The Eastbourne Herald August 2023

Fire Brigade's 'first family's' tireless work for EB

The Eastbourne Fire Brigade, probably like most volunteer brigades, is a real family affair.

Sons and daughters have followed parents and grandparents into the brigade over the past century, siblings have served alongside each other, and spouses have jumped on the same truck to help people in our community.

The brigade’s records have multiple entries for numerous local families: Alexander, Anderson, Dalziel, Dellabarca, Gage, Green, Laws, Lenihan, Lowndes, Lucchesi, Millman, Morrison, Rudman, Stevens, Watson.

And then there’s the Carroll family.

Evan Carroll joined the brigade in Days Bay in 1945 before moving to Eastbourne in 1954, serving until 1989, including as a memorable fire chief and recipient of the Queen’s Fire Service Medal.

Ross Carroll (pictured right) says he was just one year old when he moved into the new fire station on Makaro Street with his parents, and grew up playing around the trucks.

Ross followed in his father’s footsteps in 1975, beginning a 44-year career in the Eastbourne brigade, eventually serving as Chief in his own right.

His firefighting career, however, began long before he officially joined the ranks.

“I think when I was around seven or eight I got roped into breaking and entering jobs. I was thrown through windows to open doors for the fire crews.”

1968 brought the Wahine disaster. While the brigade was totally committed down the coast, the call came in for a chimney fire in Mahoe Street.

“Jimmy Morrison was the only firefighter

left so the two of us went in a car and put the fire out.”

Ross was a seasoned veteran by the time he joined the brigade officially in 1975 and then fell under the critical eye of his dad who “didn’t mince words”.

Firefighting was a tough gig back then, with house and building fires and all-too-regular bush fires.

When Ross started, the brigade had only two breathing apparatus sets (BA). “The first two went into a fire with sets and the rest went in without them. It wasn’t until the mid-1990s that we had four sets on each truck.”

Ross’s most memorable firefighting moment? Entering a burning house that was being renovated behind the old post office with Barry Ray: “I went in with Baz and we were hit by a flashover [a near simultaneous ignition of combustible material within an enclosed area]. It was really hot. There were puddles of aluminium on the floor from the scaffolding.”

It wasn’t all about fires. There was a lot of sport, including the Joslin Cup contested annually between Eastbourne clubs, the council and bus drivers.

“We were a hell of a family oriented outfit. We worked hard and we played hard.”

There was also a lot of random work not strictly related to firefighting. “Who knows how many pianos we moved,” says Ross.

It worked both ways. “We would spend six or seven days at a scrub fire and people would turn up with thermoses.”

There was a downside to serving in such a tight community. “Everyone we went to, we knew. That was hard. We also couldn’t do anything wrong,” says Ross.

Ross’s mum, Lyn, (known to firefighters as “Mrs Carroll”) was an integral part of the Eastbourne brigade over the five decades she lived at the station. She took the calls in the watchroom and alerted the fire crews and then monitored the radio when they were on the job. And guess who got to clean the filthy gear after the troops returned from days tackling scrub fires?

Ross says his family did what they did for the community. “It was just the way we were brought up. We were there for Eastbourne. We had a lot of pride in what we did.”

“There was a saying we had. When somebody dials 111 they’re either having a really bad day or they’re having their last day, and we were the only ones there. That basically governed what we did as a brigade.”

Continues on Page 3

Learning just for fun

No exams, no homework and no qualifications needed – U3A (University of the Third Age) is not a university in any modern sense. But the international organisation that started in France in 1973 certainly

BRIEFS

Kerry Makin-Byrd, author of The Ballad of Burnout: a helper lost and found, (featured in the July Herald) will be talking about her book in conversation with Ben Sedley, author of Stuff That Sucks and Stuff That's Loud, on 18 October at 6 PM Dr Makin-Byrd will take part in Unity Books’ New Zealand Society of Authors Wellington 2023 Book Showcase.

Muritai illustrator Lily Uivel (EH, May 2023) has two new children’s books out from Penguin Random House. Fleur Beale’s middlegrade fantasy Once Upon a Wickedness, features Lily’s stunning cover plus chapter illustrations and The Pool Party Poisoning is the second in Sally Sutton’s early reader series featuring Lulu and her Dance Detectives.

An audience of more than 100 filled St Ronan's Church on August 13 to hear ecologist Mike Joy’s sobering talk Degrowth – the Future of Food and Energy. His key message: on 2 August our resource consumption exceeded the earth's capacity to regenerate those resources this year. He argued persuasively we can and must bring our economy back into balance with the living world, while reducing inequality and improving people's wellbeing. For a recording with slides from the talk, https://www.degrowth.nz/

offers an environment aimed at encouraging older people to share their knowledge skills and interests and to continue learning after retirement.

Closest to Eastbourne, and accessible by public transport or car, is U3A Hutt Valley, which currently meets at St Mark’s Church on Woburn Road. It’s one of a whopping 93 such autonomous groups in New Zealand, each tapping a significant reservoir of knowledge, skills and experience of retired men and women.

For their monthly lectures, members and visitors (you’re allowed two meetings before paying the $20 membership fee) meet at 1pm for a cuppa and chat then move into the church at 1.30pm to hear the speaker of the month.

In August, during Conservation Week, it was Belmont resident Dr Mary McIntyre, a “(mostly) retired scientist” who’s spent her working life researching and teaching about bugs, germs and their interaction with humans.

Her take on the Predator Free 2050 goal considered the health impact of pests, and the

part that animals such as possums play in acting as a reservoir for diseases.

Covid expanded our understanding of how travel movements can impact human health, she said. “It’s not only pest invaders that carry pathogens – with international travel opening up again, for example, there’s a real risk of travellers infecting local mozzies, so Kiwis get insect-borne diseases without leaving home. It’s a lot more likely in a warming climate.”

Speakers for the next three months include Jim Ward of Heartland Bank on reverse mortgages, John Brown of Strait Shipping, and former Eastbourne resident and children’s author Kate De Goldi, whose Eddy Eddy was shortlisted for the recent CYA book awards.

Membership of U3A also entitles participation in the six interest groups that meet monthly – Antiques and Collectibles, Armchair Travel, Current Affairs and Topics of Interest, Film, Local History – and from time to time, Theatre.

For more information, https://u3ahuttvalley. weebly.com

SPEAK AGAIN PERFORMANCE DEVELOPMENT

ENROL NOW for TERM 4!

At Muritai School & After school classes

UP Coming !

October Holiday Pantomime

Workshop - Ages 7-12

Explore the art of storytelling through gestures, expressions, and body language!

No experience needed 4th Oct 10-4pm

Location: East Harbour Women's Club Register: www.speakagain.co.nz

Whaea inspires Muritai students

by Ann Packer

If you’ve not yet caught a live performance by the Muritai School kapa haka rōpū (group), they’ll be at Eastbourne Library on Wednesday 13 September, for Māori Language Week.

Following their participation in HuttFest, the sold-out annual Polynesian festival at Walter Nash Stadium in July, the 110-strong rōpū, led by teachers Hilary Bevin, Carmen McDonald and Max McAlpine, also celebrated Matariki at an outdoor event at the end of Term 2.

Whaea Hilary, as she’s known, came to the school four years ago, when there were only 30 in the group.

Unusually for one taking on such a role, she is Ngati Pākehā – yet speaks fluent reo. She fell in love with all things Māori when her primary school, Petone Central, created a bilingual unit when she was “six or seven”.

One of only a couple of pākehā, by the time she was ten there was a full immersion programme going, and her whole life centred around marae visits and kapa haka competitions. It was her choice – but her siblings didn’t want to join her.

She treasures her middle name, Ngawai – “I was born in the pouring rain after my mother’s waters broke and I am a Pisces” – and says when people query her fitness as a pākehā to teach such things, she tells them she does it with love and care, and is always willing to answer questions and take on advice and feedback.

“I feel so linked to the culture due to my upbringing,” she says.

A mother of three, two of them still preschoolers, Whaea Hilary is passionate about her teaching and, according to at least one mother, the children adore her too.

The fact a third of the school has joined up is proof of her conviction that the value of the indigenous artform lies in the many skills

it offers children, from fitness and discipline to synchronizing words, music and actions, which help the brain work in new ways – plus learning to work together as a rōpū, or group.

From Page 1

So, what is Ross Carroll most proud of in his four decades as an Eastbourne firefighter? The brigade’s fire safety efforts, for one thing, which started in the 1990s.

There were safety courses and columns in the Herald with advice on how to prevent fires at home, e.g. “keep looking while you’re cooking”. Chimneys and electric blankets were targeted for checking.

He’s also proud of the brigade’s record of protecting the borough’s homes from bush and house fires.

“Out of all the scrub fires we have had over the last 60 years we have never lost a house. That’s pretty bloody satisfying. And we have never had a house turned into a parking lot.”

The Eastbourne brigade marked its official centenary day on Wednesday, 23 August with a barbecue for former members and their families. The next event will be an open day on 23 September, to be held at the Eastbourne Fire Station.

Whaea Hilary high-fives kapa haka participants.

'Never lost a house'

Renovation enthusiasts return house to grandeur

by Ann Packer

A couple with a penchant for projects are making great progress with their renovation of one of Eastbourne’s oldest houses.

Denise and Alan Pitts, whose aim is to “make the house grand again”, have already painted all the external plasterwork – except for the attic, which will eventually be the master bedroom of their Muritai Road home. They’ve replaced windows throughout (keeping the original wooden frames), swapped a bay window for French doors and replaced the old terracotta roof tiles, the weight of which was threatening to pull down the double-height north-facing wall.

Painted by Denise in a rich cream, all the living areas have had Carrara ceilings with central domes installed, to show off crystal chandeliers from Lighting Direct.

A “self-taught architect” who retired at age 49, Alan does almost all the carpentry and is currently working on installing an extra bathroom – amazingly for a house this size, especially one that had been divided into two flats for some time, there was only one bathroom plus a cloakroom. All the rimu from previous renovations is being removed, with earlier matai detail reinstated.

Having bought the house right on lockdown in 2020, the Pitts nearly found themselves stranded between Kerikeri – where they still owned property, including an avocado orchard, after 22 years there – and Muritai. They had a vanload of furniture in transit and no access to legal services, nevertheless, they persisted, and carry on refining more parts of their home.

Designed and built between 1905 and 1910 by Isabella Spensley Rayward, a wellknown Australian-born Christchurch singer who signed the Women’s Suffrage Petition, the three-storey Tudor-style stucco house is distinctive not only for its half-timbered detail but also for the long-established magnolia tree, currently in flower.

Bella, as she was known, had married English-born Australian Henrie Hampton Rayward in Opawa in 1895 and they had four children before moving to Wellington, where he completed his patent attorney qualifications. She first designed and built a simple bach at Plimmerton, as a holiday cottage,

while the family lived in town, variously in Macfarlane St, Karaka Bay and Constable St, Newtown.

A competent painter, sculptor and woodcarver, who with her husband helped set up the Wellington Art Society, the savvy suffragist had watched architects at work on her previous homes; for this one she did all her own designs, engaging only a builder to do the work. First designed as a cottage, it was enlarged and reinforced in several stages over several years before she and her family moved in.

One of the later additions was the concrete garage built by son Geoffrey, a surveyor who moved in after his parents divorced. He also made the front steps (resulting in some strange detailing around the front door) and the concrete garden seat, complete with lions’ heads on the arms, after returning from Africa in 1930, where his sister Noni was married to a boat captain on the Zambezi River.

The Pitts, who met as teenagers in Oxford, England, spent 11 years based in Japan, after which they chose New Zealand, having come here on holiday every year of their Japanese sojourn. “We’ve done this all our lives,” says Alan, who spent a good part of his working life as a Wood Pattern and Model Maker, making cars out of wood accurate to the thickness of a piece of paper, and ended up liaison manager for Honda Rover. “We love a project, and this is a project that keeps on giving.”

Nothing deters this hardworking pair, who have given back to the community throughout their lives, including Riding for the Disabled, Red Cross, the Baptist Church and for soprano Denise, choir. Both are Paul Harris Fellows, one of Rotary’s highest honours. And with some impressive stories of their own to tell, they’re adding another chapter to the history of this special house.

Award-winning nurse provides vital research

by Ann Packer

An Eastbourne nurse has received the 2023 Nurse Investigator award from the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand for her research into how nurses can improve patients’ social, economic and physical environments.

Lisa Caddis’s interest in what would become her Master’s degree research project was sparked when she visited a heart failure patient in his home and discovered he had no power for two days each week – all because of the energy plan he was on.

“When I arrived he apologised for how cold it was,” she says. His power company was unaware of his chronic conditions; a quick phone call saw him changed to a plan that would accommodate his needs.

For one who only took up nursing in her forties, Lisa has moved quickly, becoming a Clinical Nurse Specialist and Nurse Prescriber – equivalent to a medical registrar – in six years. Having funding assistance helped: Health Workforce funding (via the former CCDHB) plus a Perpetual Guardian Trust scholarship that helped pay the $2300 per paper fees for four subjects at Masters level.

It was a heart attack suffered by her father that made Lisa decide to become a nurse. She’d worked in the corporate world then raised two daughters, but waiting with her dad in ED, “something just went click in my head” and she realized she didn’t want to go back to the corporate world.

After completing her undergraduate degree at Massey University’s School of Nursing, Lisa joined the Wellington Regional Heart and Lung Unit and started covering for

Heart Failure CNSs when they took leave – all the while working to complete her Master’s at Victoria University. She also qualified as a Nurse Prescriber, able to prescribe medications as part of a specialty team.

Lisa says that early home visiting is just one example of how nurses can play a vital role in connecting patients with ESPs – external service providers.

“We come across patients who are socially isolated, or missing appointments because they have no transport, for example and nurses either have the services to connect them in their head or find out about services by accident. In the outpatient setting, it’s difficult treating patients’ health concerns, when their overall well-being is shaped by non-medical factors that influence health outcomes.”

Lisa’s research, using the Plan-Do-StudyAct (PDSA) cycle, is a model for improvement that led to the development of a comprehensive ESP directory for Porirua, Kapiti, Wellington, and Hutt Valley.

Utilizing the Ministry of Health’s “Health Equity Assessment Tool”, designed for people working in the health sector, baseline data suggested cardiology outpatient nurses’ level of confidence in connecting patients to ESPs was at 46%.

With a limited timeframe, the resource includes only exercise, food and nutrition, medications, healthy homes (including power and gas), mobility, social isolation and transport. Nurses were incentivized (with a prize of chocolates) to review the directory. A further, anonymous survey saw the nurses’ level of confidence in connecting patients to ESPs increase to 100 %.

Encouraged by her manager, Dr Jennifer Roberts, to enter her research abstract to CSANZ, Lisa was surprised to be asked to present her research at the Cardiac Society’s conference in June.

“I think a lot of nurses have this information

in their heads,” says Lisa, who would love to see a resource like this sit alongside the current HealthPathways guide.

“It just isn’t in a central place for easy access yet”.

There’s more work to do to give nurses the confidence to have conversations about ESPs with their patients, says Lisa, who currently sees Heart Failure patients for Te Whatu Ora, Capital, Coast and Hutt Valley at three clinics in Wellington and Kenepuru hospitals each week as well as seeing people in their homes. “I’m really passionate about nursing,” says the Eastbourne resident of 30 years.

“I really love helping people.”

Lisa Caddis.

Art inspired by Hiroshima Day

A team of Year 5 and 6 Eastbourne artists under hARTspace teacher Clare Leniston took part in the recent Tūmanako exhibition, held in Johnsonville and launched by Wellington mayor Tory Whanau.

The movement to remember Hiroshima Day, launched in Wellington in 2015, is now celebrated across Aotearoa, and encourages children to create art that shares their aspirations for a peaceful, inclusive and nuclear free world.

Using collaborative thinking about the words “One Seed of Thought Grows the Forest of Peace” the students created a three-dimensional work featuring worlds representing the land and sea, with colour and texture including knitted rivers and sea, felted fish and painted stones carrying words of peace and hope. Artists were Agnes Noergaard, Eve Whyatt, Flora Noergaard, Lilly Pennington, Mila Crosby, Sadie Wilkins, Tessa Hayward and Xolani Lynskey, with contributions from other hARTspace students.

LETTERS

Thanks to a Caring community

On the evening of 31 July, our 20 year old daughter Amalia Mitchell (pictured right) suffered a stroke and was taken to Wellington Hospital in critical condition. At the hospital she suffered seizures and a subsequent scan showed she had had a deep and serious stroke.

Over the following two weeks she moved from the ICU to the neural ward. We spent every day and night with her, with periodic dashes back round to Eastbourne to check in on our sons, Dylan 17 and Flynn 14.

We write to express our heartfelt gratitude to so many people from Eastbourne and the Bays who dropped in food, arranged house cleaning and wrapped us in their love. It has been an extremely emotional and exhausting time for us, and that support helped more than words can express.

Amalia underwent a surgery that lasted 10 hours and involved a team of surgeons on 14 August. After a day in ICU she spent another four days on the neural ward before returning home on Friday 19 August. She is exhausted

and has lost weight but she can move slowly, and is regaining her speechshe can only get better from here!

This is going to take some time, but living in such a caring community will make the journey easier for all of us. So this is our thanks to you Eastbourne and the Bays - what a kind and wonderful community we live in.

Thank you! Merci beaucoup! We will see you around the village...

Phil, Carmen, Amalia, Dylan & Flynn Mitchell [021 1077901]

It’s all about health, says Michael Burrell, a former ocean swimmer and retired tiler who has built a sustainable sauna with windows to take in harbour views from seven locations around the harbour. His Days Bay spot was chosen for the nearby outdoor showers –bylaws don’t allow for a shower on the side of his cabin, and customers who need to cool down don’t always want to take a seawater plunge, though he says many who hadn’t intended to, do just that! Fired up with the long list of health benefits – natural pain, depression and anxiety relief among them – the Silverstream dad built this one with himself in mind; longterm, his aim is to build a fleet of cabins, particularly to cater for people with disabilities. Check scenicsaunas.co.nz for times, locations and prices.

Roy Edward Beeby 14.3.26 – 15.8.23

One of Eastbourne’s last surviving WWII veterans died peacefully in his sleep recently. He was 97.

Roy Beeby, who moved to the Shona Macfarlane Retirement Village in 2020, had lived in Eastbourne since the 1980s, when he and his second wife, Deirdre, who died in January 2015, bought in Miro St, then Pukatea St. Roy continued to come to the village for Take a Break senior lunches, the RSA (he was Welfare Officer for many years) and of course the Anzac parade.

Born in Dunedin, Roy was about two when his mother left his father, a painter and paperhanger, taking him to a farm near Frankton, where she became housekeeper to a large family. His much older brother, Cecil, lived in Dunedin, where Roy later boarded with him. His mother’s family, Randles from Dorset, had a farm on the Otago Peninsula.

Dux of his Queenstown primary school but with no local secondary available, Roy stayed with an uncle in an Invercargill boarding house to start Southland Boys’ High, then went with his mother to Dunedin for the rest of his schooling.

Leaving school at 15, he worked with a typewriter sales and repair company but on turning 18, in 1944, he was called up for military service. Choosing the Air Force, “because the food was better,” he trained as a pilot on Tiger Moths, in Taieri, but with pilots no longer needed, went to Wigram then Ohakea to be a radio operator and rear gunner. In 1945 he was posted to Laucala Bay near Suva, with a squadron looking for Japanese submarines.

After demobilisation, he chose to stay in

Fiji rather than return to his old job, joining NZ Civil Aviation as a radio operator in Nadi. When he finally returned home, he was based at Tauranga then Auckland, where he met his first wife Olwen, who worked in his office as a teleprinter operator.

Paul, the first of their boys, was born there, followed by Gordon and Philip in Nelson. Then it was back to Fiji for five years, which Paul remembers as being a delightful existence, with a house girl to help bring them up. From a Popular Mechanics plan, Roy built a simple but zippy boat – which had a tendency to sink, as the person he sold it to found out, in spite of his warnings.

Back in NZ, the family moved to Wellington where Roy ran a dairy in Island Bay before being offered a job in the New Hebrides, now Vanuatu. With Paul and Gordon working, and Philip in boarding school in Masterton, Roy and Olwen headed back to the Pacific. But after she twice became seriously ill with hepatitis, they split up, and she headed off to London with a girlfriend.

Some four years later, after working at various airports around New Zealand, life began again for Roy when he met Deirdre at a dance in Te Aro, Wellington. Their divorces came through on the same day, and they married in the winter of 1982 at the Quaker Meeting House in Moncrieff St, Wellington, with everyone present signing as witnesses. According to Deirdre’s daughter Jenny, it was “a very low key and joyous occasion”, with some of the couple’s five children and 13 grandchildren present. Roy, brought up Presbyterian, became a Quaker.

For the first of their big adventures they drove a blue VW campervan around the top of Australia and into Uluru, finishing up in Brisbane, where two of his sons live – with “only a couple of frights”. Back home, a camper-trailer was added, to entice grandchildren along on trips with Lions friends.

Always traveling on a shoestring, the couple took up 12-month placements as Friends’ Wardens at Perth, Billericay, Essex and Kings Lynn, Norfolk.

Time in Turkey when stepdaughter Katy

was an immigration officer for the Australian Embassy included an overnight stay at Gallipoli, where Roy got to swim in Anzac Cove. They stayed in an embassy apartment on the Bosphorus and took the overnight sleeper to Ephesus and Cappadocia.

When Katy was posted to Chicago they met her in LA, travelling to Mexico for a day, and visiting the La Canada-Flintridge home of Deirdre’s second cousin, pioneering NZ radio announcer Dame Nola Luxford. They took off on a two-month Amtrak journey, to Niagara Falls, Martha’s Vineyard, Philadelphia, Brooklyn and New Orleans, where they danced – of course. “They never stopped dancing at the striking up of any music, all over the world,” says Katy.

In Pouzolles, south of France, Anzac Roy was treated like royalty. They also spent six weeks in Italy when Jenny and Ian lived in Rome. Back home they gardened, entertained, swam in the sea and drank wine on the beach.

In Deirdre’s last and failing years until she died in January 2015, Roy dedicated himself to her care, including outings and visits from many friends, neighbours and family.

Then at the beginning of lockdown, after “breaking his back”, as he put it, Roy spent time in Hutt Hospital before moving to Shona Macfarlane – where he continued to dance, and also played Father Christmas.

A memorial service for Roy will be held at the RSA, once all family members can be together.

Sing (your heart out) Eastbourne

by Ann Packer

I thought it would be a quick visit. I had no intention of staying for the whole practice. But when the sheet music was popped in front of me, I couldn’t resist joining in. I came back the next week...and the next.

Choir members everywhere know the satisfaction of singing in harmony – but if you need convincing, Interkultur, which organizes international choir competitions and festivals, lists international research backing up 13 different physical, mental and social benefits of singing together – even without an audience – from hearts beating in synchronicity to dopamine activation. It’s apparently inclusive and cost-effective too.

I haven’t sung in a choir since high school, when we did two choruses from Handel’s Messiah. Been to plenty of performances though, and I love choral music. So I suppose it was quite predictable I’d succumb to the sound and the enthusiasm of this small Eastbourne group.

And there’s the rub… After a winter of discontent – cold, cold, cold; wet, wet, wet – the group has diminished as colds, flu, Covid and other bugs have taken their toll. As the small fee for this group pays the cost of hiring music director Mark Bobb, who drives from Island Bay each Thursday night, there’s the need to balance the books. A seasoned musician who oozes music, he teaches violin, voice and theory at college level, coaches several other choirs and chamber groups, and sings jazz and opera.

“We’re lucky to have a professional music director,” says Kathryn Tyree, administrator for the Facebook page Sing Eastbourne, which keeps members up-to-date, “even though we don’t usually sing with any performance in mind.” But she says you also need enough people to make joining in fun, without feeling exposed, especially for newcomers – although my bet is you’ll know at least one other singer already. You don’t have to be able to read music.

Actually, it sounds as though Mark, who keeps the group supplied with a range of material from Palestrina to Freddie Mercury, has a challenge at times wrangling some of the more mercurial members of the group. The social side is evident from the chatter on arrival, to the tea break halfway through; Kathryn says the group has supported each other through hard times, from new babies –she had Angel Meals delivered after her son was born – to sickness and bereavement.

But the music is really what it’s all about. I’ve never forgotten As It Is In Heaven, that Scandi movie about the church choir that goes

Provides

to a world festival in Innsbruck (a whole 20 years ago). About time I stepped up.

Sing Eastbourne meets Thursdays 8 pm at St Alban's Hall, Ngaio St. $120 per (school) term or $15 casual. For more information, see Facebook https://www.facebook.com/ groups/811332352590443

Eastbourne Lions

New Members Night

Come along and find out more about what Lions do within and for Eastbourne & the wider community.

Thursday 7th September

Eastbourne Sports & Services Club

6.30 for a 7pm start

Guest speaker - Sir Ashley Bloomfield

Eastbourne Lions in conjunction with The Jackson St Programme

Meet the Candidates

Thursday 21st September

Petone Baptist Church, 38 Buick St Petone

5.30 for a 6pm start

Also advance notice of: Auction & Garage Sale

Saturday 18th November

Muritai School

Christmas Market

Sunday 19th November

Muritai School

A diminished group on the coldest night of winter: from left, Suzanne Levy, Jill Hart, Director Mark Bobb, Denise Pitts, Merryn Hedley, Jenny Scott and (seated) Penny Grigg gather round the piano in St Albans Hall for their weekly Sing Eastbourne gathering.

We’re a fun and funky web studio right here in Petone. Drop in for a coffee and a Free Web consultation any time at 350 Jackson Street We’ll put the kettle on for you.

Free coaching sessions, children's activities and mini games as well as the chance to win prizes are on offer at the upcoming “Love Tennis” event at Muritai Tennis Club, 356 Muritai Road on Sunday, September 10, 10am4pm.The event is part of a nationwide effort to promote tennis as a fun sport that can be played competitively or more socially, no matter your age. Games will be organised in the afternoon, and tennis racquets provided. There’s no need to register.

Members of the Iceberg swimming group, who brave the early morning chill to swim in Eastbourne’s pool over summer, have formally asked Hutt City Council to extend the pool’s season by two weeks, in line with other Hutt City pools. The Icebergs group began more than a decade ago, and has gone from strength to strength – last year more than 50 local residents joined the group, at a cost of $120 each to swim between 6am-8.30am. There are three HCC Summer Pools: McKenzie, Wainuiomata and Eastbourne. McKenzie and Wainuiomata stay open all summer, regardless of the weather, but last summer Eastbourne’s season was two weeks shorter.

News from Point Howard

News from Point Howard Reregistration for incorporated societies

Reregistration for incorporated societies starts in October 2023. The PHA and PHTC can apply to reregister under the new Act any time from 5 October 2023 to 5 April 2026. If members would like to familiarise themselves with the Incorporated Societies Act 2022, then please visit https://is-register.companiesoffice. govt.nz/law-changes-for-societies/ .

Reregistration of the PHA and PHTC will be on the agenda for the 2024 AGMs where members of the PHA and PHTC will vote on the decision to reregister.

Pest Monitoring

Pest monitoring will take place on the weekend 02 - 03 September. If you host a monitoring station a member of Point Howard ERAT will be installing cards on the 2nd and collecting them on the 3rd. MIRO and Point Howard ERAT appreciate your continued support.

Advance notice of Port Road events

Sunday 22 Oct 2023 - Port Road Sprints

Sunday 12 Nov 2023 - Port Road Drags

Please look out for notices in the Point Howard monthly newsletters and the Hutt News closer to the time.

pthowardassn@gmail.com

In case you missed out on a seat for the soldout 10 September screening for Where's George, director Murray Preece advises a third (and possibly final?) screening has been scheduled for Sunday 17th Sept at 1pm at Lighthouse Cinema.

The late Eastbourne centenarian Jeanne Sampson, who died in 2022, makes a cameo appearance in a new children’s book, My Aunt Honor, from Bateman Books. Petty Officer Wren Jeanne Kirkpatrick worked at Bletchley Park, home of the British Government Code and Cypher School during the war, operating the electro-mechanical machine known as the “bombe”, which decoded intercepted German messages. Author Gillian Torckler’s great-aunt Honora’s bio tops a list of seven women who did “more than knit socks” for the enlisted men in World War 2. New Zealander Sir Keith Park, known as “The Defender of London” also gets a mention. Seems he learnt to fly military aeroplanes only because injuries sustained at Gallipoli meant he could no longer ride a horse. Who knew?

Over 50% of NZ Businesses don’t have a website, of those who do, most websites are not responsive on mobile devices

Mondays

• Retired Persons’ Assn meet 4th Mon, 10am St Ronan's Church hall for morning tea followed by a speaker - $2 entry.Transport can be arranged for these meetings on request, ph 562 7365 or 562 8387.

• “Baby Bounce & Rhyme” at the library 10.00am.

• Toy Library - Two Monday Sessions at 1.302.30pm and 7.30-8.30pm.

EastbourneToyLibrary on Facebook. Kathy 0273551950

• DB Playcentre Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, from 9:15 to 12 noon, Drop in anytime to visit a session or call James on 022 043 7841 to arrange a visit.

• Pt Howard Playcentre. Mon 9.15 -11.45am. Lucy 021 335 391.

• The Historical Society’s Eastbourne History Room above the library is open 2-4 pm every Monday.

• Eastbourne Volunteer Fire Brigade training every Monday 7-9pm. Ph 562 7001 for more info.

• Keas: Monday 5.15pm – 6.15pm. Kea Leader: Ed 021 738 699

• Venturers: 7.00pm - 9.00pm, Susan 0275 35 4962.

Tuesdays

• Pt Howard Playcentre Tues 9.15 -11.45am. Lucy 021 335 391.

• DB Playcentre Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, from 9:15 to 12 noon, Drop in anytime to visit a session or call James on 022 043 7841 to arrange a visit.

• Muritai Tennis Club 9.30–noon. Merryn 562 0236.

• Eastbourne Homebirth Group 1st Tuesday of the month. Phone Kate 562-7096.

• East Harbour Women’s Club Morning Tea & Chat Group 10am. Contact Glendyr 562 7181.

• Indoor Bowls Club 1.30pm, at the croquet club, Oroua Street. Rosemary 562 7365

• Menzshed 9 till 12 , Williams Park, Barrie barrielittlefair@gmail.com 0204 1234511. Women welcome.

• 9.30am Nia Dance Fitness Class (low impactteens to 70+) Music Movement Magic - Muritai Yacht Club - call Amanda 021 316692 www. niainwellington.com

Wednesdays

• Cubs: 5.30pm - 7.00pm, Ed 021 738 699.

• Library preschool story time 10.00 am.

• Pt Howard Playcentre Wed 9.15 -11.45am. Lucy 021 335 391.

• Scottish Country Dance. Merryn 562 0236.

• Bridge Club 7-10pm. Shona 562 7073.

• DB Playcentre Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, from 9:15 to 12 noon, Drop in anytime to visit a session or call James on 022 043 7841 to arrange a visit.

• “Steady as You Go” Age Concern sponsored Falls Prevention and Exercise Programme. Held 12 noon each Wednesday at Eastbourne Community Hall. Classes are held for 1 hour

WHAT'S ON

and costs only $2. Improve your strength and balance to reduce falls and injuries. Falls are preventable. Please join us!

• EHock - Fun Stick and Ball game Girls and Boys 7- 13.Eastbourne Community Hall. Wednesdays 6.00 p.m. - 7.30 p.m. Derek Wilshere 0274303596

Thursdays

• Menzshed 9 till 12 , Williams Park, Barrie barrielittlefair@gmail.com 0204 1234511. Women welcome.

• St Ronan’s Mainly Music, 9.15am-11.15am, during school terms. Contact Cathy 027 213 9342.

• SPACE at Days Bay Playcentre. Michelle 971 8598.

• East Harbour Women’s Club

- Bolivia 12.45pm, Contact Glendyr ph: 562 7181. Guest Speaker (3rd week of month)7pm, drinks and nibbles provide, Contact Celeste 021 206 5713

•Lions meet 2nd Thursday of the month at the Eastbourne Sports and Services Club, Tuatoru St 6.30 pm. New members and visitors are welcome. Graham 562 8819.

• Scouts: Thursday 6.00pm - 8.00pm, Vanessa 021 669 727.

• Eastbourne Bowling Club casual summer bowls 5.30pm for an hour or so. Make up a mixed team of three. Contact Keith Turner ph 04 934 4142.

• EFC Social Womens Football. Every Thursday, 6.30pm, Bishop Park (unless otherwise notified). Contact: Trysh, 02102931247

Fridays

• Pop in and Play playgroup at St Ronan's Church Hall, 9am-11.30am during school terms. All preschoolers (0-4 years) welcome. Cath 027 213 9342.

• Pt Howard Playcentre Fri 9.15 -11.45am. Lucy 021 335 391.

• AA Plunket Rooms 7.30pm. Mark 566 6444/ Pauline 562 7833

• DB Playcentre 9.15-12 noon Puddle Jumpers casual ‘drop-in’ session.$5 per child per session.

Call James on 022 043 7841

Saturdays

• Justice of the Peace at the Eastbourne Community Library, first Saturday of each month 12pm-1pm.

• Croquet from 10am Muritai Croquet Club. Lyn 562 8722 or Val 562 8181.

• Lions' Bin - cost effective rubbish and e-waste disposal. Last Saturday of the month (except December) by Bus Barns. Gavin 027 488 5602.

Sundays

• AA Plunket Rooms 10am. Karen 021 440 705.

• Mindful Mummas group for Mums and preschool children. Childminder onsite. 1011.30. Text Emily 027 552 6119 to join or go to bemoreyou.co.nz for more info.

- The Monochrome Film Group is holding its 6th photographic exhibition at the Hutt Art Gallery, 13-24 September, 9-11 Myrtle Street, Lower Hutt. Hours: 10am-4pm daily. Admission is free.

CLASSIFIEDS

Mid-week Badminton at Badminton Hall, Vogel Street, Naenae Thursdays 9.15am to 10.45am. We are a friendly group of mixed ages and welcome beginners and experienced players. $6 per session, and rackets provided for $5 per session. For info email freersontauroa@gmail.com

Award winning toy designer is looking for an enterprising person to polish up our website and to implement and manage a social media campaign. Casual employment by the hour or lump sum for a particular task/project: text 0274 436 430.

FOR RENT - from early September, four bedroom, 2 bathroom, 2 lounge house in quiet Eastbourne locality on the flat. $800 per week. Ph 022 195 7615.

FOR RENT - from mid-late Sept, two bedroom cottage in Eastbourne, north end. $650 per week. Ph or text 027 254 5434.

CLASSIFIED advertising costs 50c per word. Email editor@eastbourneherald.co.nz

Forested hills offer protection as well as beauty

A stint in Hawkes Bay helping assess flood-ravaged recreational spaces in the wake of Cyclone Gabrielle has Eastbourne’s Robert Ashe looking at our vulnerable bush-clad hills with fresh eyes.

The senior ranger for the Department of Conservation’s Kapiti-Wellington conservancy, who often rides an electric bike 35km to his Porirua base, spent five days in the field in Hawke’s Bay recently. Six months on from the severe weather event, he is helping DOC to “build back better” its damaged tracks and camping sites throughout the normally weather-blessed province.

Cyclone Gabrielle caused severe slipping along the east coast of the North Island, especially in Gisborne and Hawkes Bay. More than 300,000 landslides removed an estimated 300 million tonnes of productive soil from farms and deposited it on floodplains –including DOC sites such as the Glenfalls campsite, an hour’s drive from Napier (and Taupō) on SH5.

Glenfalls is a popular spot for trout fishers, as well as those wanting to swim, canoe, and go rafting. The site now sits under 1.5 metres of silt and forestry slash. “It’s a completely blank canvas now, except for the two-storey high piles of woody debris here and there. When you see flood damage on this scale, it gives you a whole new perspective on what resilient infrastructure must withstand.”

There are difficult questions for the future of this and many DOC sites like it that are near rivers and waterfalls prone to ongoing heavy rainfall events.

At Tangoio Falls, upstream from the marae where the All Blacks moved in to help clear debris recently, everything built is tangled up

Kidztalk

in silt and slash: tracks, swing bridges, signs, and toilets.

“Cyclone Gabrielle has lots of lessons for us in Eastbourne,” he says.

One of the most significant factors influencing slips and destruction in the hills was forest cover. Landcare Research has found that intact native forest was protective, reducing the likelihood of slipping by 90%, Mr Ashe says. “Roots growing through the soil help hold the surface together. Native forest outperformed pine forest, which is left vulnerable during harvest and early regrowth.

“Back at home, I now see our forested hills here in Eastbourne as not only beautiful, but

also offering us protection from some of the earliest impacts of climate change – intense rainfall events. Protecting our forests is a way of insuring against landslides. Our forests are at risk, however, from the high numbers of browsing animals, like deer, goats, possums, pigs and rabbits. Their numbers are now at record levels nationally.”

Back in Hawke’s Bay, DOC is working out how to best spend the available funding to build back resilient recreational opportunities and restore the heavy impacts on native flora and fauna.

“We hope to have as much open before summer as we practically and safely can.”

News from our local early childhood centres

The tamariki at East Harbour Kindergarten have been role playing the road works they see around the Eastbourne bays as the construction on the new cycle way continues. Localised curriculum in action!

At Kindy we have had a busy term including a recent working bee where families came along to help us prepare our garden for spring planting. Alongside Muritai School we have participated in a Pyjama day in support of Ronald McDonald house and dressed in Yellow for Daffodil day. We are looking forward to planting sunflower seeds, recycling paper into 'briquettes', making more fossils and further exploring our new dress-up fabrics.'

Robert Ashe and daughter Charlotte.

Balanced life for basketballer

Faith in the Community

What we are about...

We plant the seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development.

We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities.

Eastbourne basketball player – and former Eastbourne Herald deliverer – Rufus Rusholme Cobb is about to return to his New Hampshire university town for the second year of a business management degree, funded by his basketball scholarship.

Just north of the Massachusetts border, Rindge, where the undergraduate campus of Franklin Pierce University is based, is a long way from Flagstaff, Arizona, where Rufus spent his final secondary year as an exchange student at Coconino High School, playing basketball all over the state.

His focus paid off, and he was named the Arizona Sun student player of the year.

“I got a text from the Franklin Pierce assistant coach, who’d seen me play, and I flew out to train with their squad. After one session, I was offered a full-ride scholarship.”

While high school was a big culture shock, he found the school work in Arizona very easy and classes smaller than here – he had been at Scots College on a general excellence scholarship.

Now he’s at university, he says there’s a reasonable work life balance, with a couple of classes a day and several hours’ training in the gym. He’s managing to get work in on time without too much stress – “the teachers are very understanding – a high proportion of the students are athletes”.

The roommate he’d become close to has moved away to a larger university, with a view to playing on the professional circuit, but Rufus is not sure that’s the life for him – “My aim was to get a free degree and play good basketball – anything after that is a bonus. Being able to come back home to Eastbourne for summers is good. I have quite a nice balance in my life.”

Community bowls coming

Following a resoundingly successful inaugural season, the Eastbourne Bowling Club (EBC) will again look to run the weekly Community Bowls event for the coming season.

Last season’s event saw approximately 50 new players, most of whom had never held a bowling ball before, filling the greens on Thursday after work to play a series of games jam-packed with lots of laughter, fun and a relaxed vibe.

"The Dangerfields" comprising B Ray, B Heffernam, and T Lynch, were the winners of the 2022/2023 event, conceding only one game throughout the tournament.

Dates are yet to be confirmed (late September, weather allowing), but we encourage registrations of interest for the new season of Community Bowls by emailing Keith on keithncaryl@hotmail.com as a team or individual player as soon as possible as bookings fill quickly.

There is no requirement to have any knowledge of the game, nothing is too serious, the music is going, there’s lots of banter (and maybe the odd bit of sledging!), but most importantly it’s about having some fun.

The EBC would also like to take this opportunity to thank Pub Charity who have by way of their generous donation enabled the EBC to purchase twelve new sets of coloured bowls for teams/players to use at the Community Bowls event.

- Keith Turner, Eastbourne Bowling Club

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realising that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.

It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,

An opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own. From the Romero Prayer (Archbishop Oscar Romero 1917-1980)

St Ronan’s: Services Sun 9.30am - informal 1st and 3rd, traditional 2nd and 4th. Ask if you’d like our monthly printed magazine the Record

E:office@stronans.org.nz

W:www.stronans.org.nz

St Alban’s: At Wellesley College Sun 10am communion with guest vicar. Special activities for children during term time. 1st Thurs only, 10.30am communion at St Ronan’s Church with guest vicar (note the time change).

E:office@stalbanschurch.nz

W:www.stalbanschurch.nz

San Antonio: Vigil Mass, Sat 5.30pm.

Sacred Heart, Petone: Mass, Sun 9.30am and 5.30pm.

E: holyspiritparish41@gmail.com

W: www.holyspirit.nz

Garden Stuff with Sandy Lang Plastics

August/September: Early spring, days lengthen, clocks change, buds swell, tiny leaves. Warming up but late frosts till Labour Day.

The plastocene: Welcome to the new geological age. Plastics are now in the sedimentary record. Since 1950 we’ve created about 10 billion tons of the stuff and less than 10% has been recycled. Plastics are causing terrible problems in the biosphere – not just the big bits but the microscopic bits too. Tiny plastic particles are turning up in our food and water, and so becoming part of us. What is plastic? Chemists define a plastic as a large number of small carbon molecules (monomers) joined together to form a long chain (polymer). This definition fits well with polythene (think plastic bags) - a long chain of many thousands of ethene (C₂H4) molecules, and with cellulose (think plant cell walls) - a long chain of many thousands of glucose (C6H12O6) molecules. So, you’re wrong if you think plastics are new.

Amounts: Polythene is the most common synthetic plastic (34% of the total - mostly packaging) and cellulose is the most common bioplastic (50% of all wood). About the only difference between these is cellulose has been around billions of years while polythene has been around only since 1898. Microbes have evolved to break cellulose down, but not yet for polythene.

Biodegradation: The good thing about most synthetic plastics is they’re not biodegradableyou can use them where you don’t want them to degrade (sheathing on buried cables, waterpipes). This is also the bad thing (old plastic bags/bottles, old fishing nets, ropes).

Smart polymers: Nature is pretty clever with its bioplastics. There’re used for... •Structure: Cellulose – cell walls, wood (plants), Chitin – exoskeleton (insects), Keratin – skin, wool, feathers (animals).

•Energy stores: Starch (plants), Glycogen (animals).

•Databases: DNA (plants, animals). •Biochemistry: Enzymes - catalytic proteins (plants, animals).

•Springs: Elastin - stretchy stuff in skin (animals).

•Motility: Actin, Myosin - contractile filaments in muscles (animals). •Electrical insulation: Myelin - around nerves (animals). •Waterproofing: Cutinaround all external cells (plants).

Biodegradable plastics: Industry is racing (too slowly) to replace its non-biodegradable synthetic plastics with biodegradable ones. And microbes are racing (more slowly) to find ways to degrade the huge amounts of waste plastic now cluttering the biosphere. But when they do, it will be the end of plastic waterpipes and cable sheathing too...!

slang@xtra.co.nz www.mulchpile.org

When Muritai School’s Principal, Stu Devenport, offered to “help students in any way” little did he expect to become the top prize and target of a messy-pie splatting in a fundraising event for the school’s Year 7/8 Netball Team.

Looking for back issues of The Eastbourne Herald?

The Historical Society of Eastbourne archives each edition of the paper. Visit https://library.huttcity.govt.nz search either for The Eastbourne Herald or by word search for a particular article. Bound volumes of past papers are available to read at the Eastbourne Library. Read the current issue at www.eastbourneherald.co.nz

In early September the Muritai Meerkats will head off to the prestigious, annual AIMS Games held in Tauranga. Since its inception in 2004 the Event has grown to offer 23 sporting codes, hosting nearly 12,000 competitors from 373 intermediate schools across New Zealand and proves to be an incredible opportunity for Muritai’s young players.

This is the first time Muritai School will be competing in a team event, made possible by the unwavering support of school staff and the local community. The players have had to fundraise hard and are hugely grateful for the significant support from Annette Sliper of Ray White Real Estate in attaining playing uniforms  and the Eastbourne-Bays Community Trust grant given to cover travel costs.

Although no newcomers to local tournaments, the team will undoubtedly have a few nerves setting off to the national event but will be reassured that their diligent preparations, support for each other and love for netball will help them through the demanding week-long schedule. They are set to relish the experience, excel in how they represent themselves and their school and hopefully inspire other Muritai students.

The team would also like to thank: Eastbourne Swim Club, Burger Fuel, Lighthouse Cinema Petone, Clip n Climb, Jumperama, Whittakers, Pak N Save.

Eastbourne 225 Muritai Road

Stunner in Eastbourne

This spacious family home in Eastbourne is sure to please and offers the perfect balance of comfortable modern living with a convenient location. The open plan kitchen, dining and living areas provide access to the west facing deck bringing the outside in and allowing for alfresco dining during the warmer months.

bayleys.co.nz/3326090

981sqm 4 2

Tender (unless sold prior)

Closing 4pm, Thu 31 Aug 2023

120 Queens Drive, Lower Hutt View by appointment

Rob Black 027 448 2735 rob.black@bayleys.co.nz

Phil Cooke 027 490 0515 phil.cooke@bayleys.co.nz

CAPITAL COMMERCIAL (2013) LTD, BAYLEYS, LICENSED UNDER THE REA ACT 2008

Eastbourne 44 Cheviot Road, Lowry Bay

Begin Your Lowry Bay Journey

44 Cheviot Road spreads across 250sqm of floor area, it sits back off the street with easy drive on access up to the front door and the double internal access garage. The home is situated for fantastic sun and privacy and offers an opportunity to step into and secure a place in Lowry Bay. bayleys.co.nz/3306165

3 2 1 2

Tender (will not be sold prior)

Closing 12pm, Thu 31 Aug 2023

Level 14, The Bayleys Building, 36 Brandon Street, Wellington, 6011

View by appointment

Matt Hourigan 027 542 7604

Duncan Povey 027 597 1080

CAPITAL COMMERCIAL (2013) LTD, BAYLEYS, LICENSED UNDER THE REA ACT 2008

WELLINGTON,

bayleys.co.nz

WELLINGTON, WAIRARAPA, MANAWATŪ, WHANGANUI AND MARLBOROUGH