Nelson Weekly
This Week
Your Community Newspaper
TUESDAY 25 February 2014
5
Calls for boycott if Tasman cuts tourism funding As Tasman District Council gets set to pull its funding for regional tourism, one local tourism businessman is urging Nelsonians to strike back – with a boycott. Tim Bayley owns a B&B with his wife in central Nelson. He says the work Nelson Tasman Tourism does in attracting people to the region is vital to the industry and he doesn’t believe the Tasman council should pull its funding, which makes up a third of NTT’s total income. “I don’t want to boycott Tasman businesses. We buy all our produce from there but it’s the only way to make an impact. I think the councillors out there are very farmer-orientated, so maybe if we hit them in the pocket they’ll wake up.” TDC last year signalled that it was going to pull its funding of $426,000 a year to the organisation in a bid to cut its costs. Nelson City Council has said it will continue to fund the tourism body which markets Nelson and Tasman to overseas and New Zealand tourists.
Tasman councillors have questioned why its ratepayers should be contributing to one industry over others, but Tim says that’s backwards thinking and he put his thoughts in a submission to the council. “A lot of the work that NTT does is overseas and promoting Nelson to the world. It’s not something small tourism operators can afford to do.” He says if Tasman does pull its funding of NTT then Nelsonians should boycott Tasman businesses. “If they’re not prepared to support us, why should we support them?” Tasman councillor Judene Edgar says it is highly unlikely the council will change its decision based on the threat of a boycott. “Threats can’t be the basis of our decision making. We understand their concerns, but the question is should the council be subsidising one industry.” The TDC’s draft annual plan is open for public submissions from March 15 in which the cut to funding NTT will be included.
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Locky Campion, of Aquila House, leads the haka at Nayland’s house day. Photo: Phillip Rollo.
Nayland College rocks its house day There was always something missing before Nayland College introduced a proper house system, and three years later teachers are asking themselves why it didn’t happen any earlier. Nayland held its third ever house day on Friday, with members of the four houses – Aquila, Pegasus, Draco and Phoenix – participating in a giant sand sculpture competition, form room decorating, pool play and, for the first time, a performance
of the school haka. Nayland students are able to collect house points during the year at various house activities. The next one will be at the athletics day, but teacher Gaye Bloomfield says focus isn’t just on sport. “So many of us play sport or do creative arts, but we wanted a house system that did everything.” She describes the haka performances, which were held at the end of the day, as “magic”.
“It sounds like a cliché, but to have your whole school being able to do something like that is just awesome,” she says. “The houses have given us more of a competitive edge.” Traditionally, the Nayland College rugby team has had a haka, but that didn’t represent the entire school. The new haka was written to lift the mana of the students, says Maori teacher Jane du Feu. “The whole essence of it is to be strong, go for gold.”
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