Xmas shopping, Eastbourne style Traffic delays set to continue
Another summer of long traffic delays around the Bays looms as changes to the Williams Park pedestrian crossing become the victim of a change in roading strategy.
Hutt City Council director of economy and development Jon Kingsbury told last month’s Eastbourne Community Board meeting the crossing had been included in proposed speed changes outside Wellesley College, but due to the shift in approach to speeds around schools from central Government, there is no longer funding for crossing improvements.
"We have a three-year funding window, but our application for this project was unsuccessful," he said.
Debate around how to resolve congestion caused by traffic stopping for pedestrians in Days Bay has raged for years. Temporary traffic controls, suggested by members of the community for peak summer days, could divert funds from potential long-term solutions, Mr Kingsbury said.
Community fundraising has been suggested as a possible option to cover the costs of enhancements.
Following the meeting, the ECB asked for council permission to engage volunteers to manage the crossing this summer, however Mr Kingsbury said the council “strongly advise against any community management of traffic”.
“This would require a Traffic Management Plan to be prepared by and undertaken by appropriately qualified people, and have ongoing costs, with the responsibilities lying with Hutt City Council.
A pre-Christmas shopping night in the village will offer festive fun in the early evening of 5 December. Fran Drager, owner of Goldie Fran Drager, owner of Goldie, and Lisa South, owner of The Cove, came up with the idea to get local businesses together to put on a fun evening with a chance to buy unique Christmas gifts. Businesses in Rimu Street and Days Bay will be open, and Sing Eastbourne will be carolling for the occasion.
Pictured are some of those taking part: Artist Niki Pennington, jeweller Rachel Stitchbury, Emily Holmes from The Cove, Morgan Grace from Chocolate Hair, Fran Drager from Goldie, Camille Furminieux from Tartines and Jaene Quinn from Leafz Bakery. Also participating in the evening are Flourish Florial Design, Orania Skincare, Eastbourne Bakery, Studio Toru and Hive. These businesses will be open in Rimu Street and Days Bay, with some trading from Hive and Tartines. Christmas in the Bays, Thursday, 5 December, 5pm- 8pm (See advertisement, Pg 5)
This year's Lions Club Market runs 10am-3pm on Sunday, 24 November at Muritai School.
Gently does it…25 years of Tai Chi in Eastbourne
by Ann Packer
In October 1999 a group of eight met at 6.15am on the beach, just through from the gap in the Shortt Park fence. Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays – though in winter time it was dark so for three months the group just met on Wednesdays, for half an hour, learning five basic exercises and tai chi form as taught by Wee Kee Jin, a world champion with whom Beverley Barclay studied in Auckland from 1992 to 1995.
In wet weather they used the women’s bowling club rooms and it was here, doing the tai chi form, watching the ducks playing in the puddles on the green, that one of the group hit on the idea of using the lawn for a croquet club, as the bowling club was defunct. So a steering committee was formed from the tai chi group, ESSC supported the idea and Muritai Croquet Club was born.
Wee Kee Jin has visited Wellington to run advanced workshops from 1995 to the present day, attended by some Eastbourne class members over the years. Suzy Costello, the current teacher, keeps learning from Jin in these workshops.
Another tai chi group was started up by Beverley midmornings in the park, the beach, Bowling/Croquet Club rooms, in the back courtyard at the then Beach Café and in her studio MOANA in Rimu St, as weather determined.
As Beverley says, “Doing tai chi is not a matter of waving your arms around looking blissed out in a slow dream. It is a precision martial art, translated as Supreme Ultimate of the martial arts, focussing on prevention and self-care. Taken seriously, it can be one of the most difficult things to do in one’s life, with the attention to detail – not being able to escape from oneself – a moving meditation.”
Research shows the health benefits of tai chi are enormous, especially falls prevention, gently transmitted.
And of course, the “glue” for the group is its social aspect, meeting for coffee at Tartines after class.
Eastbourne Tai Chi: Muritai Yacht Club, Wednesdays 9.45 – 10.15am.
WHAT’S HAPPENING HAIR
NOVEMBER
This month I am sharing my top recommendations for keeping your blonde hair looking healthy, vibrant, and absolutely radiant!
First and foremost, let's talk about the importance of a clarifying treatment.
Over time, product build-up, environmental pollutants, and hard water minerals can wreak havoc on blonde hair, leaving it looking dull and lifeless.
That's why I highly recommend incorporating a clarifying treatment into your haircare routine One of my personal favourites is the Olaplex Clarifying Shampoo – a gentle yet effective formula that removes impurities and restores your hair's natural brilliance
And the best part? You can take this miracle worker home with you, as I proudly offer Olaplex products for sale
Chris Bishop
MP for Hutt South
Please contact my Lower Hutt office, my staff and I are here to help.
Phone
While a steaming hot shower may feel great on your skin, it can actually strip your hair of its natural oils and cause damage, particularly if you have blonde hair that's already prone to dryness. Instead, I recommend opting for lukewarm water when washing your hair to help maintain its moisture balance and keep your blonde locks looking luscious and hydrated
It's tempting to reach for the blow dryer every time you wash your hair, but over blow waving can actually lead to heat damage and breakage, especially for delicate blonde strands When you are blowdrying your hair, it is vital to ensure you use a heat protectant Using a lower heat setting on your blow dryer can also help to minimise damage and preserve your hair's health and vitality.
Ready to elevate your blonde game to new heights? Book your appointment today and let's make magic happen!
Authorised by Chris Bishop, Parliament Buildings, Wgtn.
Moving meditation: Eastbourne Tai Chi practitioners celebrate 25 years of gentle exercise, at the Muritai Yacht Club.
The next public Eastbourne Community Board meeting will be at 7.15pm on Tuesday, 11 February, at Eastbourne Library and Community Hub.
Thank you to everyone who has attended our recent meetings at the library. We know there are issues with the acoustics, which will be resolved for the February meeting.
The ECB is still active
The ECB has appealed Council’s decision to disestablish community boards and will attend a Local Government Commission hearing on 26 November. In the meantime, we are still here and active until the October 2025 local government elections.
Eastbourne Awards
Congratulations to the 2024 Eastbourne Awards recipients at the October ECB meeting. You can read the citations at eastbourne.nz:
Martin Cooper: For services to youth leadership and community support through his unwavering dedication to Eastbourne’s youth group, “The Loft,” providing a safe and welcoming space for local youth.
Sinead Diederich: For services to community engagement and local fundraising, including founding the Facebook Eastbourne Community Notice Board and spearheading numerous local initiatives.
Sarah Pettus: For caring for our coastline, environment, and immigrant and refugee community.
Jo Greenman: For her tireless dedication to the role of Park Ranger for Greater Wellington Regional Council in East Harbour Regional Park.
Janet Andrews and Simon Hoyle: Visual storytellers, geologists and wonderful members of our community.
Belinda Moss (Chair) 029 494 1615
belinda.moss@huttcity.govt.nz
Emily Keddell (Deputy Chair) 021 188 5106
Bruce Spedding 021 029 74741
Frank Vickers 027 406 1419
Murray Gibbons 04 562 8567
Tui Lewis (Ward Councillor) 021 271 6249
From parking lots to tiny forests
by Ann Packer
Molly Melhuish is surrounded by a forest of trees she and her late husband, Hugh, planted as seedlings around the York Bay house they built way back in 1964.
Now she’s using seedlings from those same trees – “the gifts the birds bring us” – to help plant a “tiny forest” at Wainuiomata Marae that she hopes will become a prototype for schools and preschools.
There’s toro (“from the ridge up there”), whangārei (from near the Wellington Botanic Gardens), mahoe, patatē, akeake (collected behind the spur between here and Lowry Bay), local shiny karamu, a special flax from Waiwhetū marae – whole trees and small potted-up seedlings thriving together on the steep hillside.
“We know that forests and swamps with fully developed soils offer the most effective ecosystems, cooling the air, transpiring moisture, reducing flooding and filtering polluted air. They even reduce fire risk and can reduce the energy of tsunamis.”
Mrs Melhuish – a Massachusetts native who trained as a physical chemist before meeting her Kiwi husband, a chemical physicist, at UCLA – has been an eco-warrior pretty much all her life. Growing up near Boston, where her father was a Harvard-trained mathematician and her mother found solace in plants while bringing up three children, Molly “brought herself up” in the white pine forest near Boston, “in tune with the land and trees and birds and insects and fish.”
She first studied bioecology under two people from Yale University who later taught the legendary Rachel Carson, of Silent Spring fame, and became “absolutely taken by ecology”.
She put her physical chemistry to use and was an energy campaigner from the 1970s onwards for several decades, until Think Big forces effectively put a stop to her activities. She now invests all her energy “in the time I have left to me” in climate change projects, especially the Wainuiomata Marae tiny forest project. This began in 2022, during a Lower Hutt City Council meeting as part of their Climate Action Pathway, when the Marae’s leader, Star Olsen, described how as a child he played in the streams and bush – and Molly recognised how similar her own childhood was.
The Miyawaki method, pioneered in 1970s Japan, has been used around the world – and is now spreading rapidly through the SUGi project. Several are now underway in Aotearoa New Zealand. The densely-planted
microforests typically grow at ten times the rate of conventional timber plantations and are used by some communities for food and animal fodder as well as protection of native species and disaster mitigation.
Mrs Melhuish says Wainuiomata’s urban marae, erected on swamp land built up by trucking in tonnes of soil in 1973, is perfect for this kind of ngahere korowai (precious forest cloak), which can cool cities, offset heating from paved surfaces and control storm water. And since the “first thousand days” of a child’s life are now recognised as the most important for exposure to healthy microbes, which will be increasingly important for future mental and physical health, she sees the marae’s kohanga reo as the perfect place for this prototype.
“They should be at every school and kohanga – soaking up carbon while exposing kids to protective bacteria, viruses and other organisms as they play in the sand and bark chip.”
She says it takes as little as two parking lots – a small tennis court – to set up a whole dense ecosystem of bugs, protozoa, insects and (locally-sourced) healing plants that brings birds and bees, and suppresses pathogens. And they’re especially important in low-income suburbs where people have neither the time nor money to get to traditional native forest restoration areas.
“All I’m doing is reflecting my mother’s interests.”
Octogenarian eco-warrior Molly Melhuish of York Bay has become a champion of “tiny forests”. A PledgeMe page raised $10,080 to establish a model forest at Wainuiomata Marae. [photo credit: Pam Crisp].
Anna Jamieson, world-ranked powerlifter
There’s a teacher at Muritai School who, way back in 2019, remembers a Year 8 student listing “powerlifting” as their passion, for the ritual end-of-school declaration.
Five years on, that student, now in Year 13 at Hutt Valley High, has just been placed sixth in the world in the Sub-Junior category (up to 18 years) in the International Powerlifting Federation’s World Junior and Sub-Junior Championships in Malta, with a total of 405kg – a New Zealand record for her age.
Anna Jamieson of Point Howard took up powerlifting at the age of 12. Still too young to join a gym, she started lifting at home with a small metal laundry pole with weights on the ends in Year 8, prior to and during lockdown, as one of a small group mentored by her mother Susan’s gym trainer.
Anna holds the Commonwealth squat record and NZ squat, bench and overall combined total bench record for her age and weight class, as well as the Oceania records for squat, bench, deadlift and total. She was a finalist in the recent College Sport Wellington 2024 SPOTY awards.
For someone who hated anything to do with sport when she was younger, taking up powerlifting – still a male-dominated sport – has been fantastic for her self-confidence and body image, says mother Susan. And, Anna notes, contrary to what’s often claimed, “it does not stunt your growth plates”. She is not especially tall or solid – it seems that powerlifting encompasses all body types, from large and tall to smaller, even petite. The personal gear needed is not particularly expensive – a belt that supports the back and compresses the abdomen keeps the spine aligned. Since Covid lockdowns, many have become used to training via Zoom – because there are not many powerlifting coaches in Wellington, Anna’s coach is in Auckland, and her coach’s coach in the UK. “You get your programme online then video your lifts and feed them back,” she says. She trains two hours at a time four days a week, though closer to competitions may train up to five hours.
She has not had any accidents. “Powerlifting has its risks just like any other sport, but this sport fosters physical resilience, so serious accidents and injuries are usually hard to come by with proper training.”
Her whole family, including brother Sam, accompanied Anna to the “teeny tiny island” of Malta, in the Mediterranean, for the event. It was an eye-opener for the Kiwis, from the Italian-inspired pasta and pizza to the sweltering 43 degree days – a lot warmer than they had anticipated. “It was not what we expected, but we would go back again,” says Susan.
Anna, who juggles school – English and science subjects – with training and a weekend job at Countdown, thinks she’d like to go into the Police eventually. For now, though, she’s looking forward to a “gap year at home” that will include a trip – sans family this time – to the Asia, Africa Pacific champs in Japan in July.
Pt Howard powerlifter Anna Jamieson lifting in the World Junior and Sub-Junior Championships in Malta recently.
Eastbourne & Days Bay
Christmas Evening
Thursday 5 December 5–8pm Eastbourne Village & Days Bay
Join us for a night of Christmas fun and late night shopping. There will be music, festive treats and special offers. Local businesses will be popping up at Hive and Tartines. Support local and get your Christmas shopping sorted without leaving the Bays.
Eastbourne Bakery
Hive Tartines
Studio Toru
Chocolate Hair Company
Flourish Floral Design
Celebrating our biodiversity by bringing it into the home
by Ann Packer
Hayley Meehan has made things ever since she was a child. Her mother nurtured her creative side from when she was very young, though it wasn’t until she became a mum herself that she had time to completely immerse herself in creative endeavours.
These days she spends so much time stitching, knitting or crocheting she has to be careful not to overdo it – “they all damage your wrists in a different way,” she laughs.
“I’m that mum that has a crochet hook or needle in my hand everywhere we go, from the school gate to the side of the sports field, making use of all the spare minutes in our busy schedule!”
A casual librarian filling in from time to time at the Eastbourne Hub – a job that fits in with being a mum to 11-year-old Oliver and Evelyn, 10 – you might just identify Hayley by her earrings: cheerful felt kowhai or pohutukawa blossoms, with golden crochet caps. She also crafts cheerful baby beanies and kiddy-sized felt animals that she calls pocket pal playsets – kiwi and other native birds, plus a family of seals (all of which can be bought as tree ornaments as well) and the sweetest bee-embroidered felt hearts – “pocket hugs” – which come complete with simple poems.
It’s a way of celebrating New Zealand’s biodiversity by bringing it into the home, reckons the former York Bay woman, now living in Belmont, who holds a Master’s degree in Ecology.
Now her simple stitched objects have become so popular she’s having to cut back on the number of seasonal markets she once sold at, so that she has enough stock to meet demand from the 22 shops that regularly stock her work, especially those that first took her on. It’s a dilemma she never thought she’d have to face…
http://www.designcreateinspire.nz/
Hayley Meehan’s felt treasures will be available at Hive during the Christmas In the Bays Shopping evening on Thursday 5 December from 5-8pm.
Past
Eastbourne illustrator Lily Uivel’s work features in a new picturebook by New Zealand author Juliette McIver, published by Scholastic. Beddy-Bye Time in the Kowhai Tree, a very Kiwi counting book, has loads of local visual detail to accompany the bath to bedtime tale – with a smattering of te reo words that slip effortlessly into the English text.
From an author who may be known to older Eastbourne residents – she lived in the Bays for over 15 years – comes an accessible guide to New Zealand’s Native Mammals:
Garden Stuff with Sandy Lang Death
November: Last month of spring. Lots to do in the garden. Nature’s abuzz with new life - but death’s busy too. Leaving aside untimely death through disease and injury, death’s common across all living organisms. It’s in the DNA. It’s a key part of life itself. Cell death: Your skin’s largely dead cells, your hair too - likewise, fur, feathers, claws, nails, hooves, horns, scales and beaks. Cell death’s no accident but planned. Google programmed cell death (PCD).
Plants: Death’s even more common in plants. It includes not just cell death, but tissue death, organ death and whole-plant death.
Tissues: Phellem - The bark of a tree is made up of dead cells - cork. Like your skin, it forms a tough, waterproof barrier between the fragile tissues (inside) and the hostile world (outside). The bark cells die, having first accumulated large quantities of the waterproofing compound, suberin. New bark cells are continuously produced (inside) and old dead ones eroded or actively discarded (outside).
Xylem - The wood of a tree is mostly dead cells. The wood serves both as a conduit for sap moving from root to leaf and for structural support. The xylem cells die having first accumulated large quantities of the stiffening compound, lignin. The wood is continuously produced (outside) while the old wood (inside) continues its structural function but ceases to carry sap.
Organs: Plant growth is unlike animal growth. Plants produce a whole range of temporary structures (organs) including leaves, petals and fruit. These serve for a while before being killed off and discardedshed.
When and where to see them (White Cloud/ Upstart Press). Emeritus Professor Carolyn King, an ecologist who retired from teaching at Waikato University in 2018, has produced a guide not only to bats (our only land mammals) but all those sea creatures that so captivate us, from seals to whales. As Kim Miller she was a church musician and song-writer; her accountant husband, Joe Miller, was for many years chorister and later choirmaster at St Alban's. During a recent visit Kim addressed the congregation to mark Earth Month (September).
Shedding: Organ shedding is intentional. The old organ doesn’t just fall off. It’s by the growth of a fragile barrier (abscission layer) between the plant and the organ which severs the vascular connection with the plant. Deciduous leaves serve just a few months before shedding, evergreen leaves a bit longer (see www. mulchpile.org/50). Petals are shed only about 3 days after flower opening, surplus tiny fruitlets are shed about 2 weeks later, mature fruit about 5 months later. Twigs, branches: Most trees shed twigs, most forest trees shed whole branches – self-pruning. An abscission layer grows. The twig/branch dies. It falls off. Whole plants: Annual and biennial plants are DNA programmed to grow, flower, seed, then die. If you stop one of these fruiting, it will live much longer. Cut off dead flowers. Don’t let them fruit.
slang@xtra.co.nz www.mulchpile.org
Some of Hayley Meehan's creations.
Faith in the Community
There’s hope...
With all the noise and trouble we see and read about in the media, it feels as if we and all the world are stuck in a time from which we are unable to emerge. Things seem only to go from bad, to worse, to truly terrible… In the 3 November 2024 issue of Heather Cox Richardson’s Letter from America, she writes about what she has witnessed each day in the USA during the run up to the Presidential election. She was asked, how did she maintain her sense of hope? She replied, “The answer… is in our history.” And she went on to detail events in USA history that led away from civil war, minority rule and slavery, into democracy. So, we too can find hope in our history. When we look at the World, we see continual fluctuation from peace to war and back again.
So, we too can be sure that good times will come again – and we can ask God’s help to make them come again soon…!
St Alban’s + St Ronan’s: 1st Sundays 9:30am monthly shared communion services (alternating venues, leaders and preachers) 1 December at San Antonio church, 5 January at St Ronan’s church.
St Ronan’s: 1st Sundays shared with St Alban’s (see above). 2nd and 4th Sundays 9:30am informal, 3rd Sundays 9:30am traditional, 5th Sundays 12:00pm fellowship meal. E:office@ stronans.org.nz W:www.stronans.org.nz
St Alban’s: 1st Sundays shared with St Ronan’s (see above). Other Sunday services now at San Antonio church at 9:30am. 1st Thursdays, communion at 10:30am at St Ronan’s church. Details www.facebook.com/ StAlbansNZ 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
Combined Churches Community Carols: Keep an eye on the Eastbourne Community Facebook page for details – early December.
Book clubs thriving in the Bays
by Ann Packer
Hands up if you’ve ever joined a book club? Most people have done at some time… Many still do. There’s even a club for junior bookworms, called Inklings, at Eastbourne library.
Formal book clubs in Aotearoa New Zealand have been around since at least 1915, when the WEA (Workers’ Educational Association) set up its first study circle – although the late Lydia Wevers, who charmingly described her personal reading space in the family home at Lansdown in her essay On Reading, for Lloyd Jones’s Four Winds Press, wrote a fascinating account of what was in effect an early New Zealand book group at Brancepeth Station, in the Wairarapa, in Reading on the Farm: Victorian fiction and the Colonial World.
Professor Elaine Reese of Otago University, author of the book How Stories Change Us, talked to RNZ recently about her finding that fewer than 2% of bookclubs are attended by men. Her search took her all the way back to prenatal influences.
While there are at least six book groups in Eastbourne – mostly meeting in each other’s homes but at least one gathering at a local restaurant after young children are in bed –and most are indeed all-women, like the two at Eastbourne Hub. But this community is unusual in that we have a blokes-only book club – and it’s survived for more than two decades.
Ren Davies of Rona Bay says the men’s book group was “cooked up” in the early 2000s by the late Bruce Hamilton, and Geoff Martel, who now lives in Christchurch. All take turns at hosting, and they meet every six weeks or so. “We have a glass of wine, maybe cheese, and chat about a range of books: non-fiction mostly – science, history, philosophy, politics” with the occasional theme thrown in – Independence, Power, etc…”
Best thing about this arrangement? “You
Don J. McIlroy
An Eastbourne lawyer
First Floor, 40 Rimu St Tel: 562 6393
Email: arcadia@xtra.co.nz
come across authors you would never have come across.” His favourites are Mick Heron’s Slow Horses series and Kate Atkinson (A God in Ruins, Life after Life).
While some groups introduce members to whatever they’ve enjoyed that month, others all read the same book then discuss their reactions. Hutt City Libraries offers sets of ten for free through their Book Club in a Bag scheme, which draws on regional Smart libraries for added variety.
Other organisations, including WEA and the Book Discussion Scheme – run by a charitable trust out of Christchurch since 1973 and distributing to 1300 groups nationally –charge for their service.
Librarian Barbara Clarkson runs two groups in the Eastbourne Hub, one of five Hutt City libraries offering such gatherings. On Wednesday mornings a themed display of books can be checked out after being introduced by the librarian, an avid reader herself. On Saturday mornings, her Book Chat group (“clubs” sounds too exclusive, she thinks) offers a more personal selection for the half dozen regular attendees – though sessions are open to drop-ins.
“I want people to enjoy it, but they don’t have to contribute,” she says. Flyers listing featured titles, all of which she’s read, are available at the counter – a mix of fiction (including crime for known fans) and nonfiction, classics and more recent titles, including New Zealand new releases – “there are so many good ones lately”. They’re not brand new – those are all on the reserves shelves.
Recent personal favourites include The Safe Keep, a post-WW2 novel set in Amsterdam, and Shy Creatures, about an art therapist working in a London psychiatric hospital in 1964.
“A library is such a precious thing,” says this committed community librarian. “Conversations will start up about books… anywhere. We have so much fun.”
Penguin Random House (US) offers a useful guide to setting up a book club: penguinrandomhouse.com/Getting Started: How to Start a Book Club
EB women blitz
netball opponents
Eastbourne Mums Netball team dressed up for the opening ceremony at Hawkes Bay Netball’s Court in the Bay last month, with legendary netballer Irene van Dyk making an appearance in the back row. EB Mums won all seven round-robin games and took the final against a Wellington team “who could not believe we didn’t play on the weekends”, says Sarah Bleier.
The women have 23 tamariki between nine of them and “massive” support from home.
To prepare for the tournament they had all-comers’ Sunday morning “pick up games” at Muritai School, organised via WhatsApp. The Netball Run Around group has 32 members ranging from school students through to over40s. Next up – the Masters in Whanganui 7-9 February 2025.
Pictured -Back row: Kathryn Mooney, Sarah Bleier, Lou Shields, Irene van Dyk, Lucy Miller, Hilary Bevin Front Row: Brooke Forrester, Jess Wolken, Vicki Scott.
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, and Wednesday mornings, from 9:30am to 12 noon. Drop in anytime to visit a session or email daysbay@playcentre.org.nz to arrange a visit.
• Pt Howard Playcentre. Mon 9.15 -11.45am. pcpointhoward@gmail.com
• 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 - 5:15pm - 6:15pm. Ed 021 738 699
Tuesdays
• 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.
•DB Playcentre Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday mornings, from 9:30am to 12 noon. Drop in anytime to visit a session or email daysbay@playcentre.org.nz 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 0210303480.
• 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 impact
- teens to 70+) Music Movement MagicMuritai Yacht Club - call Amanda 021 316692 www.niainwellington.com
Wednesdays
• Cubs: 5.30pm - 7.00pm, Ed 021 738 699.
• Venturers - 7:15pm - 9pm - Ed 021 738 699.
• Library preschool story time 10.00 am.
• Pt Howard Playcentre Wed 9.15 -11.45am.
WHAT'S ON
pcpointhoward@gmail.com
• Scottish Country Dance. Merryn 562 0236.
• Bridge Club 7-10pm. Shona 562 7073.
•DB Playcentre Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday mornings, from 9:30am to 12 noon. Drop in anytime to visit a session or email daysbay@playcentre.org.nz 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 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.
•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 6pm-8pm - Ed 021 738 699
• 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.
• Sing Eastbourne: 8pm, St Alban's Hall.
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 pcpointhoward@gmail.com
• AA Plunket Rooms 7.30pm. Mark 566 6444/ Pauline 562 7833
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.
Seaside move inspires budding artist
He’s only been here a couple of weeks, but already Sam Price is making his presence felt. The 25-year-old creator of the Grim Reaper Halloween sculpture, on the beach off Konini Street, admits he’s “never been this famous” before.
British-born but raised in Nelson from the age of three, when he immigrated with his parents, the driftwood sculptor moved to Eastbourne after his Waiwhetu flat was sold and he had four weeks to find somewhere to live.
After being confined in the valley, Sam can’t believe his luck at living across the road from the sea, with resources at hand to indulge his creative side.
The weather can be a bit challenging at times, and he is constantly having to tweak his Reaper, adding more seaweed and adjusting its skull mask and paua pendant. But coming home after work the longer evenings allow time for maintenance.
He hasn’t had a problem with vandalism – indeed, he rather liked someone’s addition of a cigar to his Reaper.
Sam’s tried a lot of different jobs in the nine years since he left school; he’s currently working in the Gracefield industrial area, making sauces and dressings for Subway and KFC stores.
Now at a stage in his life when he’s trying to find his place, he says he’s learnt a lot about himself in the years since school, most recently in the construction of his beach sculpture.
He’s already started on a more complex one that involves a lot of wood strung together. – and he has a list of over thirty more ideas he wants to try out. Could art school be on the
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Equity justification
Hutt City Mayor Campbell Barry justified the council’s recent vote to get rid of the boards At October’s Eastbourne Community Board meeting - in front of the very people whose jobs are set to go. Last month a representation review resulted in an 8-4 council vote supporting the abolition of community boards in Hutt City.
He called the issue the “elephant in the room”, and said it was “an incredibly difficult decision”. While he had been “pretty vocal in how well this board has done”, the council had to consider the whole city.
“There were a number of reasons for the decision and where it landed,” he said, adding that the outcome of the representation review, which also included changes to ward boundaries including Pencarrow Coast Road shifting from the Wainuiomata to the Harbour Ward, was now in the hands of the Local Government Commission's hearing on November 26.
The Mayor said the most important thing was to ensure there was “grass-roots representation”, although there was uncertainty as to what form it would take. There was work in the background on potential new models for representation, but it was important not to pre-empt the process, he said.
Eye-catching Halloween costumes
or-treat in the
Last
was
It's not too late to improve Xmas for others this year
Eastbourne-based Nourish@Christmas made a huge stride towards its target of $300,000 to provide hampers to 1,950 families doing it tough at Christmas across the Wellington region with two recent fundraisers.
A bake sale in the Village raised a whopping $2,700, with local residents donating goods for sale.
Claire Turner, Eastbourne local and cofounder of Nourish, said this year has been
Kidztalk
tough on the fundraising front. “We always knew that raising $300,000 was going to be a big ask, and we’re really proud of where we have got to this year. The schools we work with all know how hard the year has been, and are really understanding about the fact that we might not be able to provide them with the full number of hampers they’ve asked for.”
This month a tour of local homes raised $14,000 for the charity, and Mrs Turner says
the shortfall is now down to 240 hampers –which cost $150 each. The hampers include fresh fruit, vegies and eggs, and pantry staples like Weetbix, rice, marmite and muesli bars and some Christmas treats. Hamper delivery day is 9 December, so there’s a bit of time left to continue their fundraising drive before then. To help, contact claire@nourishtrust.org, or on 027 558 5641.
www.givealittle.co.nz/org/nourish-trust
NEWS FROM POINT HOWARD PLAYCENTRE
Planting, drilling, painting, discovering, Term 4 is well underway. The children at Point Howard Playcentre are always busy playing and learning. In this picture, Darius (22 months old) is using a hand drill for the first time. Beside him, his sister Zoe (4 years old) is painting a masterpiece on a block of wood. Joseph (age 5) is learning about magnification and how it can be used, with supervision, to create a flame. Patrick (age 3) and Oliver (age 4) are doing printmaking inside. At Playcentre we let the children's interests guide our sessions. As parents and grandparents we enjoy coming together and being a hands on part of our children's learning.
We finish this year on the 18th of December and start back in early February. We would love to see you come and visit our centre and join in the fun. You can pop in on a Monday, Wednesday or Friday for a visit. Hope to see you soon!
News from our local playcentres
PROUDLY SPONSORED BY
Genevieve Packer creates themed costumes each Halloween for friends and family who join forces to trick-
Bays.
year it
emojis, before that the Addams family – and this year it was eyeballs.
The 2023/24 possum catch was 255, which, while down a little on the previous year, is still above the five preceding years, due to having a few more traps and making wider use of apple (along with cereal) as a bait.
We expect this level of catch to continue and, as you can see from the heatmap above, most catches are in the north and east, so are probably due to invasion, rather than existing possums breeding.
Away from the areas affected by invasion, the catch is very low, indicative of there being few possums and thus we have a forest that is well-protected.
This highlights the problem of trying to protect relatively small areas—you need a depth of protection, be it traps or poison, to reduce invading pest numbers, leaving you with a much smaller protected area than you expected. However, we regard the whole forest as reasonably well-protected, given that our rata
PARKSIDE
flower profusely and no longer have dead limbs projecting skyward.
The year’s hedgehog catch of 65 is fairly consistent with the last five years of trapping (48 last year). We could interpret the pattern shown in the heatmap, (middle map) in a similar way to that for possums, as being an invasion from the north and south, with the Wainuiomata River providing a barrier to the east (hedgehogs are said to be reluctant swimmers). Surprisingly, we don’t really see invasion from our urban area, given that our urban monitoring shows that we don’t control hedgehogs well (trap entrances have to be kept small for safety reasons). Many people don’t realise that hedgehogs are such a pest—camera evidence obtained by DOC shows that they hoover up countless endemic birds’ eggs and chicks, lizards, and invertebrates, including banded dotterels.
Mustelids (i.e. stoats & weasels). When we look at a similar catch distribution for stoats and weasels, this time over five years, catches tend to be concentrated in the south, with no suggestion of invasion from the north or east. We know stoats can swim well, so there is no
barrier to the east, but there is intensive stoat trapping in the Remutakas to protect kiwi, so perhaps that helps us.
Our mustelid catch rate is quite low, averaging just over 20 each year across about 230 traps. Monitoring using trail cameras focussed on lure feeders does detect some, but these sightings are hard to turn into a population estimate. However, we know from the experience of others operating networks of DOC200 stoat traps that, if you have welladjusted and regularly serviced traps at the right density, you will keep the mustelid population low enough for our native birds to breed OK. And rats ? Well, they are pretty much everywhere in the forest, but are at much lower levels in the Mainland Island, an intensively poisoned area inside the Northern Forest managed by Greater Wellington. Rats are also fairly well-controlled in the urban area, thanks to the 450 or so urban trappers who are supporting the ERAT Project. Rats breed incredibly quickly, so food supply is a major factor in determining their population. Compost bins containing food scraps and chicken coops are prime examples of plentiful food sources in the urban area and beech mast years provide heaps of food for rats in the forest. While we can’t do much about beech masts, we can make compost bins rat-proof using thin steel mesh (Wellington City had a campaign to do this).
- Terry Webb, MIRO Chair Interested in helping MIRO? Email: info@miro.org.nz
A map of the locations where possums were trapped in 2023/24.
A map of the locations where hedgehogs were trapped in 2023/24.
A map of the locations where mustelids were trapped in 2023/24.
Sun, views and potential income
This spacious two bedroom, two bathroom apartment offers the perfect lock-up-and-leave lifestyle, with an abundance of natural sunlight and breathtaking views that are hard to resist. In fact, it’s so appealing that you may want to make it your permanent residence. Beyond the apartment, the property features a versatile ground-floor studio space, ideal for retail or hospitality use. Whether you choose to utilise it yourself or lease it out for a steady income, the options are endless, giving you full flexibility in how you use the space. With a combination of residential charm and commercial potential, this property is ideal for those looking for a flexible living situation or an investment opportunity. Call today for further information. bayleys.co.nz/3327675
A prestigious address
This amazing home and its extensive grounds are coming to the market after more than 60 years of cherished and careful ownership. The home sits on an expansive 1359sqm (more or less) section. Five bedrooms and two bathrooms are included in the large 290sqm (approximately) floor plan. Call today for further information. bayleys.co.nz/3327737
Price by Negotiation Phone for viewing times
Duncan Povey 027 597 1080
duncan.povey@bayleys.co.nz
Jasper Povey 027 552 7737
jasper.povey@bayleys.co.nz
2 1 2 3
Tender Closing 4pm, Wed 4 Dec 2024
Level 14, 36 Brandon Street, Wellington
View by appointment
Duncan Povey 027 597 1080
duncan.povey@bayleys.co.nz
Andrew Smith 021 421 401 andrew.smith@bayleys.co.nz
CAPITAL COMMERCIAL (2013) LTD, BAYLEYS, LICENSED UNDER THE REA ACT 2008
CONSIDERING MAKING A REAL ESTATE DECISION IN THE NEXT YEAR?
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