feeding.

While some people’s scent and genetic make-up attract more mosquito bites than others, there's unlikely to be anyone who never, ever, gets bitten.

Page 13 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

BEE in the KNOW

BACK TO TH 

Bringing you up to date on p

China Returns Obesity and the Our Water Elusive Fizzy Tax Sarah Cates’ feature story, Pure Water… Really? in BayBuzz #26 explored all manner of quality and safety issues relating to Hawke’s Bay’s precious life force, including the business of bottling and selling it to the Chinese market.

Two companies, New Zealand Miracle Water and One Pure have been built on the foundation of consents to extract and export water from the Heretaunga aquifer.

While this was already a hot-button issue throughout the latter half of 2015, water cooler chatter escalated dramatically when a shipment of supposedly clean and pure water was rejected by China and returned in late January.

The Chinese have strict standards on water sold as ‘mineral’ and artesian, and the levels of nitrate in the batch of New Zealand Miracle Water were higher than acceptable. More to come from BayBuzz on this one!

Tom Belford’s health column, Too Lean on Child Obesity? in BayBuzz #26 explored the Ministry of Health’s 22-point plan for tackling obesity in children and young people.

A big part of the plan is early intervention across agencies and within families. The specific health target laid out in the MOH initiative is “By December 2017, 95% of obese children identified in the Before School Check (B4SC) programme will be referred to a health professional for clinical assessment and family based nutrition, activity and lifestyle interventions.”

NZ Children’s Commissioner and Hawke’s Bay paediatrician Dr Russell Wills commented at the time that the plan did not go far enough, citing taxes on sugary foods (especially fizzy drinks), tougher standards on marketing high fat foods and mandatory rules around healthy foods in schools as necessary but absent measures.

Page 14 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

Over the summer months the conversation has continued around the tax – or lack thereof – on fizzy drinks. New York University’s Professor Marian Nestle spoke in Auckland recently on her book Soda Politics, explaining the power of the beverage industry lobby as they fight it out against the growing understanding of the dangers of sugar. One study she mentioned stated that diet sodas were more effective in weight loss than water, only to be discovered as being funded by the soda companies!

Meanwhile, The British Medical Journal reports findings from Mexico, a leader in taxing sugar beverages, confirming that their 10% tax on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) was associated with a 12% reduction in purchases. The impact increased over time and the most disadvantaged groups had the greatest reduction in SSB consumption.

HE FUTURE 

n previous BayBuzz articles.

BEE in the KNOW

Good news in Campbell Street In BayBuzz #26 Anna Lorck wrote about the plight of state housing, focusing on an empty home at 1019 Campbell Street in Raureka.

Ms Lorck had met with the people of Campbell Street and shared their concerns that the vacant house, by then in a fair bit of disrepair, would be sold off for a pittance by the government and therefore drop the values of the other houses in the neighbourhood. All while there were families desperate to get into affordable housing in Hastings. The house was listed for sale at the time we published the story.

We’re pleased to to report that two years after the last tenants left the house, it is now home to a family. Ms Lorck says it was community pressure that saw the house taken off the market, repaired and tenanted. “It’s such a positive outcome for the whole street, and for this family,” she says. “But it’s been a battle for the community and really shouldn’t be this hard to get people into state housing.”

Hot, hotter, hottest.

The challenge continues, however, with derelict housing needing to be removed from behind the Campbell Street house and still a disconnect between state housing and needy families in Hawke’s Bay.

BayBuzz #27 featured an article by Bridget Freeman-Rock, Only a Chance to Save the Planet, on the ins and outs of the 21st UN Climate Conference (COP21) in Paris. Since then, 2015 has been officially identified as the hottest year since modern record-keeping began in 1880.

US science agencies NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported in late January that globally-averaged temperatures in 2015 shattered the previous record set in 2014 by 0.13 °C. Only once before, in 1998, has the new record beaten the former record by such a jump.

The World Meteorological Organization backed this up and added that for the first time on record, temperatures in 2015 were about 1°C above those in the pre-industrial era. This is of course part of a wider and more disturbing trend which has seen 2011-2015 the hottest five year period on record; fifteen out of the 16 hottest years on record have fallen in this century.

Page 15 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

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The BUZZ around the BAY Napier Night Fiesta March 11

Napier Night Fiesta

Make your way to the Sound Shell for the last of the season’s monthly evening fiestas.

Fresh food, local wines, live music and sea views make for a jovial atmosphere to farewell summer.

Fane Flaws & No Engine March 11 Head to the Cabana for a night of “neo-cubist-dream-pop-psychedelicgroove-workshop”.

The Book of Everything at Napier Municipal Theatre March 12-13 This award-winning play starring Amanda Billing and Jennifer Ward-Lealand takes the audience into the imagination of young Thomas, who creates a surreal alternative world in which to escape his abusive 1950s childhood.

Triple Peaks Challenge March 19 “New Zealand’s most beautiful adventure race” has become a highlight of the Bay’s sporting calendar as individual athletes, school and workplace teams, walkers, runners and cyclists take on the 47 picturesque kilometres across Mt Erin, Mt Kahuranaki and Te Mata Peaks. There’s also a friendly 12km option if that’s more your speed.

Hereworth French Affair Gala March 20 Gather the family and join the Hereworth School community for their annual fundraising event. Enjoy coffee, croissants, wine tasting, bric-a-brac, flower stalls and children’s entertainment in the scenic school grounds. 9:30am to 3pm.

A Gypsy Extravaganza March 25 New Zealand's largest and newest traveling event rolls into Anderson Park at Easter weekend with all the kids’ activities, stalls, palm and tarot reading, music and food you can shake a candlestick at.

Page 18 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

Triple Peaks Challenge

The Big Easy

Pecha Kucha

The Little Easy March 25

Lifting the Blues April 2

Little sister event to The Big Easy the following day, this is an easy 12km cycle through some of Central HB’s prettiest spots. Ride starts at Russell Park in Waipukurau.

Raising funds for Brain Injury Hawke's Bay Inc., UK Boogie Woogie/Rock N Roll pianist Ben Waters will play MTG Century Theatre, with support from well-known Kiwi musician "Stretch".

Tickets from Ticketek.

The Big Easy March 26 Billed at the “antidote to all those serious lycra laden cycling events,” The Big Easy is a fun, fit, family day out. Cyclists saddle up at 10am on Easter Saturday at Church Road Winery and make their way through 43km of tasty stops before a finale concert at Black Barn. Tickets and full details at thebigeasy.co.nz

Summer Sessions at Abbey Cellars March 26 Kick back and relax to the sound of the Akina Vinyl Appreciation Society, with a glass in hand and the last of the summer sun beating down. 12noon to 3pm.

Alliance Française French Film Festival March 30 to April 10 New Zealand’s second-largest film festival returns to Havelock North, showcasing the finest of French-language cinema.

Pecha Kucha April 5 If you’re keen to learn weird and amazing things about your own community, head along to the first Pecha Kucha Night of 2016 in the MTG Century Theatre.

Speakers present their passions for six minutes and 40 seconds each.

A Night of Jazz and Blues April 9 The Hope and Kindness Project presents a special charity evening at MTG Century Theatre featuring Banda de la Casa and Cool Source.

Stortford Lodge Rotary Charity Quiz Night April 9 Gather a team of your brainiest colleagues and help out a good cause – the Dyslexia Foundation of New Zealand at Stortford Rotary’s annual charity fundraiser.

Maximum 8 per team, at the Cheval Room.

Page 19 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

The BUZZ around the BAY Guji Guji

Guji Guji Theatre April 11-13

Taradale Rock n Roll Festival April 15-17

Autumn Cup Raceday April 30

Leading children’s puppet theatre Little Dog Barking is touring the very engaging Guji Guji throughout the country, stopping in at MTG to entertain the 2-10 year old crowd.

Based on the book by Chih Yuan Chen, Guji Guji is a simple and beautiful story about being different, bullying and family love.

Rock n Roll bands Big Beat and Black Snapper plus Al Dawson and Lorraine Flight play the Taradale Club on the Friday night, followed by a Petrol Head Brunch, market stalls and music on Saturday, Che Orton Band on Saturday evening and finally a farewell breakfast on Sunday morning.

Tickets available from letsjive.nz

Nine exciting races on the card including the NZ Bloodstock Finance & Leasing Sprint Prelude make for a quality day at the races.

Hospitality and catering options available.

East Coast Farming with Technology Expo April 13-14 This inaugural event at the Wairoa Showgrounds will provide East Coast farmers with two jam-packed days to explore the latest in agricultural innovation and technology, from GIS mapping and online farming accounting to genetics and irrigation systems.

Hawke’s Bay Gold Cup April 16 Enjoy a day out at one of New Zealand’s oldest race days. First run over 150 years ago, The Gold Cup is still an entertaining family day trackside, complete with kids’ activities and live music.

Hawke's Bay Gold Cup

Alliance Française French Film Festival at Cinema Gold

Rescue Helicopter Charity Cocktail Party April 15 2016 marks the 25th anniversary of this famed fundraising event. Presented by the Hastings Karamu Rotary Club, this year’s event is heading back to the Rescue Helicopter Hangar. Featuring complimentary drinks, food, charity auction, and sparkling entertainment, the cocktail party is a glamourous night out in aid of a terrific cause. Tickets available from thecocktailparty.co.nz

Page 20 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

Climate Change …

How the Bay will feel the heat STORY BRIDGET FREEMAN-ROCK

As I reported in the last edition of BayBuzz (Only a Chance to Save the Planet), world leaders may have agreed in Paris to keep global warming below a two degree rise and transition off fossil fuels, but how this looks in practice will come down to the finer details of national, and even local-driven, policies.

So what’s in the cards for Hawke’s Bay, which faces rising seas, eroding soils, and the gamut of wilder weather events and unknowns?

What is being done on a governance level to make ‘the best of a bad situation’ and prepare us for inevitable change?

tim.co.nz

Photo by Sarah Cates

“We need to agree on the risk profile as a community ... until we agree on a framework, we’re going to be punching in the dark.”

PETER BEAVEN

Rising seas When Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Jan Wright, released her latest climate change report, Preparing New Zealand for Rising Seas, she likened the effects on our coasts of an “incremental and inexorable” sea rise to “a slowly unfolding red zone”, with 9,000+ homes lying less than 50cm above spring high-tide levels.

Under NZ law, the responsibility for planning to deal with rising seas lies entirely with local government, which leaves councils “between a rock and a hard place”, Wright points out. They must act, but there’s no coordinated guidance or fiscal resources from central government to do so. Indeed,

some national policies counteract local adaption and mitigation efforts. She calls for a major review.

In Hawke’s Bay, a joint committee of local councils and iwi, chaired by regional councillor Peter Beaven, has been set up to study the coastline from Clifton to Tangoio, assess what infrastructure will be at risk from coastal erosion, inundation and tsunami – “not just houses, roads, businesses, etc., but parks, reserves, wetlands” – and to come up with a strategic 105-year framework to ensure long-term resilience.

Using a probalistic range of a 0.61.5 metre sea rise, the Coastal Hazards Committee has modelled three scenarios,

and are working on the median estimate of a 1 metre rise by 2120 (you can find interactive maps illustrating the scenarios at hbhazards.co.nz). Over 3,000 homes and businesses in Hawke’s Bay could be directly impacted within 50 years, the majority of these on Napier’s reclaimed land, including our regional airport.

Recent analysis of satellite data by German researchers, however, indicates the contribution of oceanic thermal expansion to sea rise has been grossly underestimated and could be twice as much as previously calculated. Taking this into account dramatically upscales projections.

Three adaptation options on the table, all

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with their “problems” and none forming a sole response, are: hard-engineering, such as groynes; soft-engineering (the replenishing of shingle, for example); and managed retreat, which in some cases may be the only affordable option, says Beaven.

Groynes create scours, compounded by the unique factor of the 1931 earthquake that tipped Napier up, Clifton down, creating a dynamic of northern drift: waves push shingle north. And replenishment requires supply with its accompanying problem of sourcing; already 10,000m2 of river gravel are deposited each year on Westshore Beach.

But before weighing decisions, “We need to agree on the risk profile as a community,” says Peter Beaven. And then there are tough questions like how to prioritise and split the cost between people on the coast and those living inland. What division of responsibilities, how far ahead to look?

“Until we agree on a framework, we’re going to be punching in the dark.”

Beaven agrees with Wright’s insistence that while mitigation (reducing greenhouse gas emissions) is a matter of national and global urgency, “haste can be counterproductive” when it comes to planning for rising seas.

“It’s more important to get the right decision than a fast decision. You need to think about different practicalities for different occupations – a ‘horses for courses’ approach,” says Beaven.

And “you have to be adaptive with your solutions. There’s a balance between taking a precautionary approach and being so severely risk-adverse that you impact on communities now.”

The Hazards Committee is due to release a draft report on its coastal assessment in March for input, followed by a series of public workshops.

“We need a sustained programme across the region: start in the most acute places, work methodically and stay on the case ... we’re going to have to invest more as a community.”

JAMES PALMER

Erodible landscapes James Palmer, HBRC’s new strategy manager, believes the area with the most opportunity for effective regional response to climate change is the intersection between fresh water quality and soil conservation – “acute issues faced by our pastoral hill country” from Wairoa to Porangahau.

Hawke’s Bay – whose land is almost 80% hill country or mountainous – was once

almost totally forested, but now has highly erodible landscapes, with sediment and accompanying farm run-off contributing significantly to river degradation. An estimated 100,000 hectares is considered at risk of severe erosion. Modelling for the Tukituki catchment alone indicates annual soil loss at 282,000 tonnes from stream banks, plus another 597,000 tonnes from hillslopes. And the disastrous release of silt through Wairoa’s Waihi Dam – seriously damaging the environment and farmers’ livelihoods alike – illustrates a worst case scenario resulting from soil erosion.

With climate change, “we’ll see more frequent and severe droughts coupled with increased storm events and intensive rainfall periods” that will only exacerbate soil loss.

In this “transitional period to becoming a zero-carbon society,” Palmer says, “it’s imperative to not only reduce emissions but to sequester carbon.” Tree-planting (whether timber plantations, native regeneration, or ‘performance forests’ such as olives or manuka) is crucial for improving water quality, retaining soils and cultivating resilience (trees provide shelter for stock, fodder for bees, etc). But planting trees also “helps mitigate [climate change] at a local level for global benefit.”

In his view: “We need to plant an awful lot of trees.”

Palmer believes it’s better to create “coalitions of the willing” than wield the “blunt tool” of regulation. A key task for HBRC, as he sees it, is “to make a more compelling business case for changing our highly erodible landscapes to more forested environments.”

It’s important people “see the confluence between freshwater issues, climate change issues – both mitigation and adaption – and soil erosion”. The question is, “How do we bring it all together to find the sweet spot

www.lookingback.co.nz

Page 25 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

An at-risk home by the sea for HDC’s sewage treatment plant

tim.co.nz and build, year on year, a momentum?”

He suggests we need an applied, integrated approach that gets down to farmscale. “We need a sustained programme across the region: start in the most acute places, work methodically and stay on the case.” This will require a substantial resourcing commitment – there’s no question in Palmer’s mind, “we’re going to have to invest more as a community.” In recent years, HBRC has allocated only $250,000 to $400,000 per year toward soil conservation.

Is forestry the answer?

Forestry is sometimes touted as the salve for NZ’s emissions, but there are some gnarly knots. A “live issue” for HBRC is the 1 million m2 of radiata pine due to be harvested in Wairoa over the next 20-30 years, with a loss-loss situation all round if the process is not properly managed: the cost of extraction is high, the environmental impacts great, the economic returns small.

In hindsight, says Palmer, many of the areas “should never have been planted [for harvest]”, though the plantations also play an important role in keeping coastal hillsides intact and Hawke’s Bay’s carbon footprint down.

Palmer sees no simple solution to the conundrum but “a bunch of insidious choices.” For instance, as a price for the interim benefits of carbon sequestration and halting erosion, “Do we accept every 25 years a pulse of soil into our water-ways and carbon release?” Or could we incentivise landowners to turn their plantations into

Page 26 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

permanent forests? He believes “a high price on the Emissions Trading Scheme could make a really big difference.”

HBRC is currently working with forestry groups, iwi and the Wairoa community, and awaiting a new central government standard on forestry.

Water Water is a big, fraught topic in the Bay, with fresh water (quality, quantity, distribution) high on the council and public agenda, and the long-term climate forecast: increasingly dry.

Hill-country farmer, Bruce Wills, is “a great believer in water storage”, and proponent of large-scale governmentsupported infrastructure such as the Ruataniwha dam. “It seems crazy that we simply let 98% of rain water run out to sea.”

There’s wider community benefit, as he sees it, “If we can sensibly and intelligently store water in times of plenty and then sensibly and intelligently use it.”

Land-systems consultant Chris Perley, however, is adamant “the ability to hold water in our landscapes is our best advantage. And that means in the soil, within the farm system (wetlands, ponds) not mega dams!”

As local soil experts Phyllis Tichinin and Nicole Masters regularly note, better managed soil can retain 20% more water.

Masters writes: “Techniques that focus on soil health and soil biology are better adapted to hold on longer during dry spells and bounce back quicker when rains do come. Research shows that biologically

managed systems have increased nutrient and water storage, improved soil structure and resilience to climactic extremes. Soil carbon acts like a giant sponge; a 1% increase in organic carbon can increase the soil’s ability to store water by 144,000 litres/hectare, roughly a bucket of water per square meter.”

Perley says rather than engaging with ‘climate change’, we need to start with a “shared conceptual goal” that everyone can get behind, such as the kids being able to swim in the rivers again. Coherent communities tend to be based around ‘the water hole’, so “the river is key… it’s a cultural common”; to address the rivers (that the kids can swim) you have to address all the issues that feed back into the bigger picture. Integrated catchment management is a great example of bringing people on board, he says.

Land-use changes With climate change, it’s not just the outlier events like drought, storms, warmer weather, “We don’t truly know the effects we’ll be facing; the pests, weeds, new crop species, diseases,” cautions Nathan Heath, HBRC’s acting manager for land management. What’s certain: land-use will change.

Bruce Wills has already changed pasture species to longer-root grasses, and swapped his Romney sheep for the tougher TexelSuffolk cross, though he says they’re not coping well this summer, and if the future is these “warm, damp, Waikato-like conditions”, he’ll be moving out of sheep altogether.

He’s planted 15,000 trees, over half natives, the rest poplar and willows (“they’re our hill-

country heroes”). He’s locked up 160 hectares in a QEII covenant and fenced off 140 hectares of marginal land to revert back to native bush. He’s “breeding up” dung beetles to work his soils for better water retention.

The government’s Emissions Trading Scheme, currently under review, doesn’t include native stands as an offset, which Wills sees as a “gaping hole”. If we could offer the 4,000 farmers nationwide with QEII covenants some kind of remuneration, such as carbon credits, for their bush reserves and increase the $4.2 million the QEII Trust currently receives from the government, Wills believes we could up the ante for global benefit: increased biodiversity and carbon offset.

Global warming to Wills, spells change, innovation, integration: “Good farmers have always adapted,” he says, “and we’ll just have to adapt more quickly than we have in the past.”

James Palmer says he has “one eye to opportunities” for new industry, such as kiwifruit production which will shift further south as areas like Bay of Plenty become frost-free. There’ll also be changes in viticulture, he says; the types of grapes grown and wines made.

A 2015 government-commissioned report, Effects of climate change on current and potential biosecurity pests and diseases in New Zealand (available online), summarises

the latest research and modelling scenarios on risk and distribution. The interaction between new exotics, innocuous “sleeper” pests, weeds and diseases, and evolving climates is complex and, as yet, far from conclusive. But we are likely to see the establishment of invasive insects currently limited by temperature, the introduction of vectors (disease-bearing mosquitos, ticks), and with new plant crops in response to new climates, new pathogens.

Previously harmless plants and insects may become virulent weeds and pests. For example, in the drier regions like Hawke’s Bay, a shift to more drought-tolerant forages like chicory, lucerne and plantain is anticipated, but in 2014 it emerged two native moth species are major plantain pests.

Heath says HBRC is in conversation with organisations, individuals in private sectors, NGOs etc, “to build collective support for a strategy.” At the moment it’s driven by building catchment plans; “there’s a focus on water… and that’s not enabling us to have the broader conversation, though it’s obviously important.”

As part of HBRC’s attempt to complement this focus with “another layer”, Nathan Heath organised a two-day conference on dryland farming last year to gather raw material, ideas, from people in the field. It now requires “some clever individuals” to deepen that exchange and come up with well-considered frameworks around it.

HBRC is also meeting communities within and peripheral to the region, from Gisborne to Wairarapa, because “We need local, open conversations.” Wairoa, for example, is “so deeply entwined with the future of hill-country farming”, and the health and wellbeing of such rural communities directly effects what we can do in our most challenging landscapes, says Heath.

He points to the fact that basic community infrastructure like roads, schools, internet connectivity can underpin the decision to remain, relocate, or not, and “we need good farmers, good foresters, quality labour.” We need the kinds of people who are keen and able to “do” the work that’s needed for the long-term.

Resilient communities “We actually need to think about a whole raft of things, not climate change as a factor in its own right,” says Heath. The issue’s going to be how we can collectively build, adapt, towards more resilient landscapes.”

Ultimately, it will come down to the “resilience and adaptability of organisations and communities”, and “the real conversation”, as he sees it, is within the socio-sphere. “How do we collectively work together so we align what we do for the common cause? If we remain in silos, we’re just going to go round in circles.”

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Page 27 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

The Bay’s big drys become the norm as summer temperatures soar

tim.co.nz The difficulty underpinning all this of course, is money: “In NZ if you pull a dollar out of everybody it starts hurting pretty quickly.” So how do we fund our regional ‘resilience and adaptation’? Heath says these are the kinds of questions being explored, along with mechanisms for change, but there’s no quick, easy answer.

“Climate change makes us think broader, makes us think long-term, and ultimately that’s a positive.”

NATHAN HEATH

Energy-smart farming Heath also believes “we need to move away from thinking about land in terms of either production or retirement” to a more dynamic, differential layering which incorporates social as well as environmental and economic benefits.

“Rather than broad-scale monoculture and big silver bullet solutions”, the future, Heath predicts, will be about attending to “the nuances in the landscape” and working with these appropriately. “Farmers are good at this; they know their land intimately.”

Chris Perley agrees. It’s the Tuscany model and the concept of terroir, as he sees it, versus the Nebraska Inc. prototype of industrial monoculture. “A cost and margin approach assumes a flat paddock system, it’s out of step with reality.” Focusing on resilience and quality over boom and bust commodity supply gives farmers the flexibility to adjust to change and challenge.

This means planting woody vegetation (not just trees), creating wetlands and integrated pasture systems, building healthy soils, biodiversity, managing nutrients.

Page 28 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

When you design for resilience, Perley advises, “You need a matrix of options.”

So what about a couple of small wind turbines in the back paddock, or solar panels on the woolshed, or even setting up a microhydro system?

We need agriculture (responsible for half NZ’s emissions) to become more energy efficient – indeed, the whole paddock-toplate supply chain – and Professor Ralph Sims (Centre for Energy Research, Massey) believes renewables should be part of the farm approach: “The agri-food chain can be decoupled from its current dependency on fossil fuels.”

Sims sees great opportunity for the East Coast hill country to cost-effectively capture local energy sources and even create another revenue stream. He’s involved with a number of projects across the North Island, in Dannevirke and Taranaki, working with electricity companies towards developing base-power technologies for small rural communities. It also means they’re less vulnerable to outage.

Sims’ presentation at the drylands

conference generated much interest, and it remains to be seen how this might be considered in the context of HBRC’s energyfutures project, which was originally set to include a comprehensive look at oil and gas as well as alternative energies and transport.

The plan’s been on the council backburner but will be revived later this year, says strategy manager James Palmer.

Despite John Key’s assurance post-Paris that oil and gas will continue as before, with the collapse in the price of oil, all exploratory drilling in NZ has been suspended indefinitely by the companies themselves.

“The energy landscape’s moving very fast on us,” observes Palmer, and much of this has a socially-driven impetus. Along with electricity demand and wholesale prices, the cost of solar and electric vehicles is falling and “being deployed faster than anticipated without much intervention.”

Palmer expects a similar trend as new technologies come on line.

Ironically, the gloomy prophecy of global climate change has brought about “exciting times” and “incredible opportunities” as we grapple creatively with the implications and practicalities at a regional level.

Says Nathan Heath: “Climate change makes us think broader, makes us think long-term, and ultimately that’s a positive.

The more we link the layers, the more we work out how communities need to adapt and be resilient, the more we move towards a common ground.”.

Housing in Hawke’s Bay …

Sweet for Some, Misery for Others

BY MARK SWEET

Owning a house, or two, or ten, has been the easiest path, with the least effort, to wealth accumulation in New Zealand.

Historically, no other investment returns more bang for your buck than house ownership, with none of the risk associated of investing in the stock market, or the financial sector.

In the ten years to 2014, New Zealand’s total housing assets increased by $240 billion, compared to increases of $135 billion for farms and businesses, and $139 billion for financial investments. [Reserve Bank 2015] Currently, the main focus is on Auckland property, where values have risen on average 52% in the last three years, compared to 11% nationwide. [Reserve Bank 2016]

Page 30 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

The median Auckland house value in February 2016 was $928,912 (QV), making it the fifth least affordable city in the world to buy a house. [Demagraphia] In Hawke’s Bay the last housing bubble occurred between 2002 and 2007, which, according to Quotable Value (QV) figures, saw prices roughly double across the region, with some pockets, like the most sought after areas of Havelock North, increasing even more.

After experiencing very little movement, and decline in some areas, since the global financial crisis in 2008, Hawke’s Bay house prices are on the move again.

In the year ending January 2016, house values in Hastings District increased by 8.3%, and in Napier City by 6%, the biggest increases since 2007. Sales volumes for the same period were up 28% and 29% respectively. [QV] Rob Douglas, Managing Director of Added Valuation, says: “The signs were there in early 2015, and what we're seeing now is properties

coming and going off the market very quickly due to perceived lack of lists, but I think the reason is strong demand.”

Douglas believes lack of supply was a major contributor to the last boom, whereas today’s signs of increase in values “are being driven by affordability factors, most of all interest rates, which are incredibly low on historic trends, with a high degree of certainty.” [Mortgage available at writing: 4.85% fixed for three years.]

Planning Manager with Napier City Council, Richard Mennuke, recognises that at the start of the last boom in 2002, there was a supply shortage. “That is when Council realised they had to do something about supply, and that has been addressed.”

Indeed, from 2004, nearly 1,000 sections have been made available, mostly in the greenfields subdivisions of Te Awa, Knightsbridge, and Parklands. Similarly in Hastings, subdivisions at Arataki, Frimley, and Tomoana have released even more land, and supply exceeds demand.

tim.co.nz

Arataki subdivision expands toward mushroom farm, creating issues

Mennuke’s area of responsibility is Napier, yet he speaks for the whole of Hawke’s Bay when he says, “When you look at the base population figures it’s not really changing.

There is growth, but it’s nothing like Auckland whose housing problems have a lot to do with rampant population growth.”

But Richard Mennuke isn’t interested in ‘chasing shadows’ and ‘emperor’s new clothes’ arguments about what drives the property market. As an urban planner his focus, as he settles into his role after a year in the job, is ensuring Napier has “high quality housing, because people will want to settle here if our housing is of the highest standard overall, and then everyone in the community benefits.”

It is Rob Douglas’s observation that Hawke’s Bay’s current property surge was, “led by investors because they saw the opportunities first. It’s in the key investor markets where we’re seeing the greatest amount of growth in those low-priced value ranges.”

In the year ending January 2016, house values in Hastings District increased by 8.3%, and in Napier City by 6%, the biggest increases since 2007.

And he points out that in Flaxmere, “when the market rises you get value increases proportionally more than anywhere else. So [the investor] gets capital gain and they also get good returns.”

Currently around 6-7% net.

There is risk however. “I’ve seen properties totally trashed with even the hot water cylinder ripped out.”

The pattern Douglas has seen in the last year, initiated by investors buying at the lower end, “is a flowing up effect,” where

sellers move on to buy in the $300,000 and above range. “And the last market to move was the higher price band of $500,000 to $2 million price range. If the market’s rising the perception is you don't have to worry if you pay too much.” He points out that the buyers in the upper-value range are owneroccupiers rather than investors.

Quotable Value Manager, Bevan Pickett, hasn’t the data to comment on how investors are influencing the market, but his observation is that: “Prior to the 2000 boom a lot of people, who were content with their lot, living with their nuclear family, going to work, caring for their home property, saw all this money being made physically, and on paper, and they wanted some of that.”

But warns Pickett: “Even last year we were seeing people who lost money on purchases made in 2006/7. Now we’re finding properties that have been on the market for years are finally selling.”

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“... the vast majority of investment purchasers are Hawke’s Bay people.”

ROB DOUGLAS, ADDED VALUATION

Are the Aucklanders coming?

Statistics of occupier verses investor purchases are not available in Hawke’s Bay, but they are for Auckland. In 2015, 41% of house purchases were by investors (CoreLogic) and the power of the Auckland investor frenzy to colonise the rest of the North Island is perpetrated in the media.

Recent newspaper headlines have proclaimed, ‘Aucklanders descend on local property’ and, ‘Aucklanders’ eyes on buying Bay property,’ and, ‘Aucklanders heat up housing market.’

The truth of these alarmist headlines about Aucklanders driving up Hawke’s Bay house prices probably has more to do with newspaper advertising revenue, and their client’s desire to fuel the market, than reality.

What is being encouraged is the perception that a price surge is underway, and you better get in quickly, or you’ll miss out.

“Perception is critical,” says Rob Douglas, “I think it’s what drove the value growth from 2005 to 2007. The initial growth was pent up demand, 2002 to 2004, being the strongest years. As a young valuer then, I expected the market to peter out, but it carried on for a couple of years, because it is perception that drives the market once it starts growing.”

As for the perception “Aucklanders (are) butting into the market” in the current

Page 32 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

house value surge, Douglas says, “the vast majority of investment purchasers are Hawke’s Bay people.”

Bevan Pickett concurs, yet he’s sure “the Auckland boom affects the whole country and there’s a trickle down element, with the provinces more attractive to investors, because of the deposit ratio imposed by the

Highlighting the widening gap is that of the 486,000 additional dwellings added to New Zealand’s housing stock since 1991, just 37% are owner-occupied while 63% are rented. (Statistics NZ 2013) Generation Rent by Shamubeel and Selena Eaqub, paints a bleak picture for younger generations, pointing out that if house price

“The Auckland boom effects the whole country and there’s a trickle down element, with the provinces more attractive to investors, because of the deposit ratio imposed by the Reserve Bank in Auckland." BEVAN PICKETT Reserve Bank in Auckland.” From October 2015 investor purchasers of Auckland residential property were required to have deposits of 30%.

Generation rent As investors owning a house or two or ten proliferates, occupier ownership is declining.

From a peak of 73.5% in 1991 to 64.8% in 2013, this figure is expected to fall even more as house prices increase, putting home ownership out of the reach of many. On an individual basis, rather than households, just over half of all New Zealanders now live in rented houses. [Statistics NZ 2013]

increases, compared to household income increases, continue at historical rates, by 2031 mortgage payments will be more than a young couple’s income.

Generation Rent begins: “Owning one’s own home has been a rite of passage for generations of New Zealanders. Home ownership has long offered financial security and played a central role in our national identity.”

With the ‘right of passage’ to home ownership out of sight for so many, mostly young adults and especially Auckland residents, a radical shift in how renting is perceived could redress the imbalance.

In Germany, the most successful European economy, house prices haven’t increased since 1990. 60% of homes are rentals, and house price booms are regulated out of the economy by ensuring an ample supply of land for new housing, and restrictions on credit (bank value-to-loan ratio mortgages are capped at 60%).

Most significantly, in paying rent and behaving well, a German tenant has security of tenure. They can only be evicted if, on the rare occasion, the landlord needs the accommodation for his family, or the building is being demolished. And rents are regulated.

Under current New Zealand law, The Residential Tenancies Act, a landlord is required to give 90 days notice to end a tenancy, and 42 days if they sell the property with vacant possession, even if the sale is to a fellow investor. And the market determines the rent.

If the die is cast, and we’ve given birth to ‘Generation Rent’, a redressing of tenants rights is sorely needed, so that being a renter is not just okay, but desirable; an attractive alternative to ownership.

As noted above, 60% of German households are rentals. The housing stock is mostly high quality, and owned largely by municipal corporations and property companies, who are regulated to provide a high standard of comfort and amenity to their tenancies.

Maureen Mua champions the Maraenui Suburban Revitilisation Project

In contrast, 35% of New Zealand households are rentals, the housing stock is often poor quality, some owned by the State, but mostly by individuals, who are not regulated from renting out houses that are cold, damp, and cripplingly expensive to heat.

Suffer the little children The dire state of some rental houses in New Zealand was highlighted when in June 2015, Coroner Brandt Shortland, referenced a ‘cold damp’ state house contributing to the death from pneumonia of toddler Emma-Lita Bourne.

Bringing Home the Gold

As a paediatrician, Hastings-based Children’s Commissioner, Russell Wills, has hands-on knowledge of the consequences that ‘cold, damp, crowded housing’ has on children’s health.

He told The Listener in 2014: ‘What you get with that is a very high acute workload, particularly with respiratory, skin and gut, infections, with all the complications that go with those.’

That poor quality housing has in impact on health, particularly children, is unequivocal, thanks largely to the work of Philippa Bowden-Chapman and her colleagues. Her

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Page 33 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

“Most landlords want to do the right thing ... Many simply don't know.”

SHARI TIDWELL, DHB HEALTHY HOMES PROGRAMME

latest book, Home Truths: Confronting New Zealand’s Housing Crisis, is both a challenge and a plea to the authorities, those with the power, to urgently address the issue of unhealthy homes.

She advocates for the widely-supported requirement that all rental housing be subject to mandatory Warrant of Fitness tests; to be warm, dry, secure, and sanitary, up to 21st century standards.

Bowden-Chapman was a guest at a housing workshop in November 2015 organised by Hawke’s Bay District Health Board (HBDHB) to discuss strategies and initiatives for improving the quality of sub-standard housing.

Other speakers were Maureen Mua, CEO of Roopi a Iwi Trust, based in Maraenui, and George Mackey from Te Puni Kōkiri in Hastings.

Attending were stakeholders from local and central government, housing services, community groups, and health professionals, including Shari Tidswell.

Tidswell works for HBDHB as team leader, population health advisor, facilitating the Healthy Homes programme, which provides insulation solutions to homes most in need.

“Generally we support people who have existing health conditions, like children with throat swabs linking to rheumatic fever, or respiratory conditions, and skin infections; illnesses that are directly related

Page 34 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

to living in a cold damp home.”

“These are people who present at the hospital, and our follow-up response is with home visits by health professionals.

The majority of those homes are rented accommodation. We talk to the occupant, scope out whether they need insulation, then we contact the landlord.”

The Healthy Homes scheme is jointly funded by the DHB and government agency ECCA (Energy Efficiency & Conservation Authority).

Even though the property owner contributes only 10% to the cost of insulation, “some landlords are a bit stroppy,” says Tidswell. “It’s usually the tenants are behind in rent, but we point out it’s increasing the value of their house, and if it is insulated, the tenants don't have to pay so much for heating, and will have more money to pay their rent.”

The biggest taxpayer subsidy for rental property owners is through the Government’s ‘accommodation supplement’, around $1 billion annually, supporting private rental housing which is often in poor condition.

As Alan Johnson of Child Action Policy opined: “Surely if a landlord, public or private, is to receive a subsidy from the State, the State should be able to impose some quality controls to ensure it, and the citizens the subsidies are meant to assist, get well served.”

Shari Tidswell’s experience is: “Most

landlords want to do the right thing.

Sometimes they are missing information on the impact (of cold, damp housing). Many simply don't know.”

Despite the difficulties and challenges, Shari Tidswell is buoyed by the co-operation and willingness relevant stakeholders contribute in addressing housing issues, and is especially praising of the work of Housing Forum Huarahi Aratika in Maraenui, and the Maori Housing Network facilitated by Te Puni Kōkiri.

Making a difference The Maraenui Suburban Revitilisation Project was formed in response to the Housing NZ decision to demolish 33 houses (96 units) in the suburb.

The project is led by Roopu a Iwi Trust, whose CEO Maureen Mua, is a university graduate in business studies, and former corporate executive.

“Napier City Council are proactive and ward councillors Maxine Boag and Mark Hamilton are part of the team,” says Mua. “Mark (Hamilton) is managing director of Alexander Construction, and we also have Adam Horvath, who built the kaumatua flats.”

Others participating in the Revitalisation Project are Taiwhenua, the Ministry of Social Development, Housing NZ, Te Puni Kōkiri, and HBDHB.

Whanganui is big enough to entertain and small enough to keep it real.

Enjoy arts, music, the landscape and our rich heritage.

Spend a weekend.

TAKE A

NEW LOOK George Mackey

“Maori have been excluded from the housing market by the mere fact that Maori land is in multiple ownership, and banks are reluctant to lend because they can’t take security over the land." GEORGE MACKEY, TE PUNI KOKIRI Their aim is develop a plan for building new housing catering to the needs of the Maraenui community.

“We need to be smart and savvy how we do it,” says Mua. “If we build how the suburb was originally built we'll end up with the same problems in 30 to 40 years time. We need to build in such a way that it’s a sustainable model for generations to come.”

“Nearly eight years ago I said Maraenui could be the Ponsonby of Napier,” says Mua, and she points out that the suburb is close to the city, and has all the infrastructure in place, but she doesn’t shy away from addressing the social problems caused by unemployment and poverty. “We have to be realistic. We need jobs so our people can afford to pay the mortgages. If we get enough people keen perhaps a bank will take a punt with us. Maybe the claimant groups will put some money in.

“We need to build in such a way that it’s a sustainable model for generations to come by building in a manner that looks after the welfare of the whole whanau unit, everyone looking after one another, and we must be inclusive, communicating with the whole community.”

A model Maureen Mua and her colleagues are exploring is what she terms ‘contemporary Papakainga’. Papakainga is housing development on multiple-owned Maori land, and literally means, ‘a nurturing place to return to’.

‘There is funding for Papakainga on Maori ancestral land, but this isn't ancestral land, this is government land.”

In his capacity as senior Advisor at Te Puni Kōkiri based in Hastings, George Mackey steers the Maori Housing Network participation in the Papakainga initiative.

Two projects, at Waipatu and Waiohiki, are completed, with many more in various stages of planning.

“Maori have been excluded from the housing market by the mere fact that Maori land is in multiple ownership, and banks are reluctant to lend because they can’t take security over the land; they can’t repossess and sell it as easily as if it were in single ownership.”

The scheme is underwritten by Housing NZ, giving Kiwibank 20% security on the top of the mortgage. But as George Mackey explains, “that’s chattels only, the house has to be on piles, so if something

For more information visit:

whanganuinz.com

Page 35 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

Paul Sheeran, on the Aorangi Maori Trust Board, helps whanau with Papakainga land (jointly-owned) realise their housing aspirations

For the 35% of housing stock that is rented accommodation, strictly enforced fitness for habitation standards ensuring all rentals are warm, dry, and sanitary, are urgently needed.

“They approached us to help facilitate the building of more homes to cater for the needs of the grandchildren. The idea is that young family members will occupy at low rentals, until they've saved enough to buy their own homes, then another lot of grandchildren will do the same.”

George Mackey praises the enthusiasm and goodwill the Papakainga initiative has attracted, and gives the example of Unison chairman, Kevin Atkinson, facilitating a team to work on alternative energy solutions for projects ‘off the grid’. And, he says, “Even property developers, who are usually profit driven, are prepared to back off their prices once they understand the whole story.”

The future

happens they can come in and take the home away.”

The Aorangi Maori Trust Board development at Waipatu experienced this requirement when it wanted to build solid block houses, with high thermal mass, on concrete slabs.

A solution was found. “A nearby block of (freehold) land was used as security,” says Paul Sheeran, project manager, and trustee.

He credits Housing NZ manager, Mike Webber, with being flexible. “He’s seen adaptions can be made successfully. We’re working with three whanau at present, who don't fit the box, but he's willing to look at each case.”

In Aorangi’s case, six houses on permanent foundations are owned by the Trust and rented to whanau, while two houses are occupied by whanau who wanted ownership.

Their houses are timber and on piles.

Residents are a blend of families and elderly, and the project has been so successful, there are plans for “24 more

Page 36 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

houses with a 50/50 rental/ownership share,” says Sheeran. “We’re thinking the mix might include three one-bedroom units under one roof for elderly who are on their own.”

Paul Sheeran is now contracted to Te Puni Kōkiri to guide whanau with Papakainga land in how to realise their aspirations.

He works closely with George Mackey who explains, “The whole notion is about supporting whanau to return to their kainga.”

He adds, “We are having discussion with many whanau about how to build in a way that caters to their immediate needs, but also for generations to come. How do we design the buildings and landscaping? How do we include whanau, who won’t be living there, but want to be able to return to celebrate weddings and birthdays?”

No situation is the same, and he cites a family in Hastings who have converted a general freehold quarter-acre property, bought by grandparents 70 years ago, to Maori freehold.

Goodwill, creative thinking, and determination categorise the work being done to both improve the quality of existing housing, and provide new housing fit-for-purpose.

Thankfully, Hawke’s Bay has been spared a property boom frenzy like that in Auckland, which has effectively denied a portion of the population the opportunity of ever owning their own home.

Soundly-built three bedroom houses in Hastings and Napier are available in the $200,000 to $300,000 price range; still affordable for first home buyers, with the Welcome Home Loan and Kiwisaver Home Loan policies assisting.

But, if in Hawke’s Bay, we are to continue to provide our younger generations the opportunity of home ownership enjoyed by their parents and grandparents, it is vital the councils ensure constant supply of houses, both in new subdivisions, and redevelopment projects in stagnant older suburbs.

For the 35% of housing stock that is rented accommodation, strictly enforced fitness for habitation standards ensuring all rentals are warm, dry, and sanitary, are urgently needed.

That 3,000 Hawke’s Bay children a year need hospital treatment, many for diseases directly attributable to living in a cold, damp house, should be reason enough to highlight the urgency.

Housing booms might be sweet for some, but they do nothing to alleviate the misery of others.

ADVERTORIAL

Telecommunications that match Furnware’s Global Aspirations Vadacom talked with Rob Merwood from Furnware, a great Hawke’s Bay success story is expanding rapidly, mainly owing to a rapid increase in exports, which now outnumber domestic sales. To support this growth, a major telephone systems upgrade was vital.

Good morning, Rob. Can you please tell us about Furnware? How many people are employed by Furnware and where are they located?

Furnware’s purpose is to inspire young minds the world over so we create world class learning environments to maximise student learning opportunities. We are a world leading manufacturer of classroom furniture exporting to 23 countries. With 100 staff based in NZ, Australia and Singapore we are a global workforce supported by a team in Hawke’s Bay.

Furnware staff enjoying the benefits of smart communications

When do you expect the return of investment? Cost savings? We expect to see cost savings immediately from our offshore based staff calling in to NZ. Additionally, we expect immediate efficiencies by reducing the transferring of calls between staff.

What is your role in the business?

Group Manager Information Systems. My responsibility is twofold: to improve effectiveness and efficiencies of the systems we run currently, and ensure information systems remain agile to meet new requirements from the business.

What are the benefits of the Vadacom Telephone system?

Why did you choose it?

We wanted to replace the traditional and aging PABX system, which only serviced our Hastings office, with a system that could be used by all staff regardless of where they are located. Furnware prides itself on having a strong and unique culture. As we grow we are consciously working to ensure that this culture is maintained. One of the ways to make this happen is with enhanced and inclusive communication systems.

How was the installation process? What can you say about performance, support, acceptance?

Our installation start time was hampered by the lead-time to get a fibre connection installed. However, once that was sorted out, the installation ran very smoothly without any outages. Staff training was essential to get everyone on board.

Minor issues have been resolved quickly by the Vadacom team and by and large it’s business as usual. Call quality is excellent over our dedicated Kordia connection and their SIP lines.

What is the biggest advantage in using the Vadacom system? Having all staff on a single PABX is a huge advantage. The solution we selected from Vadacom is cloud based and scalable. We can make changes as and when staff change, without the need to call in a PABX expert.

Bill Roberts (Project Manager), Klaus Ebach (Vadacom Sales Manager) and Rob Merwood (GM Information Systems)

If you would like to generate more efficiencies in your business or to learn more about the Vadacom solution provided to Furnware, please request a free demo with Klaus at klaus.ebach@vadacom.co.nz or call 022 657 3004

Cyclist Ivan Aplin, a stalwart of the velodrome peloton

Velodrome … Spinning Wheels?

BY KEITH NEWMAN Napier City Council will decide whether a ‘high risk’ $15 million second tier multi-use velodrome that’s unlikely to pay its way will go ahead or not after a revised business case is tabled in June.

Velodrome visionaries have not been deterred from their plans to co-locate at Pettigrew Green Arena (PGA), despite high performance cycling lagging well behind softball, cricket and indoor sports facilities in the February 2015 Hawke’s Bay Regional Sports Facilities Plan.

Napier City Council (NCC) set aside $5 million in its 10-year plan, mostly from the council’s Parklands residential development.

Its optimistic view – subject to ‘partnership funding’ and a detailed business case – is

Page 38 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

for building consent in early 2017 and an operational facility in 2019.

In mid-December NCC approved $500,000 for a business plan for the multipurpose facility with a successful tender for design and build due late-February, to work thereafter with NCC’s project team refining the concept and costings.

Critics take potshots Old intercity rivalries quickly flared on learning NCC was about to invest serious money into the project, with Napier Mayor Bill Dalton and his CEO Wayne Jack in the firing line.

Letters to the editor, critical columnists and online rants called it “a vanity project”,

a “white elephant”, a “lame duck”, a “monument” and a “huge commercial gamble…(making) the multi-million losses on the MTG look like a huge success”.

Hawke’s Bay already has a Regional Sports Park; a 50 metre pool in Napier might better service the community. Why, they cried, does Napier insist on building new things when it doesn’t maintain what it already has ... and shouldn’t that money be going toward more urgent matters like coastal protection?

Dalton, whose pet project the velodrome appears to be, slammed those engaged in an “orchestrated campaign”, insisting investment by Napier ratepayers and others could bring millions into the region.

Of those submitting to the LTP, 78%

tim.co.nz

Pedal power Hawke’s Bay has a vibrant cycling culture centred on 25,000 riders, according to NCC; among the highest participation in the nation. We have the largest network of easy cycle paths in the country, host a range of cycling-related sport and recreational events, and encourage group fitness and sightseeing rides including visits to wineries, cafes and local attractions.

Painted green lanes on inner city roads, limestone tracks along stop banks and the coast, stretch into rural areas connecting villages, towns and the twin cities. A strong contingent of road racers can often be seen in tight packs with a rainbow display of helmet lights zipping around the region in the early evening.

Ivan Aplin estimates there are 5,000-6,000 people involved in regular recreational cycling; at a competitive level, Cycling HB has about 500 and 100 in Central Hawke’s Bay, the Ramblers Cycling Club have over 300, there’s an enthusiastic following for BMX, and the region has the largest mountain bike club in the country.

So what’s that got to do with a velodrome, which caters to a small group who take sports cycling to the extreme?

Sport Hawke’s Bay chief executive Mark Aspden compares the velodrome to a top grade athletics track. “A lot of people in the region run, but running around a track is probably only of interest to a few people …

I don’t think you could ever describe it as a need.”

And former PGA chief executive Brendon Rope says a velodrome requires consistent use, but only caters to a niche component of track cycling: “Why should we keep focusing on the cycling community?”

No free ride were in favour ... but if it didn’t stack up, the mayor said he’d abandon the idea.

Napier CEO Wayne Jack, slowly getting back on the cycle saddle after a serious bike crash in Taupō last November, was preparing a presentation to HBRC seeking $3 million for the velodrome vision when BayBuzz called.

“We don’t do projects in isolation, there are other facilities under development including aquatic and sports parks so they’re all getting equal weighting,” he insisted.

Jack is pulling out all stops, using Treasury’s ‘better business case’ template, to ensure ratepayers aren’t left with a deficit beyond reasonable public good.

He’s determined to learn from Napier’s own past failings and the mistakes of others; bringing in a designer early in the process will help the business case to progress to a more detailed design.

And why would people pay when they can ride around the Hawke’s Bay countryside most of the year. “It may get high use in winter but I don’t believe it will be sustainable, the council will have to keep putting money in.”

Besides, users need specialised bikes built for speed with fixed gears, high pressure tyres and no brakes to negotiate a 250 metre oval track with steep banks, tight corners and long straights.

The tender for ‘design services’ for recreational, club and competition cyclists with additional sporting facilities had critics claiming non-velodrome uses appeared like an afterthought.

It’s to be built to international standards with multi-use facilities in the centre “readily dismountable, coverable or removable” to comply with the strictest cycling requirements.

There will be warm up and warm down areas for cyclists, cycle racks, storage

lockers and sheds and permanent spectator seating for cycling events with “consideration” for other sports requirements.

Ideally there will be 3,000 square metre infield capacity for three international standard courts, with rubber or sprung wooden floors able to be used for basketball, volleyball, futsal, tennis and other events and a 300 metre indoor walking and running track.

An overarching design requirement is integration with the PGA facilities.

Wrestling with risk Just over a year ago, the Hawke’s Bay Velodrome Indicative Business Case prepared for NCC by the Davies Howard Group, concluded the proposal was “a high-risk investment by the Council”, urging a series of peer-reviewed studies ahead of a more robust business case.

The return on investment study showed cash leaking everywhere, with NCC picking up shortfalls on cost, revenue, maintenance and other contingencies.

Unless Brendon Rope sees improvement and broadened use, he’ll stand by his view

“We want to make sure it isn’t [a drain on ratepayers] but there will be some level of public good, and we’re trying to determine what that will be and what council is prepared to fund.” WAYNE JACK that we don’t need it, can’t afford it and have better ways to spend public money.

With a velodrome three hours up the road in Cambridge he’d rather see the money spent on other community assets, including more indoor public pool space, and multi-use courts.

The idea for a Hawke’s Bay velodrome is not new, having first been put to Napier in 2002 by the Ramblers, around the time a wider desire for a new North Island velodrome was first expressed.

Regional cycling interests began scoping out the possibilities, then Hastings District Council (HDC) embraced the proposal in 2006 as part of the Regional Sports Park.

When Cycling NZ decided to put $7 million toward a ‘home of cycling’ HDC found it was contending with eleven other cities.

The business ultimately went to Cambridge because of its proximity to Auckland, Hamilton and Karapiro, the home of high performance rowing. The fact many cyclists were competitive rowers apparently made logistical sense.

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NCC proposes the velodrome adjoin and complement Pettigrew Green Arena

Regional resource Now, switching gears, Cycling NZ is borrowing rowing’s regional hub model to develop more cyclists to national and international competition level, backing Napier for a second-tier velodrome allegedly supported by all regional cycling groups.

Ivan Aplin, immediate past president of Cycling NZ Road and Track, former Ramblers chairman and one-time Sport HB administrator, expects similar cycling excitement to Cambridge where the Waikato Championships ramped up the use of training facilities 300%.

Aplin relishes the idea of visiting cyclists training on our flat roads and the velodrome, the prospect of university-level performance testing and a fulltime cycling coach. “It could be just what the sport needs to flourish here.”

Choosing the Taradale-based PGA site over the original suggestion of Park Island

Page 40 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

tim.co.nz

delivers the perception of proximity to Hastings and EIT, and would maximize use of existing facilities including the gym, changing rooms, offices and meeting rooms.

Here the spin momentarily shifts from elite cycling to outcomes for the rest of the community. Wayne Jack is ecstatic at partnering with EIT and the AUT Millennium Institute’s sports scientists who specialise in sport and recreational programmes for youth and the elderly and targeting child obesity.

“The velodrome is only one small part” of the multi-use facility, the real purpose behind this investment he suggests is getting people more active.

Back to the velodrome. Sport NZ wants high performance programmes in the regions. “There’s a lot of emerging talent, a need for a good nutrition, training and goal setting so these athletes have the ethic and aptitude to progress to the next level.”

Cycling destination For Cycling NZ, having the velodrome based in Napier ticks all the boxes for mountain biking, BMX, road cycling and cycle tracks. “Hawke’s Bay is now a real cycling destination and it really does fit in nicely,” says Jack.

Opponents to the idea “aren’t well informed of the benefits.” Velodrome advocate Ivan Aplin also tries to debunk any suggestion of elitism; the Pain Train group in Cambridge ride around at a steady tempo in wet weather; schools use both Invercargill and Cambridge facilities in winter, older people meet to bike around the flat track.

Walking groups use the outside and do exercises and there’s a culture of meet and greet. “You could have a club night playing basketball and volleyball … In Cambridge the café which is part of the velodrome is always full.”

Aplin says it makes sense to add the multi-use velodrome to PGA. “You need a

Brendan Rope, former PGA chief executive

minimum of six courts to apply for national events …With a category three facility you can have an Oceania games or national event.”

It’s a big idea, but whether it’s a good idea remains to be seen, says Sport HB’s CEO Mark Aspden. “It’s clearly a lot of money and a significant-sized project for the region.”

On a positive note he suggests hiring a fleet of velodrome bikes could bring a novelty factor to the region, “allowing people to race around like an Olympic cyclist”, comparable perhaps to playing golf at Cape Kidnappers or visiting the wineries.

“It may get high use in winter but I don’t believe it will be sustainable, the council will have to keep putting money in.” BRENDAN ROPE

Sport HB is not taking sides, but like others it’s watching closely to ensure projected users, costs and revenue streams are based on actual case studies.

Crunching the numbers Velodrome plans were resurrected in early 2014 with Giblin Group commissioned

by NCC to figure out how it could be paid for.

In the mix were due diligence, costings, usage assumptions and other details from Hastings’ original velodrome proposal offered to NCC by the Regional Sports Park Trust.

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Invercargill velodrome

“A better approach would be to collect a regional rate of say $2 million a year that was put into a fund that accumulated for regional facilities in an agreed timeframe and locations.” MAYOR LAWRENCE YULE The August 2014 report was followed by a series of brainstorming workshops.

The soft argument is that it’s a good fit with Hawke’s Bay’s cycling culture, would increase year round involvement, particularly among young club cyclists, and bolster tourism and accommodation.

The hard argument is that benefits depend on a high use of all facilities and, unless there was serious rethinking, it was unlikely to pay its own way.

While development costs of $15 million were comparable to the Invercargill velodrome, it would need “confirmed and recommended income streams” of around $22.6 million to cover contingencies and shortfalls.

The ‘indicative’ business case for building and running it was contingent on NCC extracting $3 million from HBRC, at least $4 million from commercial sponsors; $1.7 million from community and philanthropic and gaming trusts; $150,000 from community sponsorship; $750,000 from central

Page 42 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

government and maybe $555,000 from sponsorship of community bikes.

The project missed “significant infrastructure” government funding, so revenue generation is more skewed toward corporate cash, but Jack remains confident he can coax something from Crown coffers.

Operating costs were estimated at $375,000 to $675,000 per year with revenues based on events, community use and membership forecast to grow from $460,000 in the first year to $600,000 from year six and beyond.

Overruns and shortfalls The report expressed considerable uncertainty around costs and potential revenue, urging further feasibility studies and audits and a guarantee of further funding if building costs were exceeded or there were shortfalls in annual operating and running costs.

Hastings mayor Lawrence Yule is uncomfortable the plans don’t sit well within the framework of councils working more

closely together, were developed before the amalgamation decision and are outside the Regional Sports Framework.

“A better approach would be to collect a regional rate of say $2 million a year that was put into a fund that accumulated for regional facilities in an agreed timeframe and locations.”

That, he says, is how regional roading priorities are funded. “In ten years this could accumulate $25 million and be drawn on to help fund … recreational infrastructure like more indoor court space, a new regional swimming pool … further development of the HB Showgrounds.”

Yule is currently advancing this concept with other regional leaders.

HDC paid a million dollars toward the Museum Theatre Gallery (MTG) in Napier and NCC committed equally toward the original HDC velodrome proposal, a pledge that died when that proposal failed.

Mayor Yule says Hastings honoured its commitment and will support the velodrome philosophically if the business case is viable. “I don’t think councillors would be prepared to make a further (financial) commitment.”

Funding gamble There are concerns a large lump from Lotto and other charity money could mean

there’s less in the pot for other sports. Sport HB’s Aspden says that argument could be used against any project.

“That’s a risk and sports are always competing for a finite amount of money, but I think a lot of funders are also enthusiastic to share it around not just pick on one project.”

Although NCC isn’t dissuaded by the interim report’s daunting detail, it would seem that before proceeding it must at least conduct a survey under the direction of local cycling clubs and Sport HB to assess the likely interest levels and patronage.

Wayne Jack insists all these points will be covered off in the half-million dollar business case, designed to ensure a robust return on investment ahead of a full design, which will be put before NCC in June.

“We want to make sure it isn’t [a drain on ratepayers] but there will be some level of public good, and we’re trying to determine what that will be and what council is prepared to fund.”

The 2,500 seat multi-purpose PGA facility has been struggling to find the right balance between commercial and community use.

Hastings and Napier council contributions have dropped from $175,000 annually to $55,000 and in the year ended June the $10 million complex was $86,000 in the red, despite claims that by 2023 it will have contributed around $45 million to the region.

The PGA recently got $135,981 from Lotto, but its fees for use are also presenting challenges. Basketball HB recently asked NCC to forgive a $22,500 debt for court hireage and was looking for grants to cover future use.

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Avoiding cannibalism Another challenge would be to ensure the multi-purpose velodrome, possibly integrated by a walkway to PGA and under common management, would increase patronage and revenues rather than cannibalising existing use.

Sport HB’s Aspden says Napier faces a ‘Catch 22’ situation: While the level of upfront spend might give more certainty, it might also be wasted if you have to pull the plug.

He says juggling use and management of any multi-use facility needs to be clearly understood. Although there are economies of scale there are also limitations, for example, court access when the velodrome is in use, or there’s a tournament.

Again Wayne Jack has a counter. Court sports could be played concurrently to “track cycling around the outside” with modular nets and equipment either coming up through the floor or down from the ceiling.

Aspden says there’s no limit to the things you could have in a new complex – conference facilities, commercial office space, all sorts of indoor sports …food, “each needing their own business case … so where do you draw the line?” he asks.

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Velodrome concerns When BayBuzz called Brendan Rope, he’d been tossing around ideas about the right mix of facilities with Wayne Jack on a commuter plane.

Rope, while skeptical, suggests cafes, sporting and fitness services, physiotherapists and others renting space might help sustainability.

“Unless there’s a lot of thought to get it just right, it’s always going to be an ongoing burden.”

He says three years after the original Pettigrew Green business case promised sustainability, “there was no correlation to how it was working and what the financials looked like”.

Rope says the “positive view of the world” adopted in this type of project needs tempering with reality. In the early days of the Kilburnie Sports facility, management told him they expected 100% occupancy evenings and weekends and 50% during weekdays. “In reality that doesn’t happen.”

Essential to the success of the velodrome vision would be shared management, a single operational structure and a design that’s “open to wide use,” possibly hosting large concerts, rather than simply placing another building adjacent to PGA.

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NCC CEO Wayne Jack pedaling hard for the velodrome

“Involve operators and people in the facilities and events industry, don’t just leave it to designers,” warns Rope.

Jack’s not averse to extended indoor concert and function capabilities. A category 2 velodrome should have 500-750 seats with additional seating possible in the centre. The Cambridge velodrome has hosted a thousand person dinner. “It all helps offset the costs”.

Issues like noise control and parking in the built-up residential area are still being considered.

The proposal for a regional velodrome in Hastings was thoroughly consulted on and drew very little criticism. So why the negative feedback now? Political rivalries, misunderstandings, misinformation, people from different sports codes fearing they may lose members or use of their facilities?

While the Wanganui velodrome is cited by critics as being unsustainable, Ivan Aplin reminds us it’s an older wooden facility.

Over the next four months a refreshed business case will attempt to rebut the

“A lot of people in the region run, but running around a track is probably only of interest to a few people … I don’t think you could ever describe it as a need.”

MARK ASPDEN, SPORT HB

Page 44 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

projected cost overruns and meagre returns on investment so glaringly obvious in the initial council report.

The velodrome may yet prove more than a vanity project, but there’s always the risk of spending so much on a business case you just keep going, bringing to mind projects such as art deco buses, a museum with inadequate storage, and possibly a humungous high country dam that critics love to hate.

Political Buzz

BY TOM BELFORD

Our councils are trying to get several big ticket spending projects over the finish line in the next two to three months – velodrome, Opera House strengthening, dam – plus a proposal before CHB ratepayers to spend $1.5 million per year on drinking water from the dam.

Page 46 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

All in all, over $150 million in ratepayers dollars is at stake, and conceivably more if any of these projects – if commenced – incur cost overruns or shortfalls in operating revenue.

Here’s the state of play as we enter March.

Napier velodrome Or is it the ‘Hawke’s Bay Multi-Sport Facility?’

In Velodrome … Spinning Wheels? (p3845), Keith Newman does a fine job laying out the substantive arguments surrounding what is clearly a Napier City Council-driven initiative. I’ll leave that ground to him.

What I find curious is the political marketing of the proposal.

NCC is making a determined effort to cast the project as a multi-sport indoor facility that, by the way, includes a cycling

track. A facility that, if co-located next to Pettigrew-Green Arena, would provide sufficient combined indoor court space to accommodate more local demand in sports like basketball, volleyball, futsal and tennis, as well as national-level competitions. $500,000 is earmarked to determine if that case holds merit – is the initial capital available to build the facility, and can revenue from usage and ongoing sponsorships be confidently expected to carry a reasonable percentage of its continuing operating expenses? So, the verdict is out for now, although earlier investigations have not been enthusiastic.

Meantime, NCC is pursuing the proposition with vigor, believing it has a mandate from its LTP consultations in 2015 to at least investigate the idea. That’s

fine, arguably, from the standpoint of Napier ratepayers.

However, a facility of this purpose and ambition is surely a regional proposition and – one would hope – a proposal that would enjoy support from throughout the region, including from the two councils – HBRC and HDC – with purses from which, possibly, to contribute.

The odds of that happening – certainly anytime soon – are slim. HDC is committed, firstly, to the ongoing viability of the Regional Sports Park, which has just announced a plan, supported by Sir Graeme Avery and EIT, to make that facility the hub of a regional high-performance sport system. It seems highly unlike that HDC will be looking to invest as well in a velodrome (by whatever name), to say nothing of its own Opera

Page 47 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

Strengthening Opera House comes first in HDC proposal

House/Civic Square needs. As Keith’s article reports: “Mayor Yule says Hastings … will support the velodrome philosophically if the business case is viable. ‘I don’t think councillors would be prepared to make a further (financial) commitment’.”

The NCC delegation has pitched the Regional Council for a $3 million investment in the project. My HBRC colleagues seem inclined to await the outcome of the NCC feasibility study and then, if that’s positive, decide whether to put the matter to public consultation during our budgeting process in 2017.

Any funding from HBRC would need to

Page 48 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

reflect some evidence that its region-wide constituency favoured this priority over many others – both sport and non-sport related. Moreover, a HBRC contribution would in effect represent a double-dip into the pocket of Napier ratepayers.

Which brings us to the issue of considering how regional infrastructure should be prioritized and funded. While the velodrome inquiry has been initiated because NCC has cash on hand and an avid cyclist in its CEO, Wayne Jack, this facility is not envisioned as a neighbourhood swimming pool or skate park – it’s presented and marketed as a regionally-significant

sport infrastructure investment.

And most sport leaders in Hawke’s Bay, acting through the Hawke’s Bay Sports Council, thought they had carefully, in unison, only last year fashioned an agreed upon regional sport infrastructure plan – the Hawke’s Bay Regional Sports Facilities Plan. That plan, identifying other priorities, did not originally include a velodrome; it eventually gave nodding approval to NCC’s ‘feasibility’ study after NCC lobbying.

During the presentation to HBRC, when pressed on the nature of the further consultation planned for the velodrome (assuming the feasibility analysis was

positive), NCC chief executive Wayne Jack described steps that would be taken vis-à-vis Napier residents and leaders of relevant sport codes; he had not anticipated that perhaps the matter needed to go before all ratepayers in the region whose pockets might be tapped. And I stress ratepayers, as one might expect sport leaders who might utilize a new facility, as opposed to pay for it, to be naturally enthusiastic.

It seems ‘regionalism’ has yet to take hold in Hawke’s Bay, even on matters like major costly infrastructure.

Opera House Moving to Hastings, the HDC has its own infrastructure challenges to deal with – starting with earthquake strengthening the Opera House. HDC originally asked a working party to consider a bigger picture – dealing not just with the Opera House, but looking at potential broader redevelopment of the Municipal Building and Civic Square.

‘Too big a bite for now’ was the political verdict. BayBuzz reported on the bigger vision in our Jan/Feb edition, Square Heart Needs Arrow. And material from that review can be found at: growingourculturalheart.co.nz So now attention is focused on the

HDC Consultation For more information: Myvoicemychoice.co.nz Facebook.com/VoiceChoice Growingourculturalheart.co.nz

as $7.3 million (to highest standard). But appropriate uses – and resulting revenues – are not yet satisfactorily identified, and so HDC is recommending against undertaking that engineering work at this time. Further options are expected later in 2016.

The Plaza is regarded as a complementary investment to the Opera House, with immediate benefits if it is converted into an all-weather space, while preserving options that could support potential future uses of the Municipal Building. So the Council recommends spending about $2 million on that project.

In the event that earthquake strengthening was ultimately justified for the Municipal Building, HDC has set a cap of $20 million for work on the three projects. Since all of those funds have been budgeted already for city centre improvements, there would be no additional rates impact if, after the current public consultation, the projects were greenlighted.

Of course, Hastings ratepayers might prefer to simply demolish and clear the site at a cost of $600,000, with additional annual savings in the $1.4 million range if the venue were not replaced. Costs are sketchier as to demolishing and then building a new fit-for-purpose facility … but the Council suggests at least $20 million would be required.

I’m impressed with the HDC’s public outreach on the set of decisions to be made.

Given the mailings, advertising, billboards and online promotion I’ve seen, it would be hard for any Hastings ratepayer to say they haven’t been given an informed opportunity to be heard. The consultation process began in mid-February and continues to March 21.

The Dam Opera House, the Plaza, and the Municipal Building. HDC has floated these preferred options in its public consultation: • Strengthening the Opera House to a level of 70-75% of the National Building Standards; • Permanently covering the Plaza area; • Continuing work to find a better use for the Municipal Building, with options eventually taken to the public (including earthquake strengthening).

HDC is legally required to bring its public buildings to a minimum of 34% of the National Building Standards. The estimated cost of meeting that standard for the Opera House is about $7 million. Council has recommended meeting a higher standard – at an estimated cost of $11 million – to provide an increased level of safety and to future-proof against possibly higher building standards later.

The cost of earthquake strengthening the Municipal Building could be as high

If HDC scores an ‘A’ for its consultation on the Opera House, and NCC an ‘Incomplete’ on the velodrome, the Regional Council deserves no more than an ‘F’ for its handling of key decisions on the proposed $600 million dam.

The pattern was set early on, with HBRC’s botching of consultation at the outset of the project – back in 2012-13 – leading to the local environmental community rejecting the process and its ultimate recommendations.

This has led to legal challenges that continue to this writing.

And once the pattern is set, it’s hard to break.

Case in point … HBRC’s decision, once again by a 5-4 Council vote, to commit an additional approximately $43 million to the scheme, on top of its planned capital investment of $80 million, bringing the total ratepayer exposure (at least the more obvious part) to $123 million.

[Parenthetically, I note that the figure $35 million was used as literally a back-of-theenvelope calculation on the day of the vote,

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Dam Forums Dates and locations: March 3, 6pm Hastings, Karamu High School March 10, 6pm Waipawa, CHB Municipal Theatre March 21, 6pm Wairoa, Gaiety Theatre March 24, 6pm Napier, Napier Boys High School The forums are intended to update the public on the current proposal’s status, present the reservations we four councillors have at this stage, and learn what concerns the public wishes to see addressed by HBRC during the final decision process.

The format will include brief presentations by the four councillors, followed by what we hope will be a robust and illuminating Q&A session. and was picked up by media, but the actual cost supplied by HBRIC is $43.1 million.]

In making the decision, Councillors Wilson, Scott, Dick, Pipe and Hewitt overruled the strenuous objection by Councillors Barker, Beaven, Graham and myself that no such financial commitment should be made without public consultation.

Councillor Barker asked in what other situation had HBRC ever committed to an activity with a $35 million price tag where it did not have to go to the community to explain its actions. The chief executive couldn’t think of any.

Various ‘witnesses to the crime’ have taken the matter to the Auditor General.

Some of the same councillors voting to proceed without consultation on what they thought to be a $35 million matter have led the charge demanding that full public consultation would be required on whether HBRC should invest $3 million in the velodrome, if that project gets off the launch pad; and similarly, that consultation would be required to spend up to $8 million drilling deep research bores into the Heretaunga aquifer, and conduct related science, to better understand its workings and capacity. Utter hypocrisy.

Given our Council’s disinterest in public consultation, Councillors Barker, Beaven, Graham and myself scheduled informal public forums in March in Hastings, Waipawa, Wairoa and Napier. See above for details – some may still be yet to occur as you read this.

But this episode has worse implications than ‘merely’ spending $43 million without public input. Consider the rationale proposed

Page 50 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

by HBRIC for the increased spend.

It turns out that a ‘high-level initial assessment’ by HBRC staff has identified a number of possible uses of ‘surplus water’ from the dam scheme. These include uses like increased flushing flows (over those provided for in the dam consent conditions) and increased flows into Lake Hatuma outside Waipukurau.

These might well be entirely appropriate uses for water stored behind a dam ratepayers would already have paid $80 million for. And no doubt we could come up with even more uses for more water stored by a dam. That’s precisely why Councillors Barker, Beavan, Graham and myself proposed considering the feasibility of a smaller ‘augmentation dam’ back in early 2014 … an idea HBRC/HBRIC treated as ridiculous and refused to explore.

Oh yeah, the environment The point is that a full array of environmental benefits achievable from water storage and increased water flows and diversions should have been identified and built into any water storage scheme contemplated by HBRC from the outset.

Those should have been handed to HBRIC as mandatories and given equal ranking to any stipulated rate of return on financial investment. If both conditions were attainable with a single dam on the Makaroro River, then we might have had a proposition worth pursuing.

Instead, as it stands in HBRIC’s original scheme, the Tukituki was allocated chump change – four 1 million m3 flushing flows per year … of unproven effectiveness. Whoopee.

So now, late in the game, struggling to sell the required threshold of water to actual farmers, HBRIC has come up with other gambits, like asking HBRC (you, the ratepayer) to buy 4 million cubic metres of water for 25 years … on the same ‘use it or lose it’ basis as the farmers.

And for that additional $43 million payment, which could make HBRC the biggest purchaser of water from the scheme, we would finally receive some water to use for environmental benefit from a dam ratepayers will have already contributed $80 million to.

HBRIC treats this as an environmental favour. Those of us opposing it see it as merely a back door financial payment – not an option, a ratepayer obligation – that helps HBRIC meet the revenue goals it needs to satisfy other potential investors in the scheme. As I termed it at the time, an HBRIC bid for financial security masquerading as an environmental proposition.

This episode aside, pursuit of the dam continues to cost about $250,000 per month, excluding HBRIC chief executive Andrew Newman’s salary. No water sales have been reported since December, although HBRIC says it’s working on other priorities and the contracting pace will quicken in March/April.

Adrienne Pierce declares for mayor Among the other priorities has been finding an institutional investor, a process that should have been completed and announced by the time you read this. That should enable HBRIC to serve up a new business case for the dam, which must be reviewed for HBRC by Deloitte’s.

Which means attention must re-focus on selling the water user contracts required as a condition of start-up, and then assessing the future up-take scenarios that underpin all revenue forecasting for the scheme.

As for potential water buyers, first in line (after HBRC itself!) might be the CHB District Council, which has indicated it wishes to purchase 1.5 million liters per year for municipal water use, initially costing in the neighborhood of $350,000 (but indexed to rise with inflation).

I suspect that many CHB ratepayers might imagine better uses of that money – including not spending it at all – than paying for the drinking water they now get for free. How about paying for sewage treatment plants that work? The new scheme isn’t getting the job done, and CHBDC is violating quality standards, still polluting a river into which dam-induced farming intensification would add further nutrients.

In any event, much to Mayor Peter Butler’s dismay, CHBDC will need to consult with the public if it wishes to sign a 35-year water purchase deal.

So, all in, Hawke’s Bay ratepayers are facing possibly over $150 million in spending decisions – apart from the ‘normal’ council spends – over the next 3-4 months. It’s time to hang on to your wallets. It’s time to demand full financial transparency and genuine public engagement by our councils.

And it’s time to pay attention to the voting behavior of your councillors. It probably hasn’t escaped you that 2016 is a local body election year.

We were reminded of that by the early declaration by councillor Adrienne Pierce of her candidacy for mayor of Hastings.

The decision most are awaiting is that of mayor Lawrence Yule, who has promised to announce his future political plans by April.

Then the real fun will get underway.

Stay tuned!

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EDUCATION REVIEW

Paul Paynter, failure advocate

Failure … we need more of it!

BY PAUL PAYNTER

Modern New Zealand seems proud of the inclusive society we’ve created. But we’re often not as inclusive as we try to make out, particularly with regard to traditional stereotypes.

Society seems to favour men who are sensitive, fairly passive and do 50% of the household chores. We want women to be perfect mothers, but also to vigorously pursue fulfilling careers in order to fund the second BMW. If you stray too far from this, fairly androgynous middle ground, you can sense the silent, smiling tut-tut of those who cross your path.

The truth is that people exist on the full spectrum, from Tinkerbelle to Tarzan. If you’re a woman that wants to have five children, be a stay-at-home mum, make jam and perfect cupcakes – go for it. I bet you’ll be a superb mother and your effort to actually bring decent jam back into this world is God’s work. But some of these mums tell me society undervalues this choice.

Page 52 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

Even more unacceptable is Tarzan, whose fearless, all-conquering talents may see him on the world cage fighting circuit. The death-or-glory mindset is an almost uniquely male domain.

Left exclusively to women, when do you think powered flight would have been discovered? Only a young male mind, clouded by too much testosterone and an irrational appetite for risk, would tack together some balsa wood and canvas, strap on an engine and say ‘let’s try and get this thing off the ground!’ It’s a bloody stupid idea, as every female mind would have immediately concluded.

Tarzan can be an idiot with no landing plan, but we need some of that. The female perspective has become more dominant because it seems to make more sense. But the

madness of young men is a wonderful thing and greatly underrated.

Our parenting and educational systems have fallen into line with these moderate expectations. They seem to want to eliminate danger and failure, but these things can be incredibly helpful to our personal development.

Four times Olympic gold medallist Ian Ferguson is particularly frustrated with this situation. “They can learn to master dangerous situations, but they need to be exposed to danger in the first place to learn that lesson.”

Ferguson’s argument is that if you repeatedly expose kids to the natural ‘fight or flight’ reaction, they’ll learn to engage their brains at this time, to better perceive and manage risk.

He concedes “… there is a possibility there will be injuries or lives lost, but I know it’s not as many as will be lost to suicide or car crashes as a result of people not being taught what danger is and how to handle it.”

T

he same principles apply to academic aspects of education. Prof. Jacqueline Rowarth, from the University of Waikato wrote a piece entitled Raising Kids With Grit, Not High Test Scores, a title which perfectly summarises her position. Rowarth points out that NCEA is a system that allows kids to avoid parts of a course they didn’t like or assessments they didn’t think they’d do well in. She points out that what defines success in the workforce is often the ability to overcome adversity, not avoid it.

EDUCATION REVIEW You might be able to eliminate a good deal of failure from secondary school, but you won’t find such wiggle room in the workforce.

There is a lot of pressure out there and a lot of failure. If you become, say, a courier driver, there will be no ‘achieved’ grade offered to you. In the world of big data they’ll have your van wired up and big brother will be watching you. They’ll know how many deliveries you make, how long you stop at each location, how fast you drive, how fuel efficient you are. You’ll be benchmarked against the other drivers and told exactly how you rate and what performance is expected of you.

NCEA replaced the old system of School Certificate and University Entrance. These qualifications were seen as stigmatising students who failed. Either that was the end of their time at school or they had to face the grim prospect of repeating exactly the same courses while their peers advanced. It seems that NCEA was put in place to try, as far as reasonably possible, to eliminate failure.

The identification of the problem may have been sound, but the solution was deficient.

For many students it just kicks the can down the road so that they are forced to confront failure at university or in the workplace.

This is exactly the opposite of what we should be doing. Failure is the best teacher and what we need is more of it, earlier.

“Difficulty is what wakes up the genius,” says risk guru, Professor Nassim Taleb. Taleb may have the solution to our educational problems. He suggests that we imitate nature when designing systems. There is a lot of failure and dysfunction in nature, but each individual failure is inconsequential and doesn’t affect the overall health of the system. It’s like a toddler learning to walk; they fall over a lot but just get back up and forget about it.

The maxim that came out of Silicon Valley is ‘fail fast, fail cheap’. That’s the way education should be. We need our kids to experience

many relatively inconsequential failures so they see failure as no big deal. Creating room for inconsequential failure is the best way of removing the stigma of failure. The fear of failure is paralysing and so many of our best and brightest choose very safe careers where they will never be found out.

I

n many other parts of society, failure is similarly paralysing. If you get it wrong in politics, investment or banking, you’ll be castigated and this leads people to extreme conservatism and mediocrity. Putting in place new systems risks getting it wrong and politicians don’t like that prospect. Our edu-

“You might be able to eliminate a good deal of failure from secondary school, but you won’t find such wiggle room in the workforce.

There is a lot of pressure out there and a lot of failure.” cation system is the perfect place to encourage people to see change and potential failure more positively. I don’t know whether charter schools are a good idea or a bad idea – but at least it’s an idea!

We need a society and an education system that embraces failure as the positive learning experience it can be. Intellectual Ventures is an innovative company near Seattle which reported a novel approach to failure. When they pulled the pin on a major project they had a wake – putting on some cake and drinks to celebrate the occasion. That’s the spirit.

Many of the most successful entrepreneurs are academic failures. Steve Jobs, Richard Branson and Henry Ford were all dyslexic.

People with learning disorders are grossly overrepresented in the ranks of successful businessmen. The theory is that the endless failure they experienced at school made them indifferent to failure. The business risks that would have most of us terrified were no big deal in their eyes. Sadly those with dyslexia are also overrepresented in prison – a wall of failure can also destroy you.

Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling is another who credits failure for her success. She says how liberating she found it to be a solo mum and beneficiary and to have the weight of expectation removed from her. There was only one thing she could afford to do and felt passionate about doing – writing. Now, I’m not suggesting we expose our kids to extreme failure, but it’s important for everyone to know that whatever happens, there is a potential way back. Failure is about developing the belief and will to pick yourself up and carry on.

In an educational system, the important thing to get right is the scale of the failure you expose kids to. What kids need are many small, relatively inconsequential failures – ‘successful failures’ they can recover from and embrace as part of the learning experience.

Cataclysmic failure is a bad idea for young, impressionable minds, but no failure at all sets them up for a heavy fall down the track.

Many forecasters suggest that future environment our children are likely to experience will be more volatile and complex than we adults have had to cope with. Similarly, they’ll likely have more employers and more radical changes in career paths. Our world is more stressful than that of our parents, and our children will see this trend continue.

To prosper in such a world will require high levels of resilience. It’s not a world that will hand out ‘participation trophies’.

We need to rethink our education system if we are to adequately equip our children for the future.

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EDUCATION REVIEW

To Improve Education, Improve Parenting!

BY MICHAEL SISAM, PRINCIPAL, HERETAUNGA INTERMEDIATE

Since the start of this millennium, also the duration of my teaching career, there have been many changes in New Zealand education. Two changes with a significant impact on students, staff, and education are the New Zealand Curriculum and National Standards.

The New Zealand Curriculum document guides teachers in their practice in the differing subject areas that need to be taught.

It also prescribes the values of education – the vision of what we want our students to be when they leave school, and the key competencies – key attributes of citizens who are going to contribute positively to society, to be sought. The Curriculum was seen as a world first.

I’ve heard a number of professors, lecturers, and passionate educationalists from around the world speak about our great curriculum. They use phrases like: “provides flexibility for teachers to cater for student needs”, “gives schools control to design the curriculum for their community”, “student focused”, and “promotes teacher reflection to improve outcomes”. Schools around the country embraced this change and took charge to focus on the students in front of them on a daily basis.

Photo by Sarah Cates

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The other significant change is the introduction of National Standards. Now that a lot of the dust has settled, you will find the majority of schools using the National Standards as one of the many tools they use to make judgments when assessing student achievement.

The two main issues that most educators have with the National Standards is how they were introduced, and their inability to show the progress students can make within the four-point scale on offer. Great for parents to know where their child is at in comparison to a set of norms. However, once a child is well below a standard, they can consistently remain well below the standard for their entire schooling, even though they have made substantial progress in their learning. Pretty disheartening for the child, and their family.

I am yet to meet a teacher that does not care for all the children in his or her classroom. I know they care about their

students because they are beating the caretaker to the school gate, and leaving well after the caretaker has left. I know teachers are working hard to provide the best for their students when I receive emails well into the evening and throughout weekends and holidays sharing learning opportunities for students, and student achievements. I know the teachers are working hard to improve learning when they give up weekends and ‘holidays’ to travel to courses to get ideas and strategies to take back to their students. I know teachers care when I see them meeting with parents, caregivers, and many outside agencies to get an understanding on how to cater for the needs of the child.

And I know all teachers take an enormous amount of pride in seeing students achieve in their learning, and take it to heart when they are not.

When all this is said and done, the bottom line is that at the chalkface, soon to be screenface, schools are providing the best learning programmes they can with the tools and finances available. They hold high expectations for their students to leave school and contribute positively in society.

S

till, there are those that feel that teachers and educators are not doing enough. But I am convinced the issue is not what is happening in schools, it is what is happening outside of schools, and the pressures placed on schools to fix what society unfortunately accepts. We need to look at what is happening closer to home, or perhaps what is not happening in the home.

Go for a drive round Hawke’s Bay suburbs, and not just the lower socioeconomic areas. Go for a walk in the local parks, and swimming pools. Go to the supermarket. Watch and listen. You will see young children between the ages of three and 15 without parent supervision wandering the streets, swearing, left alone at the pool for the attendant to rescue them, and maybe even committing crimes.

After listening to Nathan Mikare-Wallis, a primary and early childhood teacher, who has studied brain development extensively, I believe parenting and lack thereof is the issue.

The first three years in a child’s development are the most important in making positive behavioural, social, emotional, and language connections in the brain. The following three years in a child’s life are the next most important in the brain’s development through the reinforcement of the connections it is making from the stimuli around them. What families do in those first six years of a child’s life will determine how well they achieve at school, and ultimately in society.

One day over the summer I was walking back from the park with my own children and their neighbourhood friends when I heard a father requesting his three-year-old children to stop at the intersection. What

EDUCATION REVIEW drew my attention was not the volume of his voice, not his message about child safety, but the constant use of ‘fuck’ when speaking to his children. I have lost count the amount of times I have heard parents swearing at their children to correct behaviour.

You could walk into most classrooms round the country and ask students, who plays Call of Duty (R16), who has watched Dirty Grandpa (R16), who has a TV, DVD, or computer in their room, and a number of hands will go up. There is a reason that these items have a rating, because the content is not suitable in the brain development of people under the ages it is restricted.

I

t is not the child’s fault if they are exposed to age restricted media, or free license to play computer games, surf the net, or be on Facebook (especially if they are under the age of 13). It is not the teachers’ job to monitor this, although teachers have to attempt to correct the connections that have already been instilled in the brain through repeated exposure. It is the parents’ responsibility to provide the positive stimuli that make the positive connections in their child’s brain. This includes how to speak with people, how to express emotions, how to play with others, as well as continuing the passion to learn and inquire into the world around them that all humans are born with, and what sets us apart from all other species.

New Zealand educators are working hard to ensure the students they are teaching today will be positively leading the world tomorrow.

However, this is a difficult task when too many students are coming to school not knowing their colours, left from right, letter sounds, how to spell or write their name. Too many students are coming with emotional and social issues due to being left to entertain themselves in front of social media. Far too many young children are coming to school with learning and behaviour difficulties

“What families do in those first six years of a child’s life will determine how well they achieve at school ...” because their parents have not taken the appropriate care to nurture their child from the day of conception (fetal alcohol).

Educators can feel proud of the work they are doing under the circumstances they have to do it.

What does need to change is the focus on parenting, and the expectations placed on parents to be accountable in providing an environment rich in love, and learning opportunities, within safe risk-taking boundaries.

Preparing for Future Jobs

BY ANNA LORCK, LABOUR PARTY SPOKESPERSON Education prepares us for tomorrow, today.

And when it comes to being ahead of our time, it appears we have a lot to learn from our younger generation, who are far better at grasping this new way of learning and living with technology.

New Zealand’s education model has always been to expand the growing minds of our nation. A country delivering a wide curriculum that teaches us the right skills and knowledge we need so we have a solid foundation to build our dreams on and achieve lifetime success.

But the challenge, as always, is ensuring we are learning the right skills for what the future will bring. Today, more than ever we are living in a fast paced and changing world through the advances in technology and globalisation. Where our children – so very adept with technolgy and using it as a tool to gaining and absorbing information – are getting ahead of us. Cont on p56

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Page 55 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

EDUCATION REVIEW

Photo by Sarah Cates

Steiner Schools …

No ‘Normal’

BY JESSICA SOUTAR BARRON

But what we know, that our children don’t yet, is that as technolgy continues to rapidly change, so will the jobs and careers of the future.

The working world we were prepared and educated for is no longer. Nowhere is this more evident than in Hawke’s Bay, where once you could leave school and easily get a job with no formal qualification or training.

The days when a school certificate was all you needed to get a job are gone; now it is a university degree or a trade qualification. And getting a post-school education is becoming so expensive that many people either don’t, or they get saddled with crippling debt limiting their ability to do things like buy a first home.

Hawke’s Bay is a region where about a third of our working age population has no qualification post secondary school, according to Census statistics. And as our job market changes, the skills they have learned on the job won’t be required. More people in their 40s, 50s and 60s are and will find themselves redundant, and needing to retrain and gain new skills, to get a wellpaid job and support their family.

So this is why we must embrace the idea of having the most qualified and most skill savvy workforce gearing for the future of work.

Where we have a Government committed to investing and supporting people so they are equipped with real skills and real knowledge to make a difference.

And to do this we need to also do away with all of those low quality courses that will never get people into a job.

I look back on Hawke’s Bay’s culture of a strong seasonal workforce, reliant on the mix of work from the primary industry. They were able to readily adapt, budget and live well by adjusting to the work as it came on and went. But over the past two decades, as freezing works and factories have closed much of this work dried up for our strong seasonal workforce, and the region’s unemployment has never recovered.

Yes, as a region, we are on the cusp of

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growing great things, yielding greater economic activity and business growth on the back of the horticultural and food production sector, where many new job opportunities will be ripe for the taking.

The key will be creating the right learning environment that supports more businesses to take on apprenticeships and encourage those who have no qualifications to get new skills.

Do this and we can move more local people into better paying jobs, reducing inequality.

Instead of being at the bottom of the heap for unemployment, low skills and low household incomes, we can become the leading region in New Zealand.

I listen to people talk with a very narrow mindset that a job picking fruit is the answer to getting people off the dole and sorting out unemployment in Hawke’s Bay. Our region needs a Government that is fully committed to making sure we get every apple picked, instead of leaving $25 million worth of fruit on the trees, which happened last season. The RSE scheme, which Labour introduced and I strongly support, is critical to the industry’s survival and the growth of Hawke’s Bay. Nevertheless, we should not be focusing on seasonal jobs for our unemployed; instead we need a far more progressive approach to upskilling and educating our current and future workforce. By having a Government that is prepared to get stuck in and invest in free post-school education we will see a far more workable partnership with industry and business.

And herein lies the paradox – will educating for the future of work end up taking us back in time? Where the workplace becomes again a classroom, and students are actively recruited straight from secondary school and learn on the job and gain qualifications, rather than having such a strong focus on going to university? We should take the best of what we’ve learned from the past to help us prepare and better educate for tomorrow.

In considering my children’s education, perhaps I should have carried out an in-depth analysis of all the schooling options available to them in my area, read endless ERO reports, done school visits, studied results tables, googled principals on Rate My Teacher, snuck in at lunch time to sample various canteens’ fare. But I didn’t.

I knew from before my children’s birth that I wanted them to have what I had: a safe, fun, full education, and as mine was spent at a Steiner school, it was natural for me to find the same for them.

We came to Hawke’s Bay so our kids could attend Taikura Steiner School in Hastings.

Rather than moving here and finding a school to fit, we found the school, then shoe-horned ourselves into the community.

My appreciation of what we have in our school has formed over the seven years we’ve been part of it. As I’ve watched the wealth of experience my children get from Taikura, my wonderment of the school has grown. And from an intellectual perspective I can see more and more pros to the school and fewer reasons to send my brood elsewhere.

Far be it from me to convince another to take my road, and as I’ve never attended a state school, or had much experience within one, I can’t offer a comparison. I can, though, give you my view on what our school offers.

Imagine that the story of any school includes three strands: there’s the day-to-day activity, the pedagogical approach (aka the philosophy), and the future picture of how each child from that school goes out into the world as a fully fledged member of society.

Day-to-day our Steiner school behaves like any other, from about morning tea onwards. There’s a combination of maths, English, reading, PE, Maori, Spanish, tech, music, gardening etcetera, depending on which year level we’re talking about. There’s

EDUCATION REVIEW a few subjects you won’t find in another type of school – handwork, eurythmy and formdrawing – but on the whole it’s similar.

First up in the morning each class has Main Lesson, which provides an umbrella to the rest of the curriculum. Main Lesson occupies 90 minutes each morning and concentrates on a specific subject in fourweek blocks. Depending on the age and stage of the child this might be building, or Man and animal, fractions, the Ancient Greeks, or light, plants, Canterbury Tales or Homer’s Odyssey. It’s a varied range of subject matter across all disciplines.

These blocks then provide a scaffold for the other lessons to hang off. It makes for a full and satisfying immersion into a subject. It also means a subject is explored in practical, intellectual, artistic and physical ways, giving kids of all temperaments and inclinations a ‘way in’. Some learn through doing and some read their way into knowledge, with a whole spectrum in between.

The Main Lesson vehicle gives rich fodder for practicing writing, number skills, reading, orating, researching, working in teams, and individually. For my kids it gives them time to stretch out into a subject, find its relationship to them as a person, play with it, explore it fully: how it links to other subjects and other things they’ve learnt.

Some people describe a Steiner education as ‘slow’. Our children move from

From left: Willoughby (7), Baxter (12) and Isabella (11) with mum Jess kindergarten into the main school in their seventh year so, yes, we ‘start them later’ than other schools. But I believe it’s more that we put emphasis on the building blocks that make for a strong foundation on which to place layers of learning over many years. We put time and energy into providing our kids with the tools, skills and resilience to seek the knowledge they want from the world throughout their lives.

In a micro-view that means we put

weight on how they hold a pencil, how they form sounds, how they make marks on the page, how they move their bodies, how they interact with others, how they sit still and listen. We take our time to ensure those foundations are rock solid before we heap facts and figures on top. Balance, coordination, team work, critical thinking, speech, movement, fine motor skills are all vital for a positive learning journey, so we spend time honing these. Cont on p58

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Page 57 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

EDUCATION REVIEW Every child reaches their individual milestones at a different pace; there’s no ‘normal’, there’s no ‘standard’. As a parent this means I have to look at what my child brings without measuring them against others.

Sometimes that’s challenging because we want to know how high up the ‘reading tree’ our particular kid is, but I do believe that’s not useful to the child. Pushing them to be their best self is a far better use of energy.

Philosophically, a Steiner school receives each child as an individual for the gifts they bring with them into the world. A class teacher will know each child thoroughly – often their journey together lasts from Year 2 to Year 8. Alongside that, every child has a group of teachers who’ve known them since they were very young, who know their family, their siblings and parents, their story. So there is a community understanding and interest in each child’s strengths and weaknesses that forms a robust picture built over many years.

It means teachers can navigate the highs and lows alongside parents with a knowledge of what is ‘normal’, or not, for that child.

The Steiner pedagogy meets the child at their particular stage. There’s acknowledgement and respect of times in a child’s development where changes take place.

I’m not talking solely of ‘pus and pubes’, but also of the nine-year-old crisis of withdrawal into one’s self or the golden year of eleven where a child is still innocent enough to be lovely but able enough to be interesting! This kind of conversation within our community helps me be a better parent as well as enabling our teachers to do a better job for our kids.

Looking at the future picture of a Steiner child, I see a confident individual who has been given the opportunity to mature into themselves at their own pace. I see someone with empathy, resilience, inner strength, some humbleness about their own abilities, with knowledge but knowing there is still much to learn. I see a person who can work with others across a range of backgrounds and disciplines because they are confident of their own place in the world. Someone whose head is not full of answers, but full of questions.

The working world needs people with skills in creative thinking who have initiative and ingenuity – problem solvers and team players – a Steiner school gives its students all this.

In a broader sense, every pocket of our world needs people who think sideways, who have empathy, who can connect with others, who can present their own stories and stand up for what they believe.

For my kids, I hope their schooling will equip them to live lives that are full, to say ‘Yes’ to opportunities, to navigate challenges, to participate completely in whatever comes along, to be involved in work that is rewarding, stimulating and useful. My hope for them is that they will grow to nourish and nurture those around them in the way they were nourished and nurtured as children.

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tim.co.nz

Where To, EIT?

BY MARK OLDERSHAW DEPUTY CHIEF EXECUTIVE EIT Should EIT be focusing solely on training students for jobs, or does Hawke’s Bay’s leading tertiary educator have wider responsibilities to this region’s diverse communities?

I believe the institute’s role rightly encompasses both these aspects, but then how does that play out in the sector’s tough financial operating environment?

Our overarching obligation is to serve the needs of our communities. At one level, the institute considers this in tailoring programmes attuned to the needs of industries and businesses in the Hawke’s Bay and Tairāwhiti regions.

Over the years, that has seen offerings grow to span the qualification levels framework, from Level 1 foundation programmes through to a wide range of diplomas, bachelor and master’s degrees and postgraduate qualifications.

In a catchment that includes areas of significant social and economic deprivation, however, 76% of the institute’s students fall within one of the Government’s “priority learner groups” – one of the highest percentages of priority learner participation within New Zealand’s ITP (institutes of technology and polytechnics) sector.

That makes it all the more important for EIT to encourage people to take those first steps onto the tertiary education ladder. Their learning benefits them, whānau and their

communities and will hopefully lead them into jobs. And for a significant percentage, it sees them progressing to more challenging learning opportunities.

Attracting foundation learners calls for grassroots contact with local communities and EIT Hawke’s Bay’s learning centres are at the forefront of this dynamic. Based in Waipukurau, Hastings, Maraenui and Wairoa, they are a first leg up for many learners who have not been connected to the formal education system for much of their lives.

The regional centre coordinators listen to what learners, would-be learners and local businesses and industries have to say. Suggestions are passed up the chain to Jan Mogford, who manages the learning centres, and so EIT listens and where it can it responds.

The centres’ adult education courses give people an opportunity to acquire new skills and to progress, if they choose, onto a formal programme. These ‘tasters’ provide handson applied learning based on specific tasks – building a pizza oven, for instance, using a computer or growing healthy kai.

It brings people into the centres and they then see what they can do. It breaks down the barrier between EIT and people in our communities. They see that a tertiary educator is not so scary after all.

All the programmes have embedded numeracy and literacy and they can lead to jobs. As an example of that, health disability and age support programmes offered at the Central Hawke’s Bay and Wairoa learning centres achieve a high success rate in channelling people into employment.

In a year when we didn’t run the programme in Central Hawke’s Bay, there was then a shortage of people to help with the disabled.

EIT’s regional centres also deliver a

EIT student Janice Gordon learns horticulture ... hands-on Ministry of Social Development contract training people for work. Learners complete unit standards and acquire job interview skills and write their own CVs. They also gain work experience.

The ultimate goal is to get them into permanent full-time employment, particularly in horticulture, where there are jobs. While the Ministry sets high targets, there are some great success stories out there.

Sometimes it’s the communities that take the initiative. Last year, the Camberley Community Centre approached EIT seeking help with teaching computing lessons. That move resulted in the delivery of a formal computing programme, and the relationship has developed to include an EIT carpentry programme, delivered from the centre since October.

This semester, the institute is running horticulture programmes at all its centres.

Learners look after community gardens. In Maraenui, that’s at the local Pukemokimoki Marae, Central Hawke’s Bay and Wairoa base theirs at their learning centres, and in Hastings it’s at Aunty’s Garden on Waipatu Marae.

They can take the produce they’ve grown home. It’s teaching them about providing for whānau and passing on those skills so even those on low incomes can eat well.

All this comes at a cost to EIT, but I’m convinced that delivering on social good also makes sound financial sense and Mogford agrees with me on this. As she points

out, we make a contribution with diplomas, degrees and postgraduate qualifications, but we also make a difference at the other end of the scale too.

An amazing number of learners have upskilled at the learning centres and these people gain in confidence working alongside others they know in their own neighbourhoods. They then take their skills back into their communities and whānau. Whether they go into paid employment or not, they will be better at using a computer or have learnt how to build a fence or a shed. They will have acquired a broad range of skills.

While EIT encompasses a vast territory and covers a lot of educational bases, it ranks among New Zealand’s leading ITPs. We feel we do a very good job as a tertiary educator, and that’s confirmed by the Tertiary Education Commission, which

EDUCATION REVIEW

ranks us among New Zealand’s top three performing ITPs. We are very focused on preparing students for available real world jobs, both here in Hawke’s Bay and also within New Zealand and overseas.

Currently there are 3,500 students enrolled at EIT and by the end of the year that will be more like 8,000.

But we’ve always been very strong too around community good. We’ve probably pushed that more than a lot of other polytechnics, many of which have closed their regional learning centres. That’s meant some diligent work to ensure ours remain cost efficient and continue delivering appropriate programmes.

In a region which has below national average indicators for employment and incomes, I don’t see EIT’s educational emphasis changing any time soon.

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EDUCATION REVIEW

Deputy Head Girl Gabrielle Palmer, left; Head Girl Emma Cameron, right.

Photo by Sarah Cates

Improving student retention will transform Hawke’s Bay

BY GERALDINE TRAVERS, PRINCIPAL, HASTINGS GIRLS’ HIGH

If you ask me what the most important skill that students require for the 21st century I will answer, cultural competence.

What I mean by that is the ability to relate to people regardless of who they are and where they come from. When I think of the young people being educated in Hawke’s Bay, I am confident that most of our young people have the opportunity to develop these essential skills within the context of our schools.

In my school, Hastings Girls’ High, our students come from a complete cross-section of society and represent a wide range of ethnicities and life experiences, all melding together in a happy learning community.

Our students in Hawke’s Bay seem generally free from the extreme stresses and pressures that young people in larger population areas struggle with. This area is becoming increasingly attractive to international students as well, and they marvel at the relative simplicity of our students’ lives.

Families in Hawke’s Bay have a choice from a large number of secondary schools and I am confident that there is a place for everybody.

You would normally have to be in a very large population area to have the number of choices that families have here, and of course that is because in Hawke’s Bay education is a

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business … with the boarding schools serving a far larger area than just this province.

I believe that the competitive education market here is very much to the advantage of students and their families as we all strive hard to ensure that we are doing the very best by our students. None of our schools are complacent or resting on their laurels, as we are all very aware of the scrutiny that we are under and woe betide any school that allows their standards to slip. Not for us the comfort of being the only school in town with a largely captive audience!

In terms of NCEA pass rates, Hawke’s Bay punches well above its weight and I know that our schools have adopted many innovative practices to ensure the best possible outcomes for the young people in our care. Many schools have relationships with a variety of tertiary providers to make sure that young people remain interested, focused and engaged.

This is where NCEA has helped hugely, because many of the activities that students have engaged in for pleasure in the past they can now gain credit for. Principals not

just in Hawke’s Bay but in the rest of the country walk a tight rope with regard to their school’s administration of NCEA. While it is desirable to make NCEA as accessible as possible, this cannot be at the expense of the credibility of the qualification. There is a real tension here between two conflicting values.

One of the most pleasing changes that we have experienced in recent years is increased student retention. In days gone by, as students passed their 16th birthday there was a gradual attrition until Year 13 consisted of just those students who were University bound. That is no longer the case, as most students on entry plan to do the full five years. Research proves conclusively that every extra day of secondary schooling produces better life outcomes.

As principal of a girls’ school I am particularly conscious that I am educating the future mothers of the nation, meaning that I am potentially educating the following generation. The challenge for us is the provision of relevant courses for those students who have no intention of ever attending university. University is not for everyone and many students make the pragmatic choice that the time required to pay back a substantial student loan would impact on everything from future travel plans, home ownership and even parenthood.

I am thoroughly committed to NCEA because of the flexibility it gives schools and students and I believe that it is totally responsible for the increasing retention of students in schools, because almost all students are able to achieve some measure of success. In the past, our qualification system told 50% of our students that they were failures at age 16. I love the confidence that our students gain from success.

Obviously future employers need the skills to differentiate between one NCEA and another. It is a matter of looking at the individual standards studied and the quality of the results – be they at achieved level or endorsed with merit or excellence.

I would also really like people to understand that University Entrance does not mean what it did when most of our current parents went to school. Many students choose only to engage with UE if university is where they see themselves. Not all subjects are on the approved list, which does not mean they are any less relevant for some students. NCEA Level Three needs to be recognised as a worthwhile qualification in its own right.

In conclusion, I feel that Hawke’s Bay should be really proud of the fine young people who regularly emerge from our educational institutions. We have always produced high fliers, but what is particularly creditable now is the incremental societal change that is occurring through longer and greater engagement in post-compulsory education by the masses, which will transform our beautiful province.

EDUCATION REVIEW

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CULTURE and LIFESTYLE

Calvin Corner, NYDS alumnus

Page 62 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

CULTURE and LIFESTYLE

Lighting a Fire

BY JESS SOUTAR BARRON

I'm at the opera. It's a schools performance with 300+ teenagers swarming through the foyer. There's a huddle of them sitting on the steps; a cross-section of the Hawke's Bay teen community with a multitude of uniforms and a couple in mufti. There's a confidence about this particular group, they are loud, proud, heads up, shoulders back, smiles. They're relaxed around each other, like they belong. A father I'm with looks at me knowingly and says "NYDS kids. One big family."

NYDS kids: the young students of the National Youth Drama School, an annual performing arts intensive based in Hawke's Bay but with students coming from as far away as the UK. For parents looking for something more for their teens beyond sport and qualifications, NYDS is a lifeline. For the kids themselves it introduces them to 'their people', and to a world of not just performance, but tech skills, writing, directing and production.

Students What do we want for our young people?

Resilience, independence, a sense of belonging, that ever-elusive self-confidence, joie de vivre. An entity like NYDS creates an environment that supports young people to build these strengths. In so doing the wider community is enriched, and the future looks brighter thanks to the vibrancy these kids inject into it.

NYDS is open to 14-19 year olds and runs

workshops in theatre, film, dance, design, circus and a whole swag of other performing arts skills. The school happens over a week every April in Hawke's Bay and is known, around the world, for the quality of its faculty and the intensity of its teaching.

Recent students include LJ Crichton and Emmanuel Fuimaono, who have just finished the Festival Opera run of La Boheme, and Calvin Corner who was part of the inaugural Steam Quest event in Napier in February. These kids stand out.

"You meet a lot of people who are interested in the same things as you," explains Calvin. "Or they know more than you and you learn from them and stretch your own knowledge."

Calvin is 18 and has done two years with NYDS studying short film production and screenwriting.

"There's diverse classes so we discover new things," he says.

He's no shrinking violet but he assures me that he was once shy.

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CULTURE and LIFESTYLE

NYDS founder Ken Keys

"There's nothing like NYDS in the world. The interconnections between the student and the community are magic, with kids coming back to help and moving up through the ranks, they know the culture and they recontribute to it." KEN KEYS "NYDS helps develop those skills like confidence and public speaking, whether on stage or with people in a social environment," says Calvin. "I wasn't bad at those things but I needed a boost, it helped me become better at interacting socially."

Leadership Kelie Jensen is the NYDS executive director and works with a team of trustees and tutors on running the School. The calibre and experience of the teaching staff is high, but for her the stars of the show are the students.

"They are passionate and accepting, and they bring with them an energy that's limitless and feeds the School and the community," Kelie says. "For whatever reason, they feel they can be themselves and that's very empowering. It's emotional. They find their tribe and it's transformative."

Kelie also feels that the energy the students have gleaned from the School stays with them when they return to their everyday lives.

"The School lights a fire in them," she says.

Page 64 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

The skills learnt at NYDS are directly transferable when they get back to their own schools and friends. It strengthens their core, emotionally and physically.

Kelie explains: "NYDS is focused on performing arts but it's more like Outward Bound or the Spirit of Adventure. It gives this balance between safety and an experience of freedom. There's a sense of drive, passion and motivation that the kids take home."

There's another element to NYDS that delivers an extra experience to some kids, that a more conventional weekly drama lesson wouldn't. Many of the students aren't from Hawke's Bay, staying in dorms or in home-stays around Hastings and Havelock. That brings its own 'next level' independence.

"NYDS also reaches those kids who are from remote rural areas," says Kelie, listing Tapanui, Gore and the West Coast. "Those kids realise something for the first time …

'Look at these people who love what I love! I belong to this bigger group of people I never knew existed'."

Beginnings There are up to 30 tutors working at the School each year and this year's school has 268 students. Tutors bring a range of realworld expertise and include well-known names like songwriter Wyn Drabble, Iona College director of performing arts Lisa Jane Hay, videographer and Indelible Ltd director Dan Browne and performance poet Ben Fagan.

"That's an amazing reflection of our need as a society for the performing arts," says NYDS founding father and long-time Hawke’s Bay theatre stalwart Ken Keys.

Twenty four years ago, when NYDS began, it was Ken who worked with a small group of people focused on getting the idea off the ground.

"It was intuition that led me to start this thing," says Ken. NYDS is a form of education that has been lost in many areas of industry, the notion of apprenticeship, of ‘doing your time’. Once a student has done a few years with NYDS they are well prepared to go out into the industry, in performance or production or one of the many adjunct areas that benefit from having confident, imaginative, empathetic contributors. Many also go on to further study in performing arts at tertiary level. Fifty percent of the tech stream at Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama School are NYDS graduates.

"There's nothing like NYDS in the world," says Ken. "The interconnections between the student and the community are magic, with

CULTURE and LIFESTYLE

"For whatever reason, they feel they can be themselves and that's very empowering.

It's emotional. They find their tribe and it's transformative."

Kelie Jensen, NYDS executive director

KELIE JENSEN

kids coming back to help and moving up through the ranks, they know the culture and they recontribute to it."

Having increased its roll every year since its inception, NYDS is now at its uppermost limit in terms of numbers. Applications close in September for the following April, and entry is granted on a first-in first-serve basis. The task now is consolidation rather than growth.

Kelie and Ken are both keen to see the School bolster what it already offers and continue to strengthen its links to the wider community and to the performing arts industry.

"That energy that emanates from the arts community makes for a civilised and dynamic society," says Ken, who is proud of the arts community in Hawke's Bay as a whole, but also of the School he helped bring to life here.

"The essence of the arts is an open mindedness, a tolerance, the training of the empathetic muscles," he says. "We've come a long way from just training the brain and the body, the arts allow the soul and the spirit to flourish too."

NYDS runs from 16-24 April with opportunities for the public to sit in on some sharing of work.

Visit nyds.co.nz for details.

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Page 65 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

Clinch (diptych), 2014 (left panel)

CULTURE and LIFESTYLE

Napier’s newest gallery For artist Richard Boyd-Dunlop, arriving in Hawke’s Bay four years ago from Auckland was a kind of homecoming. His family farmed here in earlier times and now his parents work with him as he develops his eponymous gallery space – and fashion store, Sugar Thread, next door – on Napier’s Hastings Street.

The gallery opened a year ago originally as a place for Richard to show his own work, but has quickly grown into a space for a range of local and international artists.

“I have a wide network in the Auckland art world, having been up there for so many years, but there are local artists approaching me too.”

The work on the walls changes regularly as new pieces arrive. Currently the featured artists are New York-based Korean-New Zealand artist Hye Rim Lee, renowned Australian glass artist Tina Cooper, realist painter Mark Cross, and Richard’s late grandmother, enamelist June Boyd-Dunlop. “I like to show everyone together, not in individual shows like other dealer galleries,” Richard says.

In late March the Boyd-Dunlop Gallery will present Skulltopia - an exhibition of fifty ceramic skulls painted, collaged or otherwise adorned by local artists including Michael Hawksworth, Freeman White and Jo Blogg.

Ghosting at HCAG An eerie darkness has befallen Hastings City Art Gallery’s Holt Gallery. It comes in the form of a new exhibition by Hastings-born, Wellington-based painter Daniel Unverricht.

Ghosting focuses on the familiar urban environments of Hastings and Napier but after the sun has set, and without humans.

The paintings give a sense of unease and stillness, with the lonely night punctured by slivers and pops of neon light. Void of people, the scenes appear abandoned, almost dystopian.

Unverricht, a former student of Havelock North High School and 2000 Hawke’s Bay Review Winner, says the cityscapes of Napier and Hastings have been an ongoing theme in his work over the last fifteen years, though several of the Ghosting pieces were painted specifically for the HCAG show.

“I’m painting what I know, what I have experienced, what interests me. This is the area I grew up in, so there's a personal history there,” he says. “I do think there's an unsettling vibe particularly in the evening in a number of small NZ townships and regional cities – gang issues, urban decay, closing of shops etc. I open the local paper and see too many stories on violent crime.”

Looking back on his childhood in Hastings, Unverricht says it seems like the city was lighter and brighter in the past. “I think the inner city landscape has changed a lot since I was a kid. Back then it was a lot more colourful, more mom and pop stores. It's all rather boring and beige now with ubiquitous big box stores and $2 shops.”

The exhibition runs until April 29.

Clinch (diptych), 2014 (right panel)

Page 66 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

Café News

Greta (left) and Fleur from Hapi

Hapi The buzz about central Napier over summer has been cocowhip and cauliflower tabbouleh, and both can be found at Hapī Clean Kai Co-op on Hastings Street. Cleaneating foodies Fleur du Fresne and Gretta Carney have fashioned a light and bright, plant-filled base where they create a range of organic foods and drinks for the growing number of locals and visitors who now insist on healthier snacks and lunches.

Gretta and Fleur see Hapī as a vehicle for exploring the healing powers and possibilities of food, and are delighted to see so many others on the same page. “We’ve been pleasantly surprised by the response,” says Gretta. “More and more people are wanting to try new things, and so many more people than we realised are on plantbased diets.”

The blond timber, minty green original Art Deco ceiling, matching coffee machine and Rakai Karatiana branding design keep the look and feel of the place cool and contemporary, but at its core Hapī has a genuine focus. “We just want to do our best, providing the best food we can made from the healthiest local ingredients.”

CULTURE and LIFESTYLE

Over the river the queen of the Hastings Café scene is making a move. Opera Kitchen is vacating the space adjoining the Opera House Plaza for the newlyredeveloped Power Board Building just along the road on Eastbourne Street.

“It’s a new use for an old favourite building,” says owner of Eat Drink Share Group Jennifer le Compte. A staunchly Hastings-raised operation, Opera Kitchen’s home will always be this neighbourhood Jennifer says. Much of the café’s success over the years is down to the loyalty of Hastings people and the quality of ingredients available from Hastings District’s suppliers.

So what can we expect from the new-old building? A design that’s sympathetic to its history, Jennifer promises, consideration given to the large amount of take-out business, more focus on a boutique local wine list and an exciting new private dining room for functions too.

Keep an eye out, the Opera Kitchen will be open for business in its new digs from mid-March.

Opera Kitchen, now

Page 67 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

CULTURE and LIFESTYLE

Sea Walls in the city March 11 to 21 will see parts of Napier’s CBD and Ahuriri come to painterly life thanks to the 25 artists involved in PangeaSeed Foundation’s Sea Walls: Murals for Oceans Festival.

Project managed by Hawke’s Bay’s own multidisciplinary street artist Cinzah 'Seekayem' Merkens, the festival aims to draw attention to marine conservation causes from shark finning to global warming. The health of the oceans is a subject close to Cinzah’s heart, having been involved with the PangeaSeed Foundation and its earlier festivals in the US and Mexico. “The UN put out a report recently,” he says, “and it pointed out that if we keep doing what we’re doing to our oceans, by 2048, there’s no fish left”.

Started by underwater photographer Tre’ Packard in 2009, PangeaSeed aims to harness the power and influence of contemporary art and design to shed light on these pressing marine issues. The PangeaSeed team were keen to bring the festival to New Zealand, and were looking at Auckland and Wellington, Cinzah says. But he talked them around to the idea of coming to

Cinzah 'Seekayem' Merkens

The Bard in the Bay 400 years after the death of William Shakespeare his plays are still able to cast a spell. One of the bard’s best loved comedies, Much Ado About Nothing, will be performed twice this autumn for the Hawke’s Bay Shakespeare Festival.

The first performance on March 19 is the annual ‘Shakespeare in the Park ‘event at Church Road Winery. Shakespeare buffs and families mingle in the Elizabethan village set up in the winery grounds, where performers entertain, craftspeople sell their wares and local food sates the crowd. Then from late afternoon the play is performed against the backdrop of the winery steps. Gates open at 12.00pm, performance starts at 4:30pm.

On April 2 the play will return, this time at the Hawke’s Bay Opera House Plaza. The festival is a community effort, says producer Juliet Cottrell. Local orchestral trio Confetti are involved, as is costumier Angela Elliot, choreographer Champa Maciel and musician Michael Rowlands. “It is a pleasure to work with these fine industry professionals and we are very excited about this and future collaborations.”

Hawke’s Bay for its climate and vibe and then set about getting the Napier City Council on board. The long but ultimately fruitful process of gathering funding and support has highlighted how much easier it is to do things in the Bay. Artists from the USA, Germany, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand will bring their differing styles and approaches to Napier’s urban environment, culminating in the largest painting festival with the biggest international line-up ever held in New Zealand.

The public are encouraged to head along and see the murals being painted between March 14 and 18 at sites including the Perfume Point Lighthouse, Port of Napier walls, Napier City Council building and the sea-facing wall of the National Aquarium.

Page 68 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

The play is directed by Peter Cottrell and actors Champa Maciel and Daniel Betty will be taking to the stage in the roles of Beatrice and Benedick alongside Kelie Jensen and Michael Rowlands as Hero and Claudio.

Gerard Cook, in his third consecutive performance at the festival, will be playing Leonato. The cast also includes Tim Walton, Rob McIntosh, Isaac James, Jane Sutherland, Amanda Jackson, Ian Gosling, Will Couper, Ashleigh Burt and Jack Warren.

Shakespeare in the Park began in 2013 with The Merry Wives of Windsor directed by Gillian Davies QSM (now Patron of the festival) and is supported by the Greenmeadows and Taradale Rotary clubs.

Tickets available on Eventfinder.

The Environmental Defence Society (EDS) launched their latest book in February. Pathways to Prosperity – Safeguarding biodiversity in development explores the opportunities we have in the near term for improving policy so we can see enhanced environmental outcomes and better regulatory efficiency. *** In March, recent arrival to Takapau and first-time author Owen Clough launches Whispers of the Past (published by Lang), the first in a trilogy of fictional works centering around three kiwi blokes who set out on a wild pig cull in Tongariro National Park and find themselves transported through mist, sulphur and rain to 1863 and the start of the New Zealand Wars. *** Bridget Williams Books has established an exciting new digital platform for accessing non-fiction and scholarly New Zealand material. BWB Collections has been launched with its first set – the Treaty of Waitangi Collection. As living documents, the texts, which are available to anyone with an internet connection, will be managed by the Bridget Williams editorial team, with new titles being added regularly from their own catalogue and beyond.

Subscribe and find out more at:

bwb.co.nz

Mining Memories in Waipawa Auckland War Memorial Museum’s He Pou Aroha Community Cenotaph project is extending the country’s war documentation while giving New Zealanders digital access to it through interactive kiosks temporarily placed in many smaller centres.

From 13 March to 13 June, one of the kiosks will be based at Central Hawke’s Bay Settlers’ Museum in Waipawa. Museum manager Jana Uhlirova says the digital cenotaph gives visitors the chance to explore “the importance of the contribution of small rural areas to the big picture of NZ history.” 210 Central Hawkes Bay soldiers were killed in WWI, she says, “That is not a small contribution.”

The cenotaph contains the records of approximately 140,000 New Zealanders who have served, but the records are not

complete, and this is where the interactive nature of the project comes in.

The digitisation kiosks allow members of the public to not only search the online cenotaph, but also to lay a virtual poppy against a specific person's name and contribute additional information.

Using an object photo booth in the kiosk, ephemera including letters, diaries and even medals can be added to the relevant serviceperson’s record, both enhancing and future-proofing this historical material.

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Page 69 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

CULTURE and LIFESTYLE

BOOK REVIEWS

Title: Rain Author: Manya Stojic Publisher: Pavilion Price: $17.99

Title: Carrying Albert Home Author: Homer Hickam Publisher: Harper Collins Price: $34.99

Title: The Stars at Oktober Bend Author: Glenda Millard Publisher: Allen and Unwin Price: $22.99

If only half of this ‘somewhat true’ memoir is factual, it’s still a rollicking adventure of epic proportions. Based on the experiences of his parents, Elsie and Homer Hickam (senior), this is the story of a road trip across the US with an alligator called Albert, a nameless rooster and a marriage in jeopardy.

Alice is 15 but feels ‘always 12’ due to a horrific attack during which she suffered a brain injury that affects her speech.

Alice’s voice, through Millard’s prose, is unconventional: beautiful and disjointed, becoming clearer as she heals herself. She lives with her brother, upon whom she depends, and her grandmother in a house on stilts by the river at Oktober Bend.

Her father is dead, her mother absent, her grandfather imprisoned for defending her.

Elsie and Homer are gifted an alligator as a wedding present – a piece of Florida to remind Elsie of her glamourous, pre-marital experiences there. Once wedded to stable, dependable Homer, Albert becomes a symbol of what Elsie feels she’s missing out on. Issued with an ultimatum from Homer – ‘it’s the alligator or me’ – a compromise is reached and they all set out to carry Albert home to Florida, a very long way from their home in a coal mining town in West Virginia.

What follows is a series of extreme adventures: travelling with John Steinbeck, falling in with Communists, an encounter with Ernest Hemingway and a brief stint as stand-ins on a Tarzan movie to name but a few. It is readable, engaging, full of gentle warmth and wit. Excellent fun and great for amazed and incredulous discussion.

Page 70 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

Manny is a refugee – a boy soldier from Sierra Leone, wracked with the crushing guilt of a child who is unable to save his family from terrible acts of cruelty. Through Alice’s poetry, they connect and find a way to make a future from their past.

A reprint of a wonderful picture book detailing savanna animals sensing the coming of the rain. Simple text invites readers (and listeners) to engage their senses along with porcupines, zebras, baboons, rhinos and lions as they smell, see, hear, feel and taste the water when it arrives to refresh the dry and cracked landscape.

The language is wonderfully onomatopoeic with plenty of repetition to enable joining in on repeated reads.

The really special thing about this book is that it generates discussion. Why is the ground so dry and cracked? Can the animals really feel the rain coming? How do you describe the rain? It also creates the opportunity to look at weather cycles and the environmental impact of climate change.

On the other hand, you could just enjoy it as a well written, brightly illustrated picture book that will bear repeated readings and be thoroughly enjoyed by adult and child.

This is a profoundly moving novel, aimed at young adult readers but destined, I hope, to be read by a much wider audience.

Louise Ward – www.wardini.co.nz

Pistol Packin’

BY MARGOT WUTS

Some may be surprised at this, others, not at all, but I'm convinced in a previous life I was a sharp-shooting saloon owner in the Wild West.

A gun-toting madam, keeping an eye on tables of gambling clientele, who, in turn, were keeping an eye on my 'nymphs du prairie'. No doubt this saloon was extremely classy, as I have a naturally classy nature.

I had to put this fancy to the test by trying it out (not running a saloon, whipping out the hardware), to see if I am in fact the calibre of marksman I've always felt I was. So I rang around and discovered who I needed to get in touch with to prove it to myself! I wish I'd thought to arrive dressed as Annie Oakley, but opening the door and finding myself faced with half a dozen uniformed men of the law certainly left me feeling relieved I hadn't! Fortunately they weren't there to arrest me – Outlaw Annie – just to train for the morning.

Donning safety glasses and ear muffs, I tried to absorb the safety instructions, unease creeping up on me as I realised just how important it was to pay attention, considering a minor slip could mean a fatality!

The targets were set out and I found myself loading a magazine for a Browning .22 semi-automatic, trying to act a lot

more tough than I was feeling!

I stood with my arms jutting out in front of me, the words "Always thirty degrees, never deviate" in my head. I took aim... BANG!!!

What a feeling! Unexpectedly powerful. I immediately turned competitive, desperate to hit inside the black circle – the kill zone. I'm happy to report I succeeded more than once!

The Browning was a good one to start out with, reasonably light and easy to use with a kick that's minimal. In short: the .22 made me feel like “The Boss’.

Next up: Smith and Wesson .44 Magnum, my favourite, aesthetically speaking. Looks are everything when you're a classy madam, right?

This one was much heavier with a cylinder to load, it made a much louder sound and much bigger holes. I could see myself protecting my saloon with a couple of these puppies dangling over my crinoline. Call me Dirty Harriet, and to be honest, I was feeling lucky.

Fortunately I had been warned about potential burns from flying shells, so when I felt searing pain down my cleavage I kept the gun within the 30 degree danger zone, and tried not to yell and rip my top off!

Blisters formed immediately, but I was easily distracted by the beauty of the next offering. A model Remington 1858

percussion revolver. It was lovely. I'm fairly sure the range officer purposely refrained from warning me about the miniature fireworks about to explode out of this sleek and shiny revolver or the inhalation of smoke or the ruffled state I was to be left in after every shot. Admittedly, the effort involved in loading black powder meant that I only shot it three times but that was certainly enough for me! I like a big bang but not when there's actual danger involved.

Finally, I was presented with a hand gun that looked like something out of a film ( a mere novice's observation), but was in fact a SiG 226 pistol. This gun seemed to lack the romance of the others, at least the Magnum and the Remington anyway, and I found myself wanting to once again try a round from the Smith and Wesson, my definite favourite of them all.

I could have stayed all day, but after kissing my favourite goodbye, I was ushered outside carrying a much lighter ammo bag and much wider grin. My skirts swished and my boots kicked up dust as I untied my horse from the hitching post.

That was a first time for me – in this life at least – but absolutely not the last.

Page 71 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

CULTURE and LIFESTYLE

Thirty years between gigs

Fane Flaws

Fane Flaws is a fraud. The maverick maven of music, art and pop-rock video says he's no expert, he just knows how to gather experts around him.

Expert or fraud, where others flirt with the notion of being a rockstar, Flaws really is a very rock and roll renaissance man. He makes art, gigs with his band, works on completing his multiple-album oeuvre, consults on animation and video projects; he even has an elegant bohemian girlfriend in pop-artist Jo Blogg.

But he insists, it's all about the work, and the experts who make that work come alive.

For those who don't know Flaws, he's a legend. The resident filmmaker and posterdesigner of Bruno Lawrence's Electric Revelation and Travelling Apparition (BLERTA) in the 1970s, a member of the Crocodiles and the Spats in the 80s, director of television commercials and the animated children's series The Underwater Melon Man in the 90s, Flaws 'retired' to Napier in 2002.

His last live performance was in 1983.

Then, nearly thirty years later, Flaws reappeared on the music scene with musicians from the good ol' days and some fresh new talent he'd collected along the way: No Engine got its jump-start.

Page 72 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

"I never stopped writing songs," says Flaws.

"But I never wanted to rush anything."

For the thirty years between gigs Flaws was a prolific song writer and there's 25 original songs that make up the core of the No Engine set list.

"I'd been writing new songs and I realised that if I didn't play them, no one would hear them. You've got to get them out and give them life." Flaws found the experts he needed to make the music happen. "Now I can't stop. It's a way of life being a song writer. As soon as you get a band together where you end up with a sound that's so exciting, you're hooked."

It's loud, lively, electrifying music - "I attack the guitar like I've swallowed an electric eel," says Flaws. The band features a roster of talented local musos - whoever is available on the night takes the stage. Regulars include renowned vocal arranger Tony Backhouse and Peter Dascent from Flaws' Crocodiles days, Andy Gladstone, Margot and Anton Wuts, Nicole Taylor and the multi-talented Willie Devine.

"If the band is having a good night there's this magic that happens, this energy that's very addictive. It's really good for your soul."

During those decades without performing Flaws was working hard. He's a celebrated director, he took up fine art aged 50, he's won countless commendations for design and videography. Working in a highpressure, fast-turnaround commercial production house required a relief valve and for Flaws it was his art.

"My sanity in that world was painting," he says. He began making art full time around the same time he moved to the Bay. The Bay plays a big part in the music and the art in Flaws' life.

"It's somehow all manifesting in Hawke's Bay for some reason. The way to progress all these threads of my life is here."

Flaws says. "There's so much here. It's a seething hotbed of underground art and music. There's so many wonderful eccentric things happening."

"We take it for granted," says Flaws. "But I think there's more happening here than anywhere else in the country."

If you want to experience Fane Flaws up close and personal, No Engine plays at The Cabana once a month and Common Room once a month. Exact dates are posted on the venues’ Facebook pages.

Advertorial

‘Riviera’ wins cruising converts

MAKING A CRUISE CONVERT

BY JIM MOYLER

Bucket lists – I’m sure everyone’s got one! It’s probably not an actual written list, it would more likely be an imaginary bucket brimming with things you’d like to achieve, experiences you’d like to have and places you’d like to visit. And the long-term plan is to empty that bucket before it is time to kick it.

G

oing on a cruise has always been swirling around in my imaginary bucket and after talking to friends who’d just returned from an amazing trip to Europe this bucket list experience began floating to the top. Their experiences on their Oceania Cruise sounded incredible and just how I imagined cruising to be.

All I had to do now was convince Christine. That was not going to be an easy

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feat. Although she loved hearing about the cruise our friends took and was in awe of the destinations, Christine did not see herself as the cruising type. “What if I don’t like it?” she kept saying, “I can’t just get off.”

I finally managed to convince her that Europe should be our next destination and with Steve Lawson’s help, at House of Travel in Hastings, we got a ten-night cruise booked to sail from Barcelona to Venice. He advised

Oceania’s mid-sized ships don’t feel crowded or overwhelming and are a good option for first time cruisers. I tried to get back-to-back cruises booked – to carry on from Venice to Greece and Turkey - but that was pushing it too far. A definite ‘NO!’ from Christine.

The departure day came, and it was with excitement, and a little trepidation, we left New Zealand. What if Christine really doesn’t like the cruise? After all it was my bucket list dream, not hers.

W

e started to relax and enjoy our adventure flying with Emirates to Barcelona. Business Class on the A380 is an experience in itself. Exceptional service and exceptional food – the way air travel should be. Every good thing we’d heard about Emirates was true, and then more.

Barcelona, our first stop in Europe, was amazing. The people, the architecture, the food, the sunshine, the history and the culture. We had two days here using the double-decker hop on/hop off tourist buses.

There were three routes to explore with 44 stops covering all the major sights. So much to see and so little time. We loved everything about Barcelona – the markets, museums, cathedrals, cafes, street stalls and restaurants – just the whole atmosphere of the place.

The architect Antoni Gaudi’s work could be seen throughout the city in apartment blocks, offices, a park and the famous Sagrada Familia – the unfinished church started by Gaudi in 1882 that is still being worked on.

He had a very unique style that would look right at home in Disneyland.

Two days in Barcelona was not long enough for us. We could have spent another week exploring this exciting city. Upon boarding our Oceania ship – Riviera – we vowed to come back to Barcelona and explore it in more depth sometime in the future.

Wow! Our friends were not exaggerating when they said Riviera was beautiful. It was elegant with a relaxed feel. The public areas were sophisticated without pretence and our Veranda Stateroom stylish and comfortable. I started to relax when I saw Christine seemed to approve of everything she was seeing.

R

iviera can accommodate 1250 guests – which may sound a lot – but the ship never seemed busy or crowded.

A wide range of nationalities was on board, with Kiwis being the third most popular nationality on Oceania cruises. With 800 staff on board, all your needs are taken care of. The food was exceptional and the service second to none. We were treated like a king and queen for our whole stay without the need for a tuxedo or evening gown. It was a relaxed atmosphere with smart casual being the norm even for dinner – not a tie in sight!

And so much is included with Oceania – nightly entertainment, butler service, and even tipping is already taken care of.

And the meals … where do I start with the meals? All meals are included, of course, but the selection and variety is incredible.

From barista coffees, unlimited soft drinks, juices and water, afternoon teas and pastries, 24 hour room service, Toscanas Italian Restaurant, Polos Grill and Steakhouse,

Jim & Christine Moyler

All the shore excursions we went on ran smoothly – but you didn’t have to book an organised tour, you could take the free transfers from Riviera to the city and explore for yourself. We loved Sorrento in Italy – it had an ambience of its own that really appealed to us. Pompeii with its history and ruins was interesting, with Mt Vesuvius standing ominously in the background.

Dubrovnik in Croatia was beautiful with its fascinating old town and thick stone city wall.

We had the most amazing time on board Riviera and when we got to Venice Christine didn’t want to leave! She’d become a cruise convert. She was kicking herself that we hadn’t booked a back-toback cruise on Riviera so we could carry on to Greece and Turkey.

Continental cuisine in the Grand Dining Room, Asian masterpieces at Red Ginger, Jacques Pepin’s French Bistro and the Terrace Café for casual alfresco dining. All the food was divine – I can totally agree with Oceania’s claim they serve the finest cuisine at sea.

We decided after our first experience of dining on-board that we would not use the lifts and took the stairs throughout the ship to walk off our indulgences. We ordered a bottle of wine one evening, which we didn’t finish. This bottle of wine was brought to us at our next meal in a different restaurant … great service.

There was more on board to do than eat, though. There was a spa to pamper yourself, the library to lounge in, a casino for Monte Carlo style fun, a cooking school, lectures on a wide variety of subjects, play mini-golf or head to the driving range, an Artists Loft to try your hand at painting. Or you could relax and sip a cocktail beside the pool.

S

ix days in Venice with its canals, gondoliers, markets, palaces and cathedrals was wonderful. But in hindsight we would rather have spent longer in Barcelona and less time in Venice. Maybe five to seven days in Barcelona and three in Venice.

On our return to New Zealand I couldn’t wait to tell Steve at House of Travel all about the amazing journey we’d had – and that Christine was now a convert and had become a cruise-lover! When I called in, I noticed the job title on Steve’s business card – it said ‘Bucket List Facilitator’. That was certainly true!

Everything from our morning coffee to the Belgian chocolates with our nightly turn down service was exemplary. We couldn’t fault the experience … we will definitely cruise with Oceania again. With so many destinations to choose from, the only question is where … Asia, Africa, South Pacific, Australia, Caribbean, South America or Europe? Hopefully soon I will be able to scoop another dream experience out of that bucket.

I

n the evening there was a variety of shows, music and dancing. Unfortunately we didn’t get to enjoy any of these as we were usually too tired after our exciting days on shore. Because Riviera is a smaller ship she can visit some of the smaller ports and seaside villages that larger ships can’t access.

We cruised from Barcelona to Marseille and then Antibes, Florence, Rome, Sorrento, Sicily, Corfu, Dubrovnik and then finally to Venice.

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Page 75 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

Kent Baddeley

tim.co.nz

CULTURE and LIFESTYLE

TASTE PUNGENT!

BY KENT BADDELEY

As restaurants, we have to struggle these days with a lot of nonsense that the average punter would find hard to believe. Let's look at the food ‘issues’ that are currently bandied about.

For example, we have commentators saying fine dining is dead! Let's look at this. Does this mean restaurants will not carefully source and cook presentable food? Does it mean restaurants won't have staff that will nurture you and create a dining experience, or is it a restaurant saying, let's not care?

I'm confused by the term in any sense.

What is ‘fine dining’? I for one have just provided the best I can. And who is labelling this anyway? Not our industry!

Foreign cuisine We have mainstream media lamenting we do not have a national cuisine!

By the very nature of the media largely being owned by two foreign groups, it’s interesting that their view seems to be one of looking overseas for cuisine. Their awarded restaurants seem to have the same dishes and lookalike photos of global trends … if we follow, we get a hat! This is becoming a problem down the line to new establishments being created to get this acclaim. What we refer to as clone restaurants. Like clip art!

Recently a friend of mine opened in Wellington stating that he was following the international bistronomy trend (think, no table clothes) and the new nordic food movement. Chef Rene Redzepi, from Copenhagen’s Noma restaurant that started the hype into Nordic cuisine, now admits it was too restrictive and has closed his place and moved to Australia.

In the mainstream of life, we as a nation cherish the new and will always dine in a

new establishment regardless of the media … until a bad review! My issue: Whilst these magazines praise the offshore product, our young cooks will not push their craft into being uniquely New Zealand. This to me is a crying shame.

Local!

Now here is a curly one! Here in Hawke’s Bay, we boast about good things growing here and this is accurate. My issue is by whom, what are they growing and how do we find these products. It's a minefield.

Even at our local farmers' market, we find stalls purchasing fresh produce from Turners and Growers.

Our region has to grow up a little. When I work in Hawke’s Bay, very few local growers contact me with what they have and tell me how I can purchase. This continues across the board with very poor local distribution and restaurant providing; it's frustrating to know that it's here, but we can't find it.

In terms of my own restaurant, we have a pure East Coast appellation as much as we can. It's always interesting to me the number of suppliers out of our region who are always on the phone letting me know what's happening on the farm etc. Their product is also the first to arrive in my kitchen each day in many situations; the local product even arrives after service. This frustration is also found in supermarkets, where there is a major reluctance to let us know what breed of animal we are buying and its origin, Hawke’s Bay etc.

Why is this? We know there are several lamb and beef species raised in New Zealand.

Joannie at Origin Earth is leading the example here that I admire. We know the single herd of East Friesian sheep she makes her feta from and so on; proud to have her brand. There are many like Joannie. Tom at Hawthorne Coffee is very good for the education of my staff etc. There are too many in this list to mention here.

Sharing and small plates Whilst this is certainly not a new trend by any means, it is finding a new attraction in our industry, mainly for the reason of making our spend work better.

Today’s restaurants face a competition for their seats like no other time in history, even economic collapses. The dining dollar has certainly been swallowed a lot by our daily coffee fix and lunching in cafes, congratulating ourselves that we are spending less. We have a multitude of drive-in fast food joints, food trucks, markets and the new trends like My Food Bag etc. keeping folks at home.

I am often asked to speak to industry people and I always explain that the restaurant competes with every other form of entertainment. A walk on the beach, lying on the couch. The small plates and sharing concept allows you to integrate your leisures by multi-mixing entertainment, a walk along the beach, pop in for a drink and a ‘taste’, then go to a movie. It certainly is a great thing. As prices drop, so does the turnover drop.

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CULTURE and LIFESTYLE

So restaurants are integrating their bars into the dining space. This is a 30-year-old trend, but it's got traction as our skill levels have increased. I find it immensely appealing to know I can pop into a good chef 's business and let them create their small plates of the day for me, either by degustation or small sharing plates. It's more fun for the establishment too!

The consideration, though, is with a cheaper spend, rising fixed costs and an escalation of food pricing, will it all be the emperor’s new clothes all over again?

Social media & online marketing At the end of the day, the most powerful tool this planet has yet found can also be a minefield. To me as a small business it's invaluable, especially as we probably have one of the toughest locations to deal with there is.

Shouldn't be, but that's the reality.

Now we have an endless array of third party sites offering consumers the chance to vent their grief over our hard work publicly, and in many cases destroying restaurants. The dining experience is in the hands of the customer; they have a responsibility to play their part.

Recently I read on one of these sites that they could not give us the best score because two of our paintings didn't match!

Or the customer that does not notify staff of a problem they may have had in an establishment, but goes home, signs up to a site and then belittles the establishment.

As I say its a minefield. To me, one of the handiest tools for customers can be a nasty curve ball for businesses. A lot of clients will shop around and ask for several restaurants to create menus for a function.

These get dispatched and then the one they

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Finding truly 'local' produce can be a challenge

WHAT'S HOT AT JARKs OUR TEAM Each edition we aim to tell you a little bit about our team. While we have been fortunate to have the majority of our staff stay with us since coming to Hastings, we are sad to farewell our students who are heading to University Grace, Pearl, Jaime, Cath & Maddy are all going to be sincerely missed as we say farewell but we are also excited to introduce a number of new faces to JARKs, many already in training ready to help us host our beautiful friends/customers of JARKs.

tim.co.nz

choose gets the booking, leaving the rest to chase down to see if there is a booking.

One percent may say we have booked at restaurant X, thanks for your time.

The online booking buttons have a 25% ‘no show’ rate in our restaurant. By that I mean they make a booking online, that we accept and prepare for on the day, only to find that they haven't turned up. We then chase down the numbers, to be told that they didn't get our emails yada yada.

Region of fantastic restaurants I’m proud that we have a real talent pool of world-class chefs in Hawke's Bay, and, as a result, fantastic restaurants. Seven of the top 50 in Cuisine magazine right here in our region. You should try them all!

They are all very different and all bring their soul to the table, and I am sure there will be more on this year's list, and that's fantastic.

The region as a whole needs to embrace food tourism a hell of a lot better than our regional tourism organisation is doing at present. Everyone and everything in this region make us great as a whole. When we stop pyramid thinking and promote evenly, we will all be the better for it.

A dream in this hospitality industry is for the client to come into Hawke’s Bay, and find what is our magic culinary carpet!

This will increase our bottom line, as operators and region alike! Many operations will be able to pay above minimum wage and one day our youth will be proud to stay in the region and create our wonderful mosaic of Hawke’s Bay.

Kent Baddeley is chef and owner of Ten Twenty Four restaurant in Hastings.

OUR FRIENDS When I use the word friends, it's the customers I'm really talking about, as over time many of our customers have truly become friends of JARKs. Our new customers are also invited into our restaurant as if it is our home and we want you to feel a part of our JARKs family.

Each Bay Buzz we will be introducing you to some of the characters that make up our JARKs customer base.

OUR NOTICES » $15 WEEKDAY LUNCH MENU A selection of main meals. $15ea, steak, chowder, fish ‘n chips, pizzas & more. » MON, TUES & WED $15 EVENING MEAL SPECIAL 1 meal per night for just $15 - specials change weekly. » FUN FRIDAY THEME NIGHTS WITH LIVE MUSIC. Live music most Friday nights & dress up themes with spot prizes.

118 MARAEKAKAHo RoAd HAstinGs (old Corn Exchange) PHonE: 06 870 8333 Check out our facebook page for up-to-date info weekly

Page 79 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

Model Micki Machau wears all New Zealand designers – Cos Sweater by Company of Strangers, Zip Pant by Maaike, Sarah Loafer by Miss Wilson, A Fine Line Necklace by Lela Jacobs, earrings by Haley Inder Design, MW Belt by Miss Wilson – all available from Papillon in Havelock North.

ACCESSORISING FOR AUTUMN One way to ward off the autumn cool-down blues is with a wardrobe spruce-up, and that doesn’t just mean clothes.

The new autumn/winter lines have arrived in Hawke’s Bay’s many fashion boutiques. So even if it’s still balmy out, it’s no use leaving your autumn shopping until the mercury drops. As Dale Cooley from Havelock North’s Papillon says, “Customers have been buying early, despite the beautiful summer weather. They have to really, things often sell out by the time they need cooler weather pieces.”

“Every day now we’re getting in great new stock from Elk, Cashmere, Lela Jacobs. It’s all on its way.”

Looking to the new season, Dale points out the 1970s inspiration seen in large lapel jackets, flared trousers and brocade or embossed fabrics. Denim is big this season too. There’s also a continuation of the crop and drape shapes we’ve seen in recent seasons, and as Dale puts it, “Pants are getting wider, so tops have to get tucked or are more tailored to give a more structured silhouette.”

And colour? We’ve enjoyed sweet and light pastels through summer, so now, not surprisingly we move into the more muted, earthy shades – rust, greys, forest green and khaki, dark petrol blue and the New Zealand woman’s essential, black.

“Navy is big this season too, even coming through into shoes,” Dale says, plucking a pair of gorgeous inky blue stack-heel loafers from a shelf. Shoes and accessories are of course a great way to update your look while keeping the wardrobe staples simple. The main trends in the recent Northern Hemisphere season suggest we’ll see an influx of heavy heels (which work well with flares), embellishment (including studs, sequins and even touches of faux fur), romantic shapes such as brogues and loafers, and ankle boots remain very much du jour.

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Add a new pair or two to an oversized bag and a stylishly warming scarf, and you’re autumn/winter ready.

And what of smaller accessories? Shiny, sparkly, valuable ones?

Perhaps we don’t give it as much thought, but commonly women wear different jewellery during different seasons. Apart from the obvious exceptions like engagement and wedding rings and family pieces, in general we’re more likely to wear larger, heavier pieces in the cooler months and more delicate jewellery during summer. Havelock North designer jeweller Monique Thérèse suggests it relates to clothing.

“Larger pieces often sit better on top of clothing, without getting lost.”

While Monique doesn’t make her creations specifically with seasons in mind, she does work in response to special times of the year. Her major recent piece – the rose gold (suddenly on-trend again) and coral beauty shown here – is art deco styled, inspired by the 1930s fashions that abound at this festive time of year in Hawke’s Bay. “I’ve loved working on it,” she says, “It was so special to have this piece of coral to work with and I’m really happy with how it’s turned out.”

If you’re after something truly unique to give you a little sparkle this winter, you can visit Monique at her Havelock Road studio and work with her on a treasure of your own.

Page 82 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

Treat your skin to a fresh new look As we kiss the summer months goodbye, it’s a great time to treat your skin to a little pampering. With the only Adena intense Pulsed lighting (iPl) machine in Hawke’s Bay, Tracey at HB laser & skin Therapy is the local professional to give your skin a gorgeous, revitalising TlC treatment, and help with permanent hair removal for all shades dark to light. if you have been thinking about permanent make up, Amanda at HB Cosmetic Micro Pigmentation has the experience, professionalism and credentials to get you the natural,long-lasting new look you will love.

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For beautifully defined eyes, perfectly arched brows and naturally fuller-looking lips, look to permanent cosmetic tattooing. it’s the make up you don’t have to remove at night or retouch during the day. You can sleep, swim and work out in it and you’ll look your best 24 hours a day.

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Sailing waka ‘Matau a Maui’

LEARNING FROM THE PAST

BY DAVID TRUBRIDGE

Recently I took my design team out on the local sailing waka ‘Matau a Maui’ from Ahuriri. It was an exhilarating physical and cultural experience, wonderfully managed with amazing home-made food.

T

he waka is one of seven identical modern day replica double-hulled sailing canoes built in New Zealand for various coastal iwi. These waka are part of a Pacific-wide revival of traditional Polynesian ocean sailing canoes that started with the Hokule’a in Hawaii in 1976. Recently this fleet of seven encircled the Pacific, using only non-instrument navigation. These and other voyages like them have shown how it was possible for early Polynesians to colonise the Pacific.

From when I first sailed across the Pacific in my own ‘waka’ I have been fascinated and inspired by the Polynesians’ sea-craft. They were already making ocean voyages 3-4,000 years ago when Britons could barely cross a river in a coracle. Yet well into the late 20th century, there was fierce debate about how

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the widely scattered islands of Polynesia came to be populated. Some scientists argued that the islanders were too primitive to build sea-worthy boats: how could they navigate, how could they sail westward against the prevailing easterly trade winds.

Their spread must have been accidental.

This ignorance and outrageous cultural denigration was more of a reflection on the arrogance of armchair academics and imperialism. Even Captain Cook, with the limited knowledge of his day, had correctly traced the Polynesians’ forebears back to the southeast Asian archipelagos through linguistic links. He asked the Tahitians how they sailed east and they said simply, “we wait for the one of the brief wind shifts to the west … if we miss our target we can always be sure the trade wind will return

and take us home.” Exploring downwind into the unknown would have been suicidal, but try explaining that to an academic or Thor Heyerdahl!

There was no pressing need for the early Polynesians to find new lands as their islands were lightly populated. They were driven by human curiosity and need for adventure. We will never know exactly what their canoes looked like because none have survived. Since then canoes have evolved for different purposes. As the islands came under population pressure, canoes were built for warfare and limited local trading, so that by Cook’s time long voyaging had died out. Later colonial masters forbade even local inter-island sailing. Today’s replicas are reverse extrapolations based on the sound assumption that they must have been double hulled vessels which were slower but more stable and capable of carrying loads than the common outrigger canoes.

H

ow they navigated is harder to prove. In the last fifty years a number of researchers have interviewed the few remaining Pacific navigators, mostly in the Micronesian islands. One of them, Mau Pilaug from Salawat in the Carolines, sailed on the first Hokule’a voyage to Tahiti as navigator and amazed everyone by making a successful landfall. This was far out of his home territory and proved that the islanders had a prodigious knowledge of the movement of the stars.

Nainoa Thompson from Hawai’i, who sailed with Mau soon after, went on to develop his own hybrid of Pacific/western navigation that is now used by all the replica voyagers. He did this with the help of the Planetarium at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu where he studied the movement of all the major stars. He memorised the directions (azimuth) of their rising and setting and their height (altitude) at their zenith, going on to learn how to adjust these figures for any latitude (north or south). This enabled him to know his precise latitude in degrees (though latitude and longitude as a grid on the globe was a concept unknown to the Pacific islanders, as was the idea of the cosmic sphere).

However Nainoa has no way of finding his longitude (east or west) except by dead reckoning. Therefore he has to keep a very close sense of distance covered, in a similar way to early western navigators before the chronometer allowed them to calculate longitude.

However it is my hunch that Pacific islanders could also calculate some form of east/west positioning. Tupaia, the Tahitian aroi (a form of noble-born priest) and navigator, sailed with Cook to Indonesia via New Zealand and Australia. All the way he was said to have been able to point accurately in the direction of Tahiti. Given their meandering course this would have been

impossible by dead reckoning so something else must have been happening.

The Islanders did not have our rational science and overview of the cosmos and star movements, so they must have developed a keenly intuitive understanding of the movement of the heavens around them. From the youngest age a navigator had to dedicate every day to learning and this eventually gave them great mana. The knowledge slowly built as it passed down through generations.

So they became able to position themselves both north/south and east/west just from the stars, which I believe is theoretically possible. In addition they did this without visualising a chart as Nainoa does.

H

ere I think is the nub. Our dependance on our science and technology has become so total that we have lost contact with the finer nuances of the natural world. No one today can navigate like the Islanders did 500 or 1000 years ago. That is why the voyaging revival is so attractive: it gets people out from their machine-made comforts into the physical reality of nature, which is so much more complex than all our imaginings and explanations. And that is why it is also so important!

We are at a turning point in our civilization, where we are realising that technology and science not only don’t give ALL the answers, but that they also contribute to the

destruction of our habitat. There needs to be a decisive shift in our patterns of living, away from consumption and hedonism and towards respecting and nurturing our life-support systems.

The Paris Climate Change Accord has finally accepted that. The general agreement is that we must now move very fast to implement it, but politicians still don’t seem to get it. Our pitiful apology for a government is one of the worst and it has become very evident that they will continue doing nothing.

It is therefore up to us. Instead of getting our kicks from imported trail bikes or jet skis, why not go waka ama paddling or enrol in one of the Matau a Maui voyages?

Not only will the experience be physically rewarding, it will also instil a great understanding and respect for the voyaging of the first people of Aotearoa.

All across the Pacific young islanders are regaining a sense of pride in their culture and in themselves through sailing their replica canoes. This puts them in touch with nature, building a healthy sense of awe and wonder. They are also learning about the ocean that surrounds them and how it is being destroyed by pollution and global warming. Hopefully that will make them try harder to save it. And in some form or other, this is something we can all do and learn from.

Nainoa Thompson from Hawai’i, who sailed with Mau soon after, went on to develop his own hybrid of Pacific/western navigation that is now used by all the replica voyagers. He did this with the help of the Planetarium at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu where he studied the movement of all the major stars. He memorised the directions (azimuth) of their rising and setting and their height (altitude) at their zenith, going on to learn how to adjust these figures for any

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Rick Barker is a Crown negotiator for Treaty settlements

Not Guilt, Responsibility …

The Path to Treaty Settlements

BY RICK BARKER

The New Zealand Parliament rarely agrees on much but on Treaty settlements, Parliament is of one mind.

Settling historic grievances against the Treaty of Waitangi is right and just.

Signed on 6 February 1840 by the Queen’s representative Lieutenant Governor William Hobson and the Maori Chiefs, the Treaty was intended to bring peace to the country and promised to Maori, referring to the English version, ‘exclusive and undisturbed possession of lands, forests, fisheries and other properties’. It also gave the Crown an exclusive right to deal with Māori over buying land.

There is nothing ambiguous about ‘exclusive and undisturbed’, but disturbed it was. Muskets, cannons, trickery and downright deceit ensured that Maori were dispossessed of their lands, forests and treasures, depriving them of their wealth from which they could sustain their families and communities. Maori were dispossessed in their own land.

Maori for generations lodged appeals against these injustices to our courts, Parliament and even to the Sovereign, all with no success. Matt Rata changed this when he

sponsored the Waitangi Tribunal Act 1975, setting up the Waitangi Tribunal, essentially a Commission of Inquiry to consider breaches of the Treaty by the Crown with a requirement to make recommendations. It wasn’t empowered to make determinations like a court, putting the responsibility on the government of the day to find an agreeable settlement with Maori. This brought about a political process to settlement rather than a judicial process requiring negotiation between the Crown and Maori.

Negotiation is the strength of our process. There are many flash points around the world where there are outstanding grievances between different peoples and, with no path to resolution, sadly violence can often be the result. Negotiating and reaching a mutually agreeable settlement is peaceful and enduring as opposed to an arbitrated imposed solution or no solution. New Zealand’s process for settling outstanding grievances is unique on the

planet. With no hand book or previous experiences to draw on, it’s challenging to get it right on every occasion.

There are many common questions and views. One is that the Treaty of Waitangi is divisive. For me it’s uniting, as it sets out clearly all our rights to be here and it has enabled us as a nation to resolve historic outstanding grievances, peacefully. There are many examples around the world where this has not been the case.

A questioner within a congregation asked me why should we place any credence on the Treaty as it was so long ago; I guess he was saying it had passed its expiry date.

Promises don’t usually have expiry dates, I responded, just as Jesus Christ promised to return and 2000 years it’s accepted that his promise is still good.

Matt Rata was speaking about his Treaty Bill when a student said she felt he was trying to make her feel guilty for all the misdeeds of the past. To which he replied that she was right, the guilt was buried with those who did the deeds and she should have no sense of guilt. He went on, but the stolen lands became the basis on which this country’s wealth was made, which in turn built this university that was a benefit to her, so in that sense she was an indirect beneficiary of the wrongs.

It was as a beneficiary, Matt said, she had a responsibility to help put it right. I was impressed by this … not guilt, responsibility.

The ‘putting it right’ has gathered pace from the 1990s with the fisheries settlement, Tainui and Ngai Tahu, being the first two big settlements. Since then the Crown and Maori have been settling their grievances. The South Island is settled. Most of the North Island is too. For example there is only one small settlement outstanding in Taranaki. The Bay of Plenty is substantially settled and with our own coast we are close to settled. Nga Puhi in the north is considered the last big claim to be settled.

To follow is what the process entails.

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Settlement Process Claimant groups are defined as ‘large natural groupings’ and the process begins with LNG’s establishing their mandate for the negotiation process.

Terms of negotiation are developed between the LNG and the Crown.

LNG Wairoa

Post-DoS with $20 million in quantum

Mangaharuru Tangitu

Post-DoS with $23 million in quantum

Hineuru

Post-DoS with $23 million in quantum

Mana Ahuriri

The ‘in principle’ agreement is refined and written up as a deed, which is then initialled.

Heretaunga Tamatea

The Deed of Settlement (DOS) is then signed. Each settlement will have an apology, cultural redress and a sum (quantum) for financial and commercial redress.

Legislation is passed to enact.

In Hawke’s Bay For Treaty settlement purposes, Ngati Kahungunu has been divided into seven ‘large natural groupings’ – Wairoa, Pahauwera, Mangaharuru Tangitu, Hineuru, Mana Ahuriri, Heretaunga Tamatea, and Wairarapa Tamaki – covering an extensive area from Mahia to Cape Palliser. The adjoining chart shows the considerable progress made to date on Kahungunu settlements.

Being short of completion, a precise description of the redress is challenging, but in general terms there will be more than $300 million of financial redress to these seven groupings. Additionally there will be the transfer of cultural redress, usually land, the assigning of statutory acknowledgements and deeds of recognition for specific sites. Significant assets, like the region’s airport, can be involved. There will also be transfer of or rights to other commercial redress.

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Have signed AIP and close to signing a DoS

Pahauwera

Negotiations begin, leading to an Agreement in Principle (AIP).

The initialled deed is put before the claimant community for ratification.

Settlement Status

AT DoS stage DoS with $100m in quantum, plus $5m in trust for Te Aute College

Wairarapa This is transferred to a Post Settlement Governance Entity (PSGE) set up by the claimant group, usually a trust and beneficiaries of the trust can only be from within the claimant definition.

With more than $300 million in assets between them, these PSGE’s will be significant to the regional economy. Nga Tahu and Tainui have now grown their asset base to over $1 billion each. They are significant successful commercial entities. For example, Go Bus, our local bus provider is a Ngai Tahu and Tainui company. This is growth on top of distributions to their communities, of education scholarships, provision of health programmes, marae restoration and developments, as well as a wide range of other activities of benefit to their people.

But this takes time. The accepted wisdom is that it takes about five years before the PSGE’s really start to move.

The success of Nga Tahu and Tainui can almost certainly be replicated here.

I believe the trajectory for these PSGE’s will be different. New Zealand companies start well but inexplicably don’t carry on and grow to mega companies. It’s thought that a typical New Zealand company grows around the personality of an individual, who eventually opts for a beach house, boat and a relaxing life after a successful career. This will not be the case for these

Considering an AIP

PSGE’s. They are designed and built to be intergenerational. Their leadership understand this and plan accordingly.

These PSGE’s have the potential to grow and grow at a substantial rate for generations, developing wealth and support for their people. They live here, this is their home and they will not be moving away. Their growing strength will benefit all people.

When the sheep farmers of this province did well, we all did well. When the orchardists did well, we all did well too. When the vintners did well we also benefited. When Kahungunu prosper, our province will do well too.

Apart from serving as a regional councillor, Rick Barker was the Crown Negotiator for the concluded settlement with Te Atiawa and Ngaruahine in Taranaki. He is currently leading negotiations for the Crown with Ngati Kahungunu in the Wairarapa Dannevirk area and for Rangitane in the same area, as well as leading the negotiations for Hauraki with multiple iwi and two collective settlements.

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Bruno Chambers, Wendy Dowling and Scott Lawson, GM Free advocates

GM FREE HAWKE’S BAY …

A MARKETING ADVANTAGE

BY BRUNO CHAMBERS, SCOTT LAWSON AND WILL MACFARLANE

H

awke’s Bay food producers celebrated a major milestone recently, with Hastings District Council’s decision to make the district an official GM Free foodproducing zone in the local plan.

The move is supported by a growing number of Hawke’s Bay producers, pastoral farmers and exporters, like us, who see GM Free status as a golden opportunity to position Hawke’s Bay as a premium food-producing region.

The decision means that Hastings producers can tell buyers and customers that produce grown in our fields is officially GM Free – a claim we ultimately want to be able to make for all food products grown in Hawke’s Bay. This year will see whether the five-year campaign by producers to secure the region’s GM Free status bears fruit, and whether the Hawke’s Bay community retains the ability to decide whether the region’s productive land remains GM free.

Despite strong support from local producers and the economic risk GM release

Page 90 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

poses to the Hawke’s Bay economy, Federated Farmers is challenging the Hastings rules in the Environment Court. The Federation doesn’t want Hawke’s Bay to be a GM Free food-producing zone and wants officials in Wellington to decide whether GM crops are grown here. Meanwhile, the Government wants to prevent Hawke’s Bay and other regions from protecting their GM Free status by changing the RMA. That is why Pure Hawke’s Bay producers will be backing the Council in the Environment Court and will be taking the case to Parliament to defend our right to decide whether our region stays GM Free.

To do that, we have launched a fundraising drive to raise $150,000. You will be seeing GM Free signage around Hawke’s Bay as we aim to unite the region on this very important issue.

We are confident we can secure Hastings’ valuable GM Free status in law, but Hawke’s Bay’s support is crucial to winning this legal battle and influencing politicians when it comes to making decisions on the region’s GM Free status.

Embracing GM Free status is not about turning our backs against science, it is about listening to the markets and creating value for Hawke’s Bay food producers.

Quite simply, science that is not accepted in the market place is no use to us. And GM foods continue to be a pariah, particularly to the millions of affluent consumers who we want to buy our products. And market rejection of GM affects conventional producers just as much organic.

In fact, acceptance of GM foods globally is going one way: south. Developments in the US – a new growth market for Hawke’s Bay producers – underscore that. There, demand for certified non-GM food has seen astronomical growth in the last year alone and now outstrips demand for certified organic products.

M

eanwhile, across the Atlantic, seventeen European Union countries recently banned GM crops in their territories – and where our further market opportunities lie –

What the Hastings District Council GM Free food producer policy means The plan covers what we grow in Hastings. To protect the GM free status of the district’s productive lands, GM plants and animals cannot be grown or trialed here.

That policy lasts for the life of the plan (ten years), and then comes up for review.

The Council rules have nothing to do with GM medicines (Hawke’s Bay people will have the same access to approved GM medicines as other New Zealanders), contained laboratory research using GMOs, or the import of GM food ingredients, as long as these are not live (for example, whole grains or kernels). confirming Europe’s entrenched rejection of GM foods.

The market demand for GM Free is not just for horticultural products, it is strong and growing in leaps and bounds for pastoral farming. Grass-fed and non-GMfed labeling is growing fast in markets that will pay top dollar.

Because of that market rejection, GM food crops – grown overwhelmingly in the Americas – end up as animal feed or unlabelled food products. That strategy may work for US broadacre farming and low-value commodity crop markets, but it couldn’t be further away from where Hawke’s Bay’s valuable food export economy needs to position itself to grow wealth.

Market rejection of GM food products is why no GMOs are grown anywhere in New Zealand and why no export-focused food company wants that to happen any time soon.

As a result, New Zealand research and development on GM crops is drying up.

Take the pastoral industry’s flagship pasture grass programme. It has put development of GM grasses on the back burner because Fonterra opposed field trialing GM grasses and because it can’t drum up funding. Now the rising star of that research programme

uses conventional breeding, assisted by modern genetics, to deliver new non-GM pasture grass lines that will help future proof New Zealand pastoral farming.

As business people, we are pragmatic. We accept that the market attitudes to GMOs could change. But realistically, it will be some time before that comes to pass because resistance to GM foods is so deeply rooted in so many of the countries Hawke’s Bay producers export to.

So it makes sense to capture the clear marketing advantage that GM Free offers now and take a look again later. That will happen in ten years, when the plan comes up for review.

The point is that keeping Hawke’s Bay GM Free is a reversible step. Releasing GMOs into our productive land is not.

D

espite the clear economic advantages to remaining GM Free, the Minister for the Environment, Nick Smith wants to cut the regions out of decisions on GM so that Wellington makes that call. But he has not been able to get backing from traditional support parties to do that directly.

Now he is looking to bypass Parliament by getting new powers in the upcoming round of RMA changes. Those proposed powers

would allow him to strike out Hastings Council’s policy, this time without having to get approval from Parliament.

Hawke’s Bay food producers want Parliament to consign the Government’s proposal to the waste bin so the regions can capture economic opportunities from GM Free status, if they can make the case under local planning laws.

We believe that Hawke’s Bay food producers are best placed to know what is right for our local economy. GM Free is low-hanging fruit in demanding high-end markets and a no-brainer for New Zealand’s premium food producing region.

We hope that Hawke’s Bay will get in behind us and help us lead the way for New Zealand and be the first region to officially declare GM Free status.

Bruno Chambers, Scott Lawson and Will MacFarlane are food producers and members of the Pure Hawke’s Bay initiative.

The Ultimate Orchard and Vineyard Choice

For Further Information Contact: www.ecrl.co.nz | Tel: +64 6 876 9835 400 Ellison Road, Hastings 4122

Page 91 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

The Health Care You Should Expect

What is the relationship with your health professional like? Is it person and whanau centred? What does that mean and why does it matter anyway?

BY GRAEME NORTON

Listen: Respect what people are telling you. You may not agree, but this is the life they live, their values and their culture.

Find out what matters: Back in 2014 the DHB board was challenged with the view that services being delivered were not patient-centred and action was needed to address this. The DHB’s Consumer Council – consisting of 15 people who are a cross section of our population, each with strong links into our communities – was asked to take this issue up.

All of us around the Consumer Council table held no doubt that being supported and empowered to look after ourselves as much as possible was a whole lot better than just being told what to do or treated with indifference.

We also agreed that good care was beyond just the individual person. For the most part, we live in families or are connected in various ways, and believe a chance for better health is linked to that involvement.

But what did others think and could we

Page 92 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

come up with a set of values or behaviours that described what good care is?

So we sat around the table with our sister Clinical Council, the body of senior health sector clinicians responsible for providing a clinical view to the board. Within an hour we had come up with a set of agreed values that together added up to person and whānau centred care.

We also agreed that the living of these values within the health sector was highly variable; each of us was able to give our stories of the outstanding and the awful.

When we did some subsequent research, we found that our community had been telling us pretty much the same things for at least a generation, so really there is nowhere to hide.

What are these values and behaviours that people are asking for? Here’s a list

Health sits in the context of broader issues and challenges for that person. They may have many priorities that are ahead of looking after themselves. Many are isolated by poverty, with no or limited support networks.

We are unique: We may eat mass-produced food but we don’t want mass-produced, conveyor belt care. Use teachable moments; don’t run to a timetable. Together, we can find a place where we are trusted to look after ourselves with your support. Most of us resent being told what to do and that sort of ‘prescription’ doesn’t last.

Take time to care: Being human, little courtesies like introducing yourself, creating some trust, creating an environment for partnership.

Health literacy: Is more about speaking in the language of patients than expecting them to learn medical language. Otherwise you are talking about me, without me.

Partnership: Allow people to participate in decisionmaking on their care.

Empathy: People are often more vulnerable than in normal situations and clinicians need more understanding of that. Be sensitive –reading the body language as well for indications of uncomfortableness or embarrassment which many/most people won’t verbalise.

It’s about whanau: The whānau/family/caregiver/support person should be part of the team. Be inclusive sooner rather than later. The person often needs support and the ‘family’ is a powerful aid to care.

Information: Communicate successfully by giving clear information and check for understanding. Follow it up in writing. The chances are we are unwell, anxious or off our game. We won’t be taking it all in. That is, in part, why a family/support person is so critical.

Informed choice: Enable us to make informed choices based on provided information.

Seamlessness: Care is comprehensive, integrated and continuous. This is a topic in itself! Most of us are staggered at how not-joined-up the health sector is. We waste heaps of time

All of us around the Consumer Council table held no doubt that being supported and empowered to look after ourselves as much as possible was a whole lot better than just being told what to do or treated with indifference. repeating the same thing to different people when they should be able to – but can’t – see the information we have already provided.

The way that we receive other services has revolutionised in recent years; healthcare is so ‘last century’ on this subject.

There are 8,760 hours in a year (ok, 8,784 this time because it’s leap year). Unless you have some big health event that lays you up in hospital for a long period, the chances are you have contact with a health professional for only a very small number of those hours each year. So you are not entirely on your own but, frankly, you have more influence over how well you get on than they do. So it makes sense that you should be as well-equipped to manage your situation as you can be.

The consultant who gives you a couple of website links to better understand the diagnosis he has just given you is providing a chance for you to understand what is going on. The consultant who delivers the news in Latin and Greek may be impressing himself but is wasting your time!

I guess a lot of this comes down to being human. When I reflect on the many encounters I’ve had with health professionals for my own ‘issues’ in the last ten years as a high health user, there are standouts at both ends of the care spectrum.

You just know when you meet someone who is ‘in the moment’, focused on you, able to impart their care, understanding and knowledge and empower you to take control.

They support your wellness at least as far as you can be well. They are like gold dust.

At the other end of the spectrum you meet some who leave you wondering why they are in a caring profession. Maybe they did care once; it’s time for them to change or exit.

The Consumer and Clinical Councils are working collaboratively to enable a culture of person and whanau-centred care to become the norm across the health sector Hawke’s Bay. We figure that if we can visibly demonstrate partnership it helps this positive ‘infection’ to spread.

The Cleveland Clinic in the U.S. has some quality videos on the subject of empathy. Here are two that are only a few minutes each and well worth a watch.

Empathy: The Human Connection to Patient Care bit.ly/1fpWjYz Empathy: Patients afraid and vulnerable bit.ly/1EETItV

Graeme is a co-founder, shareholder and director of 3R Group, an awardwinning business with main office in Hastings and operating nationally.

Graeme Norton chairs the Hawke’s Bay Health Consumer Council, tasked with bringing consumer voices to all levels of health sector decision-making.

www.royston.co.nz

500 Southland Road, Hastings 4122 P: (06) 873 1111 F: (06) 873 1112

Ensuring your healthcare needs are met so you can get the very best out of life

Page 93 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

Photo by Sarah Cates

Bill Sheppard ... great to have a human during a travel crisis

GRABASEAT VERSUS TRUSTED EXPERT

BY MATT MILLER

In these days of Grabaseat, Tripadvisor, and Webjet, it seems every airline has its own cut-price ticket website and it’s never been easier to book flights and hotels directly from your mobile device or laptop. And researching travel online is fun.

Planning a holiday gives you something to look forward to, especially in the cold winter months, and for many people, you don’t need a travel agent to help you with it.

S

o, is there still a place for the travel agent, sitting at a desk surrounded by shelves full of colourful brochures with photos of cruise ships and pyramids?

I am always intrigued by businesses that are thriving despite the threats from online competitors and new business models, so I made an appointment to see Bill Sheppard at World Travellers Best Travel.

I find that World Travellers is thriving.

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The agency won the Supreme Award at the 2013 Hastings Business Awards and was a Category Winner in the 2013 Hawke’s Bay Chamber of Commerce Awards. They recently hired three new staff from the recently-defunct Air New Zealand Holidays’ office, so it’s clear that this is not a company that’s clinging to an outdated business model.

Bill concedes that travel is not an easy business, and it’s much harder today than

it was in the 1970s. Bill is realistic about the impact of the Internet on the business; he knows that people do their own travel research online, and customers will often come into the agency with their own travel itinerary already prepared.

But there can be problems with organising your own travel online. Review-based sites like Tripadvisor can be misleading. Unlike Trademe, where every trader is required to give feedback on every auction they participate in, only a small number of people actually write reviews on Tripadvisor (I don’t know anyone who has actually written one), so it pays to take the review scores with a degree of skepticism.

W

orldwide, there are literally tens of thousands of travel websites, and an alarming proportion of these are dodgy. The most valuable service that a travel agent provides is to de-clutter the web, by collating the vast amount of information available and using it to weed out the fly-by-night operators. Bill gives me the example of a customer who booked their own $10,000 safari in South Africa only for the customer to find out that the company didn’t actually exist and there was no way of recovering the money. If they had arranged the holiday through an agency, then they

would have been booked with a legitimate reputable tour operator.

And in a crisis, it’s great to have a human on the phone who can pull strings to get you out. Events like the 9/11 attacks and the 2010 eruption of Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull paralysed airlines and left tens of thousands of passengers stranded across the world.

Travel agents can often arrange for their customers to be given up to the minute options to be booked on the first plane out with their last seat availability system.

Bill tells me that Best Travel started in 1976, and the agency was very low-tech in its infancy. The operation was so lean that there were not enough chairs to go round; legend has it that founder Garth Best would sit on an apple crate and save the chairs for his customers. The agency was a founding member of World Travellers, New Zealand’s only travel co-operative started six years ago by five New Zealand travel agencies; they now have 36 outlets throughout NZ.

T

hese days travel is very competitive and, like most information-based industries, the technology is evolving at a rapid rate. And it’s not a cheap business to get into. In order to use the ticketing software that searches almost every airline in the world for available tickets, an agent must have an IATA/TAANZ licence, which requires a bank guarantee of at least $40,000.

These factors make the modern travel agency a unique business, and for Bill the most important thing is experienced staff.

The staff are trusted advisors, highly valued for their encyclopaedic first-hand knowledge of destinations, airlines, travel operators, local customs, and all the myriad issues that crop up when travelling in foreign countries.

The agency surveys their customers using Customer Monitor (www.customermonitor. com) to ensure their staff are providing

the best service to their clients. It’s a cloud-based system that gathers feedback from customers, collates it, and presents insights. The benchmarking reports it provides allow Bill to see how the agency’s customer satisfaction score compares to other businesses, and it allows Bill to see satisfaction levels for each staff member.

World Travellers Best Travel’s marketing emphasises the travel agent’s role as a trusted expert rather than a dumping ground for cheap airfares. The agency’s website is not your usual flight-finder search website with ‘Hot Deals’, ‘Today Only’ and ‘Cheapest Flights’ plastered all over the homepage.

newsletter but this has been replaced by a fortnightly email newsletter.

The agency is a big user of Facebook and Twitter, and it uses World Travellers’ management services office to manage the updates.

Most of the content is topic-based, showcasing the expertise and specialist experience of the agents, rather than daily deals and other short-term promotional gimmicks.

Talking to Bill has confirmed that there is a great paradox at work in today’s world.

The Internet has put an unbelievable amount of information into the hands of the everyday person. But just because everyone can do their own research doesn’t

Bill tells me that Best Travel started in 1976, and the agency was very low-tech in its infancy. The operation was so lean that there were not enough chairs to go round; legend has it that founder Garth Best would sit on an apple crate and save the chairs for his customers.

Most of Best’s advertising content is brand marketing rather than product marketing.

Even though the agency is kept abreast of all latest deals continually, discount airfares are a difficult product to advertise, because the airlines change their prices so often, especially when there is a price war going on and the airlines undercut each other furiously.

To reach his customers, Bill uses a broad mix of online and traditional advertising.

Newspaper and radio advertising is important for a travel agency because the over-50s tend to consume this media and they are a vital source of business. They tend to have more disposable income and more spare time than younger generations, so they are much more likely to spend money on travel. He used to send a monthly print

mean that they will make great decisions.

Experts are needed more than ever. Whether it’s recruitment, travel, financial advice, or wine buying, you need that expert to sift through the data, use their specialist experience to provide advice for your unique requirements, and pick up the pieces when things go wrong.

And when you’re travelling, they can go very wrong indeed.

Matt Miller co-owns web company Mogul Limited, based in Havelock North, but serving clients around the world, including BayBuzz. His beat for BayBuzz is online trends and best practice.

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Page 95 • Issue 28 • Mar / Apr 2016 • BAY BUZZ

Not 35 Anymore

BY MARY KIPPENBERGER

Photo by Katie Charlton-Jones

M

y name is Mary Kippenberger and I am not 35 anymore.

It wasn’t the child who wondered why my skin didn’t fit. It wasn’t being directed to sit in a chair for the family reunion photograph. It wasn’t our eligibility to use ‘elderly parking’ at Pak n Save Porirua that did it.

It was two small, beautifully behaved children and five long days that have brought me to my tired confession.

It is Sunday morning, five days after Emily and Alice’s parents flew off to Bali and eight days before they return. It is 11:20 am. We have eaten, fed pets, washed dishes, read books. We have drawn, stickered, scissored and glued our way through a magazine mountain and now I am watching as they wander up the hill to play with their cousins.

If I drank coffee, now would be the moment; instead, I might just have a wee lie down.

Eight more days, nine more sleeps.

Highlighted pink instructions plaster the fridge at Emily and Alice’s house. Spectacles dangle as Peter and I decipher the rules of lunches at kindy versus lunches at school, bedtimes, bath times, homework times, dinner times, reading times, swimming lessons, play dates, who picks up whom from where and for why.

I

talk myself through the day. A low sort of mumbling mutter, I think I’ve started shuffling. I definitely dither.

Peter’s brow furrows as he tries to tame

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golden tresses. Finally hats are secured, sunscreen smeared, bags packed, water bottles filled and I farmbike Emily to the over-the-road cousins.

T

he eight-seater carriage awaits, time to buckle her in. My great well-endowed self is forced to lean over the slender child; that very same wellendowed self that once set off a public loo hand dryer just by walking out of the stalls.

Emily could suffocate. With one hand I

If I drank coffee, now would be the moment; instead, I might just have a wee lie down. try to balance the stupid slidey-in things.

If they don’t match they ‘aint gonna click’.

Once precariously balanced I then have to heave the other end so they can meet.

Nothing meets. It’s a conspiracy.

I have hardly recovered from the trauma when I find myself at the end of the school day and I have arrived to pick up various members of the whanau. Kindergarten Alice shoots off to find her sister. The roll call begins ... Hamish you’re with me, can you get your sister please, where’s Alice, can someone find Alice, Danielle and Hayden you’re catching the bus to mum’s

work, where’s James, has anyone seen James, where’s Alice, have we got Alice, so who have we got, Hamish, Rebecca, Emily excellent, Rebecca I’m taking you to swimming lessons, can you get Alice for me darling, thank you, where’s James, has any body seen James? Hamish, can you check by the gates, the pool, the field. No luck?

I’ll ask the principal, I can’t find James.

You can’t find James? No, I can’t find James.

The principal calls to the teacher, have you seen James? No, I haven seen James; have you tried the pool? Yes we’ve tried the pool.

The teacher calls to a child … have you seen James? No, I haven’t seen James. The school scatters in search of James. Faces concerned, breath bated, my heart starts its thud, my imagination sensibly concludes ...

HE’S BEEN KIDNAPPED.

O

h no, wait a minute; Sarah told me he’s going with Liam to cricket. As you were everybody.

I’m off now for my nice wee lie down.

Matt and Florence are taking the kids for a picnic and I will wait happily for their running hug return.

I do have to take my hat off and lift all my chins up to the grandparents out there who are the full-time carers. Much respect.

Important work.

I have eight days and nine sleeps before Pete and I return to our traditional sideline support roles. I might just stick with that.

My name is Mary Kippenberger and I am not 35 anymore.

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The Tempur ZERO-G Platinum It’s here, in Hastings, at Bedpost.

We are truly excited about this bed. A perfect balance of function, practicality, comfort and aesthetics.

Whoever decided that beds were just for sleeping never had a Zero-G Adjustable Base. These are the ultimate in lifestyle enhancement. With the flick of a button the preset ZERO-G position transports you into the perfect relaxation zone. Not only comfortable to sleep on; the Tempur ZERO-G Platinum is a state of the art piece of furniture.

When the spine is positioned at zero gravity, full body muscle tension is relieved and circulation improved. This can also assist your breathing as you sleep and allow you to find the perfect position for sleeping, relaxing or checking your email. Finding a perfect sleep position is one of the best things you can experience because it allows you to not only feel more relaxed, but also helps you to fall asleep quicker and enjoy a more rejuvenating sleep.

If you are struggling to get a good night’s sleep this may be the perfect solution, Tempur beds provide outstanding comfort and support for a feeling of instant relaxation. They come in a range of sizes and comfort options to accommodate your specific needs. The feedback from my clients has been amazing, often saying they will never go back to a conventional bed. I invite you to come into my store to test Tempur for yourself.

Michael White Owner

Bedpost Hastings 320 Heretaunga Street, Hastings.

Ph (06) 8709421