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Inside The Sun
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Blenheim Marlborough
Sun Weather
Today 8-15
Thursday 10-17
Friday 10-19
Wednesday April 4, 2012 PH: 5777 868
Saturday 11-19 Outlook for Today
Rain, strong southeasterly winds.
Star Dancing Dance workshop and competition this weekend
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Victim Speaks Out The courageous story of a local Blenheim woman
Page 10
The Building Profession The latest on building in Marlborough
See our feature starting page 12
Price hike Power bills set to increase again By Annabelle Latz Power companies have put their prices up again. The Marlborough Family Budgeting Service in Blenheim has had two to three visits per week since the beginning of the year from people who can’t afford their power bill. And this number is growing. Budget Service coordinator Fiona Patrick said more people are getting their power cut off, especially in the last two weeks. “Power has always been a big issue with our
clients in Blenheim.” “By the time people come to Budget Services it’s often too late, they have lots owing, and we have to work with the power companies to keep the power on, or get it back on.” Fiona said the key to this is better budgeting. “Come to us and we can look at a budget.” Such options as Smooth Pay, and automatic payments are an excellent idea, so people can put money aside regularly for their power bill, just as they would their rent.
Fiona said some people may go at least three days without power before they do something about it. “Our main message is to come to us when you can’t pay that first power bill, not to wait until you’re about to be cut off.” Manager of Community Ministries at The Salvation Army, Joyce Somerville, said it’s tough out there for a lot of people now, and agreed with Fiona that budgeting and planning is so important. Continued PAGE 11.
How can we help prepare your child for school? Happy Easter! The team at the Sun Newspaper wish everyone a safe and happy Easter break
Everyone gets The Sun Total market coverage in Marlborough
Building a strong foundation for children that will help them transition to school with confidence is important to us. While every child is different, by the time they leave our childcare centres to go to school, we would like them to have developed early literacy and numeracy skills such as: 4 Name recognition & writing 4 Counting & number recognition 4 Alphabet recognition & letter sounds 4 Matching 1 to 1 Find out more about our school readiness programmes, phone 0800 ABC KIDS or visit www.kidicorp.co.nz ABC Blenheim Central: 129 High St, Phone 578 4214 ABC Mayfield: 17 Herbert St, Phone 578 8225 ABC Springlands: 11 Colemans Rd, Phone 579 6060 ABC Wairau: 7 Old Renwick Rd, Phone 578 8680