VISIONS 36 leaders share aspirations for Hawke’s Bay
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BayBuzz
Catch us online at www.baybuzz.co.nz
ISSUE NO.04 : JAN/ FEB 2012
Contents 6
FEATURES
AMBitious plans for guthriesmith arboretum
visions for hawke's bay
By Kay Bazzard
By Tom Belford
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VISIONS30
Kevin Atkinson, Graeme S. Avery, Helen Jacobi, Maree Mills, Des Ratima, Hamish Whyte and thirty more leaders share their aspirations for Hawke’s Bay. Diverse. Provocative. Inspiring. Are they achievable? Do they conflict?
do hens suffer in battery cages? By Janet Luke 44
beyond the bandwidth blues
corporate punch up for battered families
By Keith Newman
By Keith Newman
Ultrafast internet connections are coming to the Bay. What’s all the fuss about … should we care?
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inside havelock north
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By Tom Belford 48
cycling hawke's bay By Kathy Webb
IDEAS & OPINIONS letting go of the past Graeme S. Avery ~ Entrepreneur
A huge investment is underway in recreational cycling in Hawke’s Bay. Are cyclists safer? Who benefits? Where is all this pedal power taking us?
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new age is old age
By Mark Sweet
Mark Sweet explores the realm of personal transformation … its intriguing past in Hawke’s Bay and its present alternative practitioners.
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Contra-vision Paul Paynter ~ Orchardist
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let's grow stellar foods Phyllis Tichinin ~ Biological Farming Advocate
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thriving locally David Trubridge ~ Designer
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let's leave our gang colours at the gate Claire Hague ~ Educator
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HUMOUR dim vision Brendan Webb ~ Journalist
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Catch us online at www.baybuzz.co.nz
jan/feb 2012 CONTRIBUTORS > KATHY WEBB Kathy has been a Hawke’s Bay journalist for 25 years. She was the first female chief reporter at the former Hawke’s Bay Herald-Tribune, and inaugural chief reporter at Hawke’s Bay Today, moving later to the Dominion Post and now freelancing. Hastings has been home for 40 years. KEITH NEWMAN Keith is a journo with nearly 40-years’ experience across mainstream and trade media. He’s won awards for writing about hi-tech, produces Musical Chairs programmes for Radio NZ and has published four books, one on the internet in New Zealand and three on NZ history. MARK SWEET Napier-born, Mark worked overseas in Hong Kong and Scotland, but returned to Hawke’s Bay, launching Pacifica restaurant. Selected for the Mãori Literature Trust’s Te Papa Tupu programme where he was mentored in refining his just-released novel, Zhu Mao. He’s published Portrait & Opinion with Richard Brimmer. TOM BELFORD Tom’s past includes the Carter White House, building Ted Turner’s first philanthropic organization, doing heaps of marketing consulting for major nonprofits and corporates. Tom publishes BayBuzz and writes an acclaimed blog for professional NGO fundraisers & communicators in North America and Europe.
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FROM THE EDITOR > For most of us, the new year is a time to re-examine where we are headed in our lives, businesses and communities. That’s why this edition of BayBuzz is about the future.
of community leaders – doers – is rather thin. The same individuals show up over and over, wearing multiple hats, juggling numerous causes and responsibilities.
Virtually all the articles in this issue relate aspirations our writers envision for Hawke’s Bay. Most of the aspirations would require much work to achieve. Many involve addressing weighty social, environmental or economic challenges. Some might strike you as controversial, and perhaps mutually exclusive of others.
While these individuals splash about on the surface of the Hawke’s Bay pond, the balance of us, the overwhelming majority, complacently feed on the bottom.
But in the main, whether they’re talking about improving farming practices or empowering Mãori youth, building infrastructure or restoring our environment, you’ll see visions grounded in optimism and a determination to progress. BayBuzz invited dozens of Hawke’s Bay leaders to lift our sights. Give them the reins and off they’ll go, right? Maybe … maybe not. The views you’ll read do come from leaders in the community – individuals with missions and passion … who run organizations … who sometimes command significant resources … who strive to get things done. You would expect these people to have visions and to be enthusiastic about rallying others – in businesses, community groups and councils – as well as the broader community, in support. Much in Hawke’s Bay does get accomplished that way. But as you read about the aspirations our writers have for Hawke’s Bay, you’ll realize that in fact many pressing issues do not get addressed. Or put more positively, too many opportunities are left on the table. Why is that? At the risk of offending some readers, I’ll submit that the answer is complacency. Yes, there’s a thin band of community leaders (and they are not all business or political moguls) who are passionate about seeking change for the better, looking to enrich the community in various ways. But what I observe as BayBuzz looks into issue after issue, aspiration after aspiration, is that the band
Some believe all that fuss and drama up on the surface is precisely that … a heap of noise that doesn’t affect us and is largely irrelevant. Who cares if nearly a third of Hawke’s Bay’s population will someday be uneducated, unskilled, unmotivated and unemployed? “My kid’s off to Uni … I hear yours is doing an OE in Spain.” Some are sensitive to the issues and not happy about the state of affairs, but don’t think they can have much influence over outcomes, and so they sit on the sidelines, occasionally issuing a fart of protest. “Yeah, I think they’re messing up our rivers (or streets or whatever), but what can I do?” But I think the majority of people in Hawke’s Bay are neither dismissive nor disenfranchised; instead, they’re simply complacent. ‘Complacent’ is an interesting word. Its full definition: pleased with one’s self or one’s merits, advantages, or situation, often without awareness of some potential danger or defect. For most of us, it’s easy to be complacent. Hawke’s Bay offers an ease of living, even if one is not that high on the ladder. While with a bit of persistent effort, one can live fairly well, amidst wonderful landscapes and amenities. And what’s to challenge or threaten us? The occasional rain bomb. If the visions in these pages are not achieved, it won’t be because they lack merit, it will be because most of us are complacent … we’re comfortable with the status quo. Hopefully this isn’t true of you. If it is, read no further! Tom Belford
THE BAYBUZZ TEAM > EDITOR Tom Belford
creative, design & production Steff @ Ed (aka Empire Design)
Senior writers Kathy Webb, Keith Newman, Mark Sweet,Tom Belford
art assistant Julia Jameson
columnists Ani Tylee, Brendan Webb, Claire Hague, David Trubridge, Des Ratima, Douglas Lloyd Jenkins, Elizabeth Sisson, Janet Luke, Kay Bazzard, Michael Fowler, Paul Paynter, Phyllis Tichinin, Roy Dunningham editor’s right hand Brooks Belford photography Tim Whittaker
advertising sales & distribution Tessa Tylee & Graham Brown Online Mogul business manager Silke Whittaker printing Format Print
VISIONS Our diverse aspirations for the Bay ... can they co-exist? by ~ TOM BELFORD Major challenges confront our community leaders as they look forward into 2012. Some will be handed to them by events outside their control – such as managing economic survival (let alone growth) in a period of continuing, if not worsening global economic stress. Or coping with another weather bomb. Other challenges will be deliberately chosen as leaders from all sectors articulate their visions, set their near-term priorities, and plan strategies for achieving them. To learn where Hawke’s Bay’s community leaders are pointed for the near-term future, BayBuzz asked a diverse group of about three dozen individuals to share their aspirations and ‘big ideas’ … each in a few words (we gave our regular columnists a bit more space). What you will find is some exciting thinking, some anxiety about vexing problems facing the Bay, and some future visions that might not be fully compatible with one another. Not surprisingly, most individuals from a business background are focused on growing Hawke’s Bay’s economy. Their visions talk about infrastructure, amenities and the actual process of formulating and achieving grander aspirations for the Bay. Let’s call them Builders.
An exemplar Builder would be Graeme Avery, CEO of Sileni Estates, who has consistently sought to advance bold visions for the Bay, starting with his championing of the Bay’s original ‘Wine Country’ branding. We thought Graeme might rattle a few cages. What he has written is more like shock therapy, arguing that the Bay is languishing the face of unprecedented need for dramatic and rapid change. He says we have no choice, we must ‘let go of the past’. Another group is not so enamored of a ‘full speed ahead’ growth vision for the Bay. These individuals want change, to be sure, but their visions spring from a concern about the nature of growth and its consequences … especially from an environmental sustainability standpoint, but also in terms of the lifestyle values we should embrace here in the Bay. Let’s call them Stewards. David Trubridge might be the archetypal Steward, staunchly advocating a more locally-centered, harmonious-with-nature, and less materially-focused future for the Bay. To those whose mantra is that the Bay must be outward-focused and growthdriven, David would say, Phooey! There are large contingents of both Builders and Stewards in Hawke’s Bay … the former holding more of the formal
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and informal levers of power, but the latter increasingly upset and engaged politically. An interesting question looking ahead is whether these two worldviews can peacefully co-exist. Somewhere between these two camps are a number of leaders whose daily life experience is dealing with the Bay’s more disadvantaged residents. These individuals have concerns about whether the Bay’s ‘good life’ will ever be enjoyed by a major chunk of the Bay’s population. They see plenty of families struggling. Let’s call them Helpers. Many of the Helpers would like to see both Builders and Stewards pay more direct attention to this large segment of Hawke’s Bay’s population. Helen Jacobi, Dean of Waiapu Cathedral, worries about this population. She wants a region where no one is left behind, and thinks councils and churches should lead. Acting on visions I grant that these are broad brush strokes … an amateur first pass at a ‘sociology’ of Hawke’s Bay. Most individuals probably don’t fit any single category. The Bay’s socially concerned Builders, for example, would argue that only by improving the Bay’s overall economic prospects can we hope to offer a better life
Ideas & Opinions Coping with the competing values behind alternative community visions is the stuff of politics.
to those now on the bottom rungs, whose numbers are growing. The Stewards would argue that we need to get our relationship with nature right first … that mismanaging our natural resources and environment will doom any long term economic prosperity, whether for the many or the few. And the Helpers might agree with both, but say impatiently, we have no time for trickle down, we need to act now. On the other hand, some would argue that it’s not really community visions – articulated in reports and planned and pursued by committees – that drive us forward. Instead, we simply have in the community an accumulation of individual visions, each pursued with whatever degree of passion and ability we individually muster. Then, sometimes, without any master plan, one or another of those individual visions is achieved, with remarkable benefits to the community. Paul Paynter advances this view in his column. Nevertheless, there are definite clusters in the visions and ideas that follow … some people dream about growth, some about restoring the environment, some about better education or more ample social services. Maybe you can discern some intriguing patterns.
To the degree our visions for Hawke’s Bay differ – possibly even conflict – they must be somehow blended, balanced or traded-off in our local political processes, as carried out by our various councils. Coping with the competing values behind alternative community visions is the stuff of politics. Although this happens in mundane ways in the daily conduct of councils’ business, in 2012 some key value choices will play out with much greater public visibility … and opportunity for public participation. First, we have the triennial re-write of our councils’ long term plans (LPTs, focused on the next three years). The LPTs will be put to bed by 30 June and are the official forum for discussing whatever visions or ‘big ideas’ for Hawke’s Bay (or Hastings, Napier, Wairoa, CHB) you or I might have. Weigh in! Second will be the emerging debate over the socioeconomic performance of Hawke’s Bay and whether local government should be re-constituted to help improve that situation. That debate will require you to have some vision about the kind of Hawke’s Bay you want, and then to make a judgment as to how to best organize and
mobilize to get there. The third major vision and value choice for 2012 will revolve around how to manage and protect the quality of the region’s water. That might not sound immediately deserving of highlighting here, but surely it is. Water has many values – ecological, recreational, economic, spiritual – which must be sorted in 2012 in a way that ensures a sustainable future for Hawke’s Bay. Whatever your vision of Hawke’s Bay, water will be a critical factor in whether it will be achieved. Very critical water decisions will be made this year. As Regional Council chief executive Andrew Newman recently noted, our water outcomes can be win/win or win/lose … and if the latter, it’s not clear who wins and who loses. So, the stage is set for 2012. Big visions. High aspirations. Important choices to be made. Hopefully the visions on the following pages will inspire you … or rally you to counter with your own! Note: All of these visions are published online at www.baybuzz.co.nz. We urge you to comment on them and contribute your own.
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Bee in the know ~ jan/feb 2012
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Letting go of the past by ~ GRAEME S. AVERY
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I am passionate about Hawke’s Bay. That explains, on the one hand, my enormous enthusiasm over the years for the exciting potential of our region. And on the other hand, it explains my frustration as I see so much wasted opportunity and clinging to the past in the face of almost incomprehensible change. Mind you, this is not just some momentary or localised burst of change. So let me start with the big picture. What is changing is the world order, perhaps on a scale and at a pace more profound than in any period of civilisation. The Western world in which we here in Hawke’s Bay stand rooted is in dire need of creating a new future, through new and different thinking. Current thinking, based on the past, will not work for the West … it isn’t now and will not in the future. Anyone who pays even casual attention to global developments beyond our shores must now realize that. And even more so if you are a New Zealander who actually experiences firsthand the changes occurring globally – as you work abroad or with foreign partners in commerce, education, health, the digital environment … any field. The West needs to reinvent itself and earn its place in a rapidly emerging new world order – one no longer driven by the economic might or thinking of the US. In ten, maybe twenty years, will the US dollar be the world’s reserve currency? Many say most unlikely. Today’s currencies wars will not allow that. The world is now a much more integrated global economy, each of us interdependent and reliant on one another. Asian economies have, however, generally responded to the challenges of creating a new future much better than those of the West. Their more autocratic style of government has brought about fundamental change more rapidly. The thinking of the Asian people is vastly different – especially their intensely competitive nature and will to win. Innovation is a hallmark, with the young driving much new and different thinking. The global financial crisis brought
about profound change in consumer purchasing behaviour in the West. It is now all about frugal consumption. Even in Asia and other emerging economies, it is now also about ‘frugal innovation’. High value that is affordable is the driver of consumer goods and services for the future. So the needs of, and solutions for, a rapidly changing world are vastly different than ever before. Amidst the chaos and uncertainty are so many new opportunities, for those who think differently. But to create a new future, governments (at every level), central banks, businesses, the community at large and each of us as individuals needs to let go of the past. Old paradigms are breaking; new ones need to be invented. The future will be all about innovation and use of new technologies … plus new values. Against this backdrop of massive world change, countries and regions within them must adapt if they wish to create a new, sustainable and prosperous future. The Bay is languishing Hawke’s Bay is no different. We cannot escape the need for change. But today the Bay is languishing, even as our challenges and opportunities are unprecedented. We tinker. We cling to the past. We celebrate the average. We think small. We think separately in our political fiefdoms. But the circumstances require quantum change, driven by bigger, braver and bolder thinking. Hawke’s Bay desperately needs a single strategic vision for economic growth and future vitality. We must maximise the economic potential of the region, leveraging our agri-business base, which includes ensuring security of water supply, but also undertaking transformational initiatives. And if we can maximise the economic attributes of our region at a local level (and other regions do the same), we can better get the country right.
Hawke’s Bay can become a major contributor to enhanced economic and social prosperity for the country. The youth of today are our future, as they will introduce the new thinking … but they need employment. One of the most disturbing changes in the world order is the high level of youth unemployment in the West. A portent of future social unrest. We must therefore prepare our children to take their place in the new world order. A world about to be taken over by highly motivated, highly industrious, highly competitive and rigorously educated young people from countries who are eagerly striving forward. For our children to secure jobs in the future and be remotely competitive will require radical changes in how we educate them. We need much more direct linkages between ‘schooling’ and employers and the real-world workplace. More encouragement and recognition for those who achieve excellence, including mastering a trade apprenticeship. Build pride and self-esteem through striving to win. What should Hawke’s Bay do? So what should we do here in the Bay? Although Hawke’s Bay continues to have unrealised economic potential, we need to focus on bigger projects, especially needed new infrastructure, if we are to maximise our economic and social development. Hawke’s Bay in 2025 could look like this: • A University with faculties for world leading agri-business, Asian studies and tourism research and education … to create the intellectual capital for supporting and driving a new regional economy. • At least two four star plus hotels … to cater for major tourism opportunities, especially from Asia and New Zealand. • A major convention and conference centre … for national, Asia/Pacific and International conventions, especially in agri-business and tourism.
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Hawke’s Bay desperately needs a single strategic vision for economic growth and future vitality.
• An airport with a jet-capable runway of appropriate length and associated facilities … to provide a better national and international gateway for business and tourism to a vibrant and exciting new region. • An additional major food company … to produce and export high value and affordable branded food products, especially to Asia. • A major kitset-type furniture manufacturing company – the Asia/Pacific export hub, for example, for IKEA. • An incubator for start-up IT companies to focus on agri-business … to leverage regional world leading strengths in agri-business.
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And support infrastructure to attract further investment: • A major shopping mall adjacent to the convention centre … the Mall of New Zealand to attract international, especially Asian, retail and leisure visitors, as well as from New Zealand. • A children’s amusement park as part of the Mall of New Zealand … for a total family environment offering and to attract more visitors.
• A cultural heritage centre … to reflect the ethnic diversity of the region and for tourism. • A closed-roof sports stadium for up to 20,000 spectators … for securing a better share of major sports and entertainment events. If we can tick several of these boxes, the people of Hawke’s Bay really will have achieved something. We would be moving forward with the rest of the world … and especially with our friends and competitors in Asia, from whom much of the capital investment will need to come. But that can only come about through a united regional vision promoted by a new, vibrant single local government organisation. New and different thinking will also be required in health and welfare, the environment, and investment in business and education. Leveraging the economic potential of Hawke’s Bay is, however, the fundamental driver of the new future. It has to be ‘got right’ first. What is the alternative? Personally, I don’t think we have an alternative to making dramatic change. But I know there are those who say
Hawke’s Bay can just stay the course, stick with the familiar, and glide comfortably into the future. To them I say that will not be good enough to survive into the future. To prosper in a new world will require excellence at all levels and on-going continuous improvement. An egalitarian society will not succeed, or be good enough for those who cherish a high standard of living and prosperity for all citizens. It means hard, hard work … but the opportunities are there for those who wish to take them and commit to the effort and visionary thinking needed.
Graeme Avery has over four decades of experience in export market development in Australasia, Asia, Europe and the Americas. For 33 years with his former world-leading pharmaceutical publishing business, and more recently, over ten years devoted to establishing Sileni in 58 global markets. He was instrumental in establishing the Hawke’s Bay Food Group and Hawke’s Bay Wine Country Tourism private sector group after his move to reside in Hawke’s Bay in mid-1999.
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Contravision
by ~ PAUL PAYNTER
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Hawke’s Bay doesn’t exist. Really it doesn’t. What does our region really have to unify it? Not much more than a rugby team, a health board and the squiggles of a deranged cartographer. Even our councils are fragmented – no less than five exist and they don’t always seem to get along. People like to create abstract constructs in order to compartmentalise or explain something complex. Hawke’s Bay is one such construct. And yet you’ll hear endless politicians, mayors and well meaning do-gooders pontificate as to their glorious vision for our future of Hawke’s Bay, as if it is a rational way of thinking. It isn’t. It’s mad. It’s madder than mad. It’s like trying to develop a strategic plan for all the insects in your garden. These visionary ideas usually manifest themselves in a regional development body with ambitions that are somewhere between grandiose and delusional. They are invariably launched with fanfare, photos and bombastic political claptrap. In the fullness of time, it becomes obvious that these bodies have been underthought, under-funded and, quite often, undermined. The latest failed regional development body would appear to be the splendidly
named ‘Grow Wellington’. The DomPost (‘Business Heavyweights Slam Grow Wellington’, 14/11/11) reports that ‘Grow Wellington’ is misguided and that Wellington Council is undermining them with their own initiatives. That sounds pretty typical. These regional failures-in-waiting rightfully descend into ignominy, only to be re-launched in some new iteration. Announcements are made that they have learnt much from the failures of the past and the new body is set to lead a region into a golden age of prosperity. It’s politically desirable for these regional development bodies to be re-launched once each political term, but politicians, being the tardy and disorganised types, only manage to reinvent them about every 5 years. Success or failure is irrelevant. The truth is, it’s good politics to have this sort of stuff and ‘wonderfully aspirational’. The reason regional visions fail is that they make a fundamental error in strategic planning. They define a goal, but have no meaningful pathway by which to achieve it. Governments and committees can’t fix the problems of the world, or run the economy. They can merely help or hinder by diddling with legal issues and infrastructural necessities. “But it’s aspirational” they cry; which means it
sounds wonderful, but no one can actually deliver on the ideas. Councils might declare some bold target for economic growth or regional prosperity. Don’t be seduced. These guys make good water come out of the tap, manage dog control and building permits. What mechanisms do councils really have to achieve any sort of vision for Hawke’s Bay? Regional progress has not, and never will be, driven by a top down strategy. In a ‘top down’ world, Orwellian governments are powerful and make everything happen. In a ‘bottom up’ world, the power is with the people, to live their lives and follow their passions as they see fit. Which world do you want to live in? The progress made in Hawke’s Bay will be the sum of the parts – the collective achievement of many individuals and groups. “Enough of the whinging, unless you have a better idea!” I hear you cry. A better way Actually there is a better way. Firstly, ditch the abstract construct and consider reality. Reality is politically unattractive, usually fails to stir regional parochialism, and is never truly appreciated until after the event. Only when the historical facts are laid bare can we see clearly how
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First rule of regional development: governments and do-gooder committees ... get the hell out of the way!
progress was really made. The history of Hawke’s Bay is littered with great people; sometimes, in their day, they were seen as flawed, erratic rogues. Some even ended in failure and poverty. But they laid a foundation that has endured. At its essence, progress is made by creative types – they create in business and politics as much as in art. I bet you could name 20 great writers or 20 great artists. But 20 great committees? Creativity is mostly an individual pursuit. The notable individuals in our past were focussed, irrepressible, courageous – but they were most often fairly ordinary. My father tells me of working at Watties on a Saturday night and seeing Jim (Sir James to you and me) Wattie, walking the floor, addressing all the staff by name, showing an interest in their lives, and tweaking the machinery of production. You can believe in such men. Not even the might of Heinz was brave enough to nudge out the Wattie name, such is its legacy. William Nelson was such a man too. He found tribulations in the shape of low wool prices, pestilence, gross indebtedness, flood, and low flax prices, before returning to his native England. History records him as a failed entrepreneur.
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Then, with his forties bearing down on him, he returned to New Zealand and started what would become the Tomoana Freezing Works. Then he had to produce the stock to keep it busy. He broke in thousands of acres of land, built schools and bridges, drained swamps, created vast employment opportunities, trained young men to be farmers and inspired a generation of rural New Zealanders. There are many others: Sir Graeme Lowe, who changed the meat industry in a rollocking and unorthodox career. Robert Holt of Carter Holt fame, who largely built the local timber industry. Sir Russell Pettigrew, whose company, Freightways, ended up as a transportation giant. OK, so these are the heavyweights of our local history. Below them there are hundreds of toilers, whose contributions are incalculable. These people won’t ever get a knighthood or even have their names recorded in the history books. They made a difference though. They created employment, nurtured careers and fed families. Typically these high achievers in our society have poured money back into schools, churches, sport facilities and other private and public sector projects. And what do all these people almost always have in common? They all did it
without some committee outlining the vision; without government handout; without regional development body guidance. Indeed, governments and the industry establishment were often impediments to their progress. And therein lies the first rule of regional development: governments and do-gooder committees – get the hell out of the way! This region needs good local government and good community organisations, but most of all it needs you. It needs ordinary people who find their passion and achieve extraordinary things. The giants in society are often unexceptional, average at school and socially deficient. History tells us that our vision for the future won’t be delivered by some local government initiative; not by some committee of local businesspeople; not even by some powerful multinational. The future will be driven by individual visions. They’ll need good people around them, but their individual will and passion will be the centre and source of any progress. I don’t have a vision for Hawkes Bay. I’d be a fool to think I had the wisdom. Our future will be the sum of our individual efforts. My responsibility is to my vision. I have one. What’s yours?
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Traditional heritage variety tomatoes
Let’s grow stellar foods by ~ Phyllis Tichinin biological farming advocate
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I’m committed to a Hawke’s Bay that possesses the purest water, the best health statistics, the most contented citizens and a worldwide reputation for awesome food grown on biologically humming soils. My vision for the region in twenty years is of an economy thriving around the intertwining agricultural threads of international food tourism, locavore ethics and producing food of phenomenal flavour at a stunning premium. Basically, the same view that we have of ourselves right now. We do enjoy a plethora of prize winning olive oils, gourmet citrus products, world class wines. We purchase and consume these at our lovely farmers’ markets. And we advertise ourselves as the fresh, tasty, innovative food capital of New Zealand. Where the gaps appear is in how we are doing the growing and the effects on our soil, water and health. It’s hard to reconcile the shiny vision above with the fact that our rivers are un-swimmable and periodically toxic, our aquifers and soils are contaminated with pesticide residues, and we have some of the worst health in the country. There is a better way and it is easily within our grasp. Biological farming Biological farming is a performancebased approach to agriculture. Done well it creates humus in soils and grows produce of greater nutritional density. These two huge achievements are, quite simply, the basis of civilisation. Without humus our soils don’t hold water or nutrients and they erode easily, taking priceless topsoil and its minerals out to sea. Without high vitamin and mineral nutrient density in our foods we will
continue our slide into autoimmune disease, cancer, depression, violent behaviour and children who can’t learn. There are several very positive spinoffs from this farming to create humus and nutrient density – less fertiliser is required, fewer pesticides are needed and less water is used to grow more product of better quality. When you think about it, that’s exactly what is needed to reverse pollution, improve health and put farmers on a more profitable footing. It’s a mega win-win. And it is not only possible, it is happening here, happening now. Milk production on biologically fertilised farms in Southern Hawke’s Bay has risen markedly and soil drainage issues have disappeared. Biological apples from Hastings are being marketed to Saudi Arabia on the basis of their stellar flavour. Wines from a low-input biological vineyard in Havelock North are taking out national awards. Sheep farmers are using less drench, having healthier sheep and noticing that their sheep don’t pong like they used to. Pastoral farmers around the Bay are reporting grass thatch disappearing, root depth doubling and sugar content rocketing upwards. Thin, wind-ravaged soils in Mangleton can now be cropped without having them blow away. Massive amounts of stable carbon are being sequestered, soils are being regenerated and farmers are experiencing a resurgence of hope. This is linked to their new understanding of how soil can perform when soil microbes are nurtured and their welfare given top priority. And the icing on the cake? Biologically grown produce flat out tastes better and lasts longer. Done properly, biological farming not only uses
markedly less petrochemicals, it directly reduces greenhouse gases by building up complex carbon stores in the soil. Above all, it contributes to human health by providing dense food of higher mineral and vitamin content. This food provides for better nerve connections, clearer thinking, more even temperaments and better social outcomes. All of this underlies the vision of Hawke’s Bay people being nourished by stellar foods grown on their region’s biologically active, low chemical input soils with a fraction of the water. Isn’t this the pinnacle of achievement for agriculture and society? And there is a market for it For forty centuries, longer than any other civilisation by far, the Chinese grew amazing amounts of produce in a manner that created richer and richer soils. And they did it without large scale irrigation. Having rejected their traditional, humus-creating growing systems 30 years ago for the chemical agriculture model, the Chinese elite are now eager to spend their way out of the environmental hell they have created for themselves. Synlait markets its powdered baby formula, ‘Pure Canterbury’, to well-off Chinese parents who don’t dare feed their children milk grown in their country. Chinese tourists take home suitcases full of preserved NZ foods. They marvel at the novelty of being able to buy fruit directly from an orchard or to see fruit hanging on trees that they feel safe to eat directly. Imagine our profit and satisfaction at being able to truly provide tourists and our own with the best food in the world – safest, tastiest and most environment enhancing. All this is at our fingertips. It doesn’t
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Ideas & Opinions
VISIONS require heaps of expensive research – it’s happening successfully now. It doesn’t require new equipment or hard to source exotic products. It doesn’t require new varieties. In fact, the older crop varieties tend to be less dependent on fertilisers and sprays and they have better flavour. Steering clear of genetically modified seeds and animals would be wise given consumer resistance. And we don’t need more water to make this a reality. For every 1% rise in soil carbon a hectare of land will hold an additional 550,000 litres of water. As soil humus content increases, water demand decreases. This applies to pasture as well as intensive cropping and begs the question, “Do we really need those big expensive dams?” According to technology anthropologist Jared Diamond, history is full of examples of civilisations intensifying their agriculture, building large scale water projects and destroying themselves. Babylon and the Mayans are prime examples. Present day Egypt and California are rapidly heading there. Their dams are silting up and losing capacity and their soils are salting up and dying. The projected financial benefits never seem to take these predictable costs into
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Biological apples from Hastings are being marketed to Saudi Arabia.
account…until it’s too late and by then the people who profited by the increased land value have cashed in and flown, the bureaucrats who advocated have been duly advanced and died, the elective representatives went to their graves congratulating themselves on having been responsible for a short-lived economic boom and we’re stuck with servicing a debt burden for an environmental boondoggle that destroys soils, rivers, oceans and societies. Is it worth it? We can easily achieve our vision without large scale water projects. We could use the money for restoring the quality of our rivers instead of further degrading them. We don’t need extra water, we need farmers who think and act caringly and we need representatives of true vision who can resist the allure of having dams and causeways named after themselves and who wisely say, “Let’s be true environmental visionaries. Let’s learn the hard lessons of the past. Let’s embrace more naturally productive methods of farming. Let’s create the reality of a robust environment and durable economy based on exemplary soils and food quality. Let us enjoy these fruits and share them and the vision with others from around the world in our own backyard.”
BIOLOGICAL FARMING the basic formula Ensure lots of calcium and key traces are available to the microbes. Always add a complex carbon source, like quality humic acid, to fertiliser or pesticide applications. Reduce and buffer urea and super phosphate inputs to avoid their scorching effects on the underground microbial workforce. Feed the microbes and let them feed the plants. The soil remineralisation and microbes that make stunning flavour possible, also create plants with robust tissues that don’t attract insects and diseases, thus lowering pesticide use. A healthy microbial workforce generates humus which detoxifies pesticide residues and dramatically increases the soil’s water holding capacity. The microbes also provide the plant its mineral building blocks in the ideal forms which allows complex proteins to develop into the flavonoids, terpenes and carotenoids that give food great flavour and better shelf life.
The car you drive tells the world exactly where you stand… Bee in the know ~ jan/feb 2012
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If you just want one too, call… John Jowsey 021 244 4949 or Jonathan Stone 021 993 600 at Karamu-Holden Hastings: Karamu Road North, Hastings (06) 873 3336 www.karamu.co.nz Napier: Service & Parts Dept. Carlyle Street, Napier (06) 835 3395
Ambitious plans for Guthrie-Smith Arboretum by ~ KAY BAZZARD
Morning fog over Lake Tutira
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jan/feb 2012
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For well over a century a unique conservation project has been developing on the western slopes above Lake Tutira, 25 minutes drive north of Napier. On 90 hectares of former farmland the Guthrie-Smith Arboretum is becoming a repository of tree species from all over the world – a world that is facing the threat of climate change. Here, the Guthrie-Smith Trust grows examples of tree species which might otherwise face extinction. The role of establishing the arboretum is that of Guthrie-Smith Arboretum trustee, Chris Ryan, who with the help of long-term forester Quentin Roberts, determines what will be planted and where. The curator of the arboretum, George Christison and his wife Kirsty live in the homestead, supervise planting, maintain and administer it. Governance is provided by the Board of Trustees. Some help with planting comes from the Eastern Institute of Technology, Friends of the Trust and schools. With no irrigation (water is a scarce resource here) the planting is done primarily by Christison to a method which ensures the trees’ survival during all conditions. It involves removing the turf, preparing the soil, fertilising and mulching the sapling. On slopes, the plant site is level or tilted back slightly into the hill to allow rainwater to pool and weed control is vital in the early years. Ponds have been created within the arboretum with the purpose of adding biodiversity to the landscape and pest eradication has ensured a noticeable increase in bird and insect life.
Part of the arboretum planting is geographical with the trees planted in the most suitable site according to the climate of the country of origin. So, for example, the North American mountain conifers are grouped on the cooler, moister southfacing slopes, and Mediterranean species on the hot, dry north-facing slopes, and so on. The New Zealand section could become recognised as the major collection of natives in this country. A state-of-the-art GPS system locates and identifies individual trees so that health and growth is monitored as each matures. In conjunction, a comprehensive photographic record is kept. When tree planting was first proposed in 2002, the Trust brainstormed a plan for future planting development. To date, over 17,000 trees have been planted with early plantings already achieving good height, their good health evident in the lush growth and confirmed by an extraordinarily good strike-rate. Fulfilling the mission This landmark stage has been achieved through the support and funding from many private individuals and organisations, but the Guthrie-Smith Trust is now in need of more regular donations to move to the next stage of its development. This is to open more fully to the public and to develop and expand environmental education. Historically, the land owned by Herbert Guthrie-Smith from 1880 until his death in 1940, was a working farm of 25,000
“We focus on the kiwi and the kakapo as though they lived in isolation, but without the ecosystems that sustain them, they wouldn’t exist.” chris ryan hectares. During his tenure at Tutira, he experienced financial hardship and many successes as he struggled with the economic realities of farming during New Zealand’s pioneering era. In an early example of environmental awareness, Guthrie-Smith observed, photographed and meticulously recorded every feature of his land and how it changed as a result of his farming activities. He became a committed environmentalist and the book he wrote, Tutira: the Story of a New Zealand Sheep Station, is regarded as a classic of international environmental literature. After his death, his daughter, Barbara Absolom, gifted the land in 1942 to the Trust as an educational and recreational centre for the people of New Zealand. Its vision was to create an arboretum that would be a fitting legacy; the GuthrieSmith Arboretum’s purpose is educational, scientific, practical and recreational. Since that time the Trust has provided education at the Centre for school and other groups and has accommodation for
Ideas & Opinions The Guthrie-Smith Arboretum will be a living plant bank.
40 people. Currently, a skilled outdoor recreation operator has a lease to provide a variety of courses on kayaking, rope work, orienteering and other outdoor activities. Last year, 1,700 participated.
For information or to become a Friend of Guthrie-Smith Arboretum contact the secretary: John Springford 06 873 8037 ~ gstb@bwr.co.nz
jan/feb 2012
Tourism potential It doesn’t require a leap of imagination to recognise that Tutira has considerable potential as a tourist destination. The lake offers fishing, kayaking and tramping. It
is a picnic spot for travellers and camping facilities exist for those who wish to stop for a day or two. The Hawke’s Bay Regional Council has plans to develop walking and biking tracks around the lake which will link up with the coast at Bay View. Opening the GuthrieSmith Arboretum to the public every day (currently it holds Open Days), the appeal would be widened further. On his wish list, Ryan would like to see at Guthrie-Smith an upgraded and expanded Education and Information Centre providing a central point for visitors to the area. Ryan points out that with many shared priorities and goals – the protection of the environment, recreation and education – the HBRC and the Guthrie-Smith Trust seem well matched to form a collaborative partnership designed to establish an ecotourism centre in the region.
Survival of species Ryan is concerned that in New Zealand, as elsewhere in the world, people’s understanding about the risks to the environment is limited and fragmented. Fashionable environmental causes attract sponsorship and funding, but this ignores the bigger picture - the survival and interconnectedness of all species. A holistic approach is required. “We focus on the kiwi and the kakapo as though they lived in isolation, but without the ecosystems that sustain them, they wouldn’t exist,” says Ryan. “What about the trees, plants and insects which are also at risk of extinction?” The temperate climate of New Zealand provides a range of climatic conditions and located as it is half a world away from major population pressure, it is the perfect place to establish a repository of world plant species. In the face of climate change this laboratory for research and education is an important resource. Chris Ryan believes that in coming years international visitors – scientists, botanists, dendrologists, arborists and gardeners – will be attracted to Tutira to share ideas and material. The GuthrieSmith Arboretum will be a living plant bank, much in the way that Kew Gardens in London holds an international seed bank. Bee in the know ~
Looking Ahead The goal now is to expand further into environmental education and to more fully utilise the facilities by being open year round, which will require staff and permanent signage. This means more funding and volunteers with the necessary skills and enthusiasm to further their educational ambitions. Chris Ryan, Trust member, plantsman, visionary and guiding hand, believes that the facility provides unlimited opportunities for schools bringing intermediate and secondary school-aged children on field trips into this exciting world of knowledge centreing on the environmental sciences, geography, geology and biology. “The possibilities are endless,” enthuses Ryan. The arboretum team gathers evidence on the growth and production of nut and fruit trees, high-value timber species and erosion-control plantings. Field days will be held for landowners who seek to increase the value of their land by planting trees. With tree planting so essential in managing erosion for the east coast such field days will be timely and relevant.
Chris Ryan, Trust member and plantsman
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Feature My vision is for a united and GE Free Hawke’s Bay.
VISIONS Grow our cultural sector BARBARA ARNOTT Mayor, Napier Positivity, realism, passion about doing rather than just talking, are just a few things I’d like the Bay to achieve. Here’s some flesh. We need to consolidate the economy around the upturn of the rural sector commodities globally. The uncertainty in Europe is a concerning factor, but in itself, should not impact on the local community’s willingness to consume without borrowing. It is important that the economy returns to manageable growth, so that the critical sectors of building, port, tourism, primary producers and retail are able to contribute as they have in the past. The completion of the HB Museum and Art Gallery as a central part of the arts culture and heritage of the region. Culture has always been important since the Athenaeum was established on the same site in 1859. Our first regional library books were delivered from there in 1874. The growth of our cultural sector is critical to attracting creative, talented people to our area. We need to continue to build amenities that benefit a wide diverse population.
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Underground vision KEVIN ATKINSON Chairman, Unison My vision starts underground, with the wires, pipes and fibre that service our community’s basic needs for power, fuel
and connectivity. As a company owned by the power consumers of Hawke’s Bay, we take seriously our responsibility to meet these needs at fair prices, while returning a significant dividend to our public owners. My own personal view is that the community would be well-served if Unison used its infrastructure skills and innovation capability to deliver efficiently to homes and businesses all of their resource needs – electricity and fibre/ broadband connectivity today, but also gas and even water reticulation tomorrow. The smart technology available today enables us to build and meter an integrated service delivery system, yielding significant savings in planning, installation and maintenance … more effective conservation of natural resources … and hopefully even efficiencies in dealing with local authorities as we seek consents, comply with regulations and undertake construction. Sound infrastructure is the critical nerve and circulatory system enabling our region’s day-to-day economic functioning and our future growth. If we get right what’s in the ground, then we can lift our sights to higher aspirations for Hawke’s Bay. For example, before long, renewable energy technology can be used to make individual power consumers into occasional power suppliers to the grid. At Unison, we’re prepared to play our part in driving Hawke’s Bay in innovative directions.
Only green makes sense BRUCE BISSET Columnist The challenge to the Bay is to remain the premier foodproducing region of New Zealand, offering prestige products to the world market. To achieve this we must remain GE-
free, minimise agrichemicals and become as organic-certified as practicable – because that is the premium growth niche. This requires a stronger and more effective Regional Council that proactively protects (for example, by placing a moratorium on GE and on fracking) and aggressively prosecutes polluters – both diffuse and point-source. In short, a Council that has a comprehensive land use regime covering all user activities, and enforces the standards required to produce the optimum result without fear or favour. It is time those resistant to sustainable practices are forced to either change or get out of business. The HBRC has the power to take these steps; they can no longer delay implementing them. Bottom line is, we’re green or black – and only one of those makes any sense.
United and GE Free JOHN BOSTOCK President, J.M. Bostock We often only value the things we wish for, and neglect to value the things we have until we lose them. So it is with Hawke’s Bay’s GE free status, an amazing asset that I want to protect and promote. Consumers worldwide are becoming increasingly concerned with food safety. Many consumers have little idea what they are eating and how many GMOs are in their shopping basket. In fact in some parts of the world it is impossible to avoid corn and soya products contaminated by GMOs. This provides HB with an amazing opportunity to brand itself as uniquely pure and GE free. The other related dream I have is for the Bay to become more untied and not fractionated by the historical structures that belong to a different age. It is a ridiculous waste, duplication and confusion to have five territorial authorities looking after a population a little more than 10% the size of Auckland. Hawke’s Bay has suffered by not having a united voice to lobby for things such as velodromes, roads and, years ago, the HB university. My vision is for a united and GE Free Hawke’s Bay.
Support the community that supports you BLAIR CROSS Manager, HBS Bank
Did you hear that? ROBERT DARROCH CEO, Future Products Group Another plane just landed direct from Australia. It’s full of tourists and local business people returning to the Bay. Fortunately we have finally seen common sense in promoting Hawke’s Bay as a region and dividends are now paying off with significant growth in tourism and export opportunities. The like-minded majority has superseded the small-minded minority, trees are still hugged, and personal agendas are gone.
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Stand tall for the Bay
MURRAY DOUGLAS CEO, HB Chamber of Commerce
My vision for Hawke’s Bay:
• A more diversified, stronger, profitable business sector • Sustainable business confidence that the Bay is the best regional place to do business • Businesses from outside Hawke’s Bay envy us and queue up to come establish and profitably trade from here. • Our people believe this and stand tall.
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Hawke’s Bay … a place where locals get behind locals. I’d see business and the people of Hawke’s Bay supporting fellow Hawke’s Bay businesses, people and the community. We know times are tough, but most of us have the means to contribute our resources and energies into our local community. Each of us has a responsibility to make this happen. Get along to your school gala, get involved in your local sports organisations, support local events. You’ll love the experience! Be creative and support our hardworking community groups and activities. Hold on to, and build the ‘feel good’ feeling! To encourage this support to happen, Hawke’s Bay has a responsibility to ensure that our local community-based facilities and infrastructure are of a world class standard. When they are, I’m sure locals would support and encourage others to utilise these great facilities. If we get behind our own region first, we’ll see our local communities prosper, in turn this will stimulate the wider economy and result in a more positive and more vibrant Hawke’s Bay.
Good news ... regional growth has become a common focus. Tourists have come to spend a relaxing weekend in one of New Zealand’s easiest places to live, work and play, and why wouldn’t they? Walkways to wineries with plenty of top-class accommodation, and activities to ensure their stay is a best-in-class experience. The week has been busy with overnight stays from cruise ships. Local businesses are booming. They have up-skilled themselves at local business growth centres and are now fit and ready to export. They will take advantage of the low-cost direct flights to Australia and this will mean that we can use our skilled and capable local workforce to take advantage of the multibillion dollar Australian projects that are underway over the next decade. The Bay has grown from a backwash regional economic pile to the benchmark of prosperity and growth. Two years to get ready, then bring on 2014!
Feature Technology is making the Bay the best place to live.
Sending invoices overseas ROD DRURY CEO, Xero Technology is making the nature of work more » global. Almost ironically, globalisation can transform regional areas like Hawke’s Bay as location becomes irrelevant. Hawke’s Bay is well known as a great place to visit, and technology is also making the Bay the best place to live, especially when you have school age children – often mid career time. My vision for Hawke’s Bay in 2012 is to see local businesses participate globally and see the Bay attract new global workers into our area. Attracting global residents brings networks, experience and investment capital. A starting point is connecting your business and home to fibre, joining global conversations using networking sites, using desktop video to connect to family and business contacts. Experiencing how technology has made the world smaller is a key step towards trading overseas. When it’s normal for Hawke’s Bay businesses to send invoices overseas each month, New Zealand will be on a much better path.
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One more night ANNIE DUNDAS General Manager, Hawke’s Bay Tourism Hawke’s Bay Tourism is getting the local tourism industry to try and sell an extra night this summer. It’s based around every tourism provider, front of house manager, coach driver, or store owner being able to share their three favourite Hawke’s Bay Gems. An extra night means we sell more flat-whites, more meals, beds,
excursions, groceries and probably more sunscreen, sunhats and berocca. Across the year that could mean an additional $32 million spent inHawke’s Bay! But this isn’t just about the tourism sector. Hawke’s Bay locals can be part of this too. With nearly 2 million visitors staying with friends and family in Hawke’s Bay each year, we need locals to start talking about their own Hawke’s Bay Gems. Wouldn’t it be pretty amazing if everyone in Hawke’s Bay could rattle off three favourite Hawke’s Bay Gems wherever and whoever they were with! Whether it’s a trip to Cape Kidnappers, an Art Deco Walk or a day biking the Hawke’s Bay Trails or simply fish and chips on the beach, everyone will have their own gems. Be proud locals and share your three favourite Hawke’s Bay Gems far and wide … and make your visitors stay another night.
Hawke’s Bay ... back yourself JASON FOX Hawke’s Bay Mãori Business Network In 2011 local business leaders set up a growth promotion organisation called Business Hawke’s Bay, with no women or Mãori involved. Then 23 Hawke’s Bay businesses invested in the NZ hockey team. I sense a widening gap between the leadership and our working community. My goal for 2012 would be to see the same 23 Hawke’s Bay businesses visit the Mãori community and ask: “How can we help build a great future for your children and how can we help your community?” That would be my wish for 2012 for the Bay.
Try the alternative ANGELA HAIR Homeopath & Environmentalist Biodiversity - it starts in the human gut, and is destroyed by repeated use of antibiotics. Millions of colonies of gut
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bacteria are vital to our health. I look forward to the day when every Hawke’s Bay parent is told by their GP how to look after the internal flora of their child’s gut. Growing nutrient rich kids - in my ideal health care world, much more resource would be poured into optimum nutrition than into mass medication programmes like fluoridation and vaccination. Every child would be given breast milk as their first food and eating nutritionally dense fresh fruit, vegetables and protein sources would be an essential part of every child’s day. Facilitate self-healing - my vision for Hawke’s Bay is to see homeopathy, osteopathy and the many other effective complementary therapies offered free to 0-5 year olds alongside conventional medicine. In many cases, it is cheaper and more effective to facilitate selfhealing through natural therapies than to use expensive pharmaceutical drugs as first treatment.
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Greater connection to the natural world GREG HART Central Hawke’s Bay farmer Firstly, we must honour the incredible privilege it is to live in this place. With it’s snowy mountains, bush covered hills, beautiful rivers, productive land and good climate, with glorious beaches and ocean as well as the diversity of people that make Hawke’s Bay a great place to live. If we are to pass this precious gift on to future generations, we have to play our part in transitioning to a low-carbon society where our economy functions within the regenerative capacity of the biosphere. This will require a re-localisation of much of the economy and a lot less material consumption. Rather than being a sacrifice, this will be an exciting time Continued on Page 20
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Feature We want to build a region where no one is left behind.
VISIONS » of transition resulting in happy, healthy families and communities that thrive with a greater connection to the natural world … a connection that creates more meaning and is spiritually fulfilling. Biodiversity will increase, resulting in clean water, healthy soil and animals, and ultimately, more nutritious food. While energy demands decrease we can become more self-sufficient by producing the energy we need to maintain our comfortable life. Hawke’s Bay – what better place to journey beyond sustainability!
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Leave no one behind DEAN HELEN JACOBI Waiapu Cathedral
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In Hawke’s Bay we want to build a region with opportunity and growth, but also a region where no one is left behind. At the Cathedral we welcome visitors every day from all over the world – tourists who bring dollars into our economy. There is another group of regular visitors at the Cathedral – a reasonably steady stream of people needing help, usually asking for money or a place to stay. I think most of them are homeless. Some we see only once; others come back often. We have no means of supporting these people and send them away empty handed. The numbers of requests are on the increase. If our new government pursues its plans to cut back on welfare eligibility and payments we will certainly have more people at our door. If the poor aren’t looked after, then we all have a problem. Our Councils need to take a look at the needs of the poorest in our community. There will be local solutions
to these needs. A “triage” centre has been suggested where we can refer people so they can be connected with the social services they need. The churches will be willing partners in such a project in order to see that no one is left behind.
Economy without ecology? DR GAVIN KENNY Environmental educator and consultant There is a lot of talk in the region about economy, how to stimulate economic growth for the future in a world that is facing challenging economic times. The economy is important, yet cannot operate independently of ecology. The “eco” in both economy and ecology is derived from the Greek “oikos” which means “home”. Ecology is how we order our home, economy is how we manage it. Our first priority ought to be to ensure that our home is in order. My vision for the future of Hawke’s Bay is that a much stronger ecological understanding is developed in the region as a foundation for a truly sustainable and resilient economy and society. It is only through a deepened understanding of ecology and our social connection with our ecological resource base that we will develop the degree of resilience required to prepare ourselves for the challenges ahead.
Looking out for each other CAROLINE LAMPP Manager of DOVE Hawke’s Bay My hope would be that over the next year or two communities across Hawke’s Bay would get to know their neighbours better and really start to look out for each other. There is an African proverb that says … “It takes a village to raise a child” and I would love to see communities, neighbourhoods and streets coming
together to help each other care for children and those who need support. Over the summer, street parties and BBQs are a great way to get to know your neighbours. Making it a BYO food and drinks occasion means that it doesn’t cost anyone a lot of money and it can be great fun. If we all get to know our neighbours, have some fun together, look out for each other’s children, support those who need support and live in community with each other – what a fabulous place this Hawke’s Bay of ours will be. Those are my hopes and dreams for the next few years in Hawke’s Bay.
Waterways are our taonga MARGARET AKATA McGUIRE Chairperson, Kohupatiki Marae The Waterways are our Taonga. To us at Kohupatiki– Whakatu, we knew the river as the Ngaruroro. Today it is known as Te Karamu–Waimate– Clive River. In the 1950s and ‘60s we were still enjoying the plentiful supply of fish for all, smelt, whitebait, herrings, kahawai, flounder, mullet and eels. We were even blessed with the seasonal visit of the White Herons come springtime, a telltale sign that fish was on the run, plus a lot of recreational activites had by us kids along the awa, in the summertime. Come the 1990s what we noticed was less fish and the catch and size itself all small. There was more weed and the water quality was suspect as well. We even started renaming the species greenbait, brownbait and blackbait. No one was getting into the water anymore and if one did, you went in with gumboots on as it was hard to make out the colour scheme of the water. By 2000 those who persevered still left trying to catch a fish a day, instead ended up lamenting about the good old days Continued on Page 22
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Feature Number one destination for culture vultures and alternative thinkers.
VISIONS » catching 5kg of whitebait in one scoop. Over this period we’ve witnessed and read about Tutae (faeces) floating down our stream. In my Dad’s and Uncle’s day they went walking, swimming, wading, spearing and came home with breakfast, lunch and tea and fed the whole whanau. The thing is you have go to another place to do a similar activity, be it catching or exercising. The only reason we are not down at the river is because it’s polluted, unfriendly and downright in a shameful state. The responsibility to care for our rivers belongs with the whole community. It will require collectivity and collaboration of all the key stakeholders, Whanau Hapu Iwi and work with those agencies charged with the responsibilities of looking after the environment and all who reside within the catchment. Thinking of Council I would like to sign off with this quote from one of our City Councillors, simple but effective ... “Enough is Enough”.
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Win the shield MATT MILLER Managing Director, Mogul
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Hawke’s Bay desperately needs to win the Ranfurly Shield. I grew up in Christchurch in the 1980s. Canterbury held the Ranfurly Shield for 3 years and it gave the region a huge boost in morale at a time when the region and the sport were at a low ebb. I believe the positive effects are still being felt today. A whole generation of us grew up ‘one-eyed’ and really proud of our province. Winning the shield is not like the All Blacks winning the world cup … it’s much better. As All Black fans, we have a sense
of entitlement and we feel aggrieved and bitter whenever the All Blacks lose. Shield rugby is a much more positive experience. And when you’ve got the Shield it’s a knockout – and a sellout – every week, not just once every four years. The Shield brings people together, it promotes participation in sport, and it fosters a sense of pride that I’ve never seen anywhere else. Go the Magpies!
Creative hub MAREE MILLS Director, Hastings City Art Gallery Hawke’s Bay is seen as a number one destination for culture vultures and alternative thinkers. Museum, art galleries, theatres, education facilities, retreat centres, recreation and exceptional geography, alongside unprecedented access to Mãori culture, attract accelerated eco-tourism and new young permanent residents. The Cicada design hub in Whakatu will exponentially grow and attract young ‘creatives’ from around the world who form a leading ‘think tank’ for the future of the planet. “Deco City” Napier will be linked to “Counter Culture” Hastings by lightning fast solar powered rail. iWay bike trail links new ‘off the grid’ villages to cities along historical/cultural pathways. Hawke’s Bay boasts the nation’s most beautifully designed and successful eco-village. We are one of the most visited virtual sites on the internet in the world. Our cultural output is legendary.
Buzzing with ideas GRAEME NORTON Executive Director, 3R Group It’s 2025 and Hawke’s Bay is buzzing. It has a growing group of ‘best in class’ – world class businesses, driven by far sighted entrepreneurs who feed off and egg on each other. The types of business are diverse but they share a few things in common. The entrepreneurial drive is beyond the ‘boat, bach and BMW’; the market is beyond HB and, in most cases
beyond NZ; the USP and value comes from ideas. The businesses demonstrate leadership. The debates about local government, amalgamated or otherwise have subsided because they have finally been found to be less relevant to sustainable development than the leadership that good business can provide. Where did this ‘buzz’ come from? It came from within.
Empowering Rangatahi leaders JACOBY POULAIN Councillor, Hastings District Hawke’s Bay has a song seldom sung. We have high achieving and inspirational young Mãori achieving great feats. We have many more waiting in the wings to be raised. Unseen, untapped capacity exists in bucket loads around the Bay and it’s time to mobilise it. Our community stands to benefit enormously if we nurture and support this rich cultural wealth and source of strength inherent in our rangatahi, who often have an unusual and innate passion to serve the land and people they are connected to. Through empowering and equipping our rangatahi leaders we are placing more on the front lines to fight the good fight in Hawke’s Bay, to lead positive change and to raise other young leaders to follow in the paths they pave. Amongst other initiatives in 2012 I look forward to help let shine this hidden leadership in our midst.
Build social capital DES RATIMA ‘Mayor’ of Whakatu He aha te mea nui o te Ao hurihuri? He tangata. What is the most important
thing in the world? It is people. Communities can overcome adversity if they have a strong cohesive spirit, wrapped around agreed outcomes of helping families move forward with the ideology that puts people before profits. The economic model of success is the accumulation of financial capital. This is at odds with the more difficult model of social captial – the value of self worth, of contribution and the value of fellowship. I offer these three initiatives in support of a social capital approach: • Establish ‘Community Chests’ through targeted rates which deliver on community projects identified in the community plan. • Develop and promote public transport between Dannevirke and Wairoa using the railway network. Use bus services for the intercity networks. • Initiate new and accelerate current riparian margin development of all our waterways.
HUGH RITCHIE Central Hawke’s Bay Farmer My number one wish and goal would
Something instantly achievable CHRIS RYAN Conservationist I do have one simple grass roots idea to improve our environment immediately. No lengthy consultation or RMA involvement is necessary. The idea simply involves spending less time mowing grass. Hundreds of acres
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of lawns, verges, parks, school grounds and reserves are mown for many months of every year. Is it really necessary to mow all this grass so often? The allover tidy look is incompatible with a rich biodiversity. The benefits of less mowing are many and varied: Less fuel, oil and air pollution. Less machinery use and maintenance costs. More time to do other work. More visual appeal with flowering plants. Large increases in plant species, Widespread habitats for bees and other beneficial insects. Finally, the potential value of educational opportunities. I would like to see many schools doing useful biological and economic research on the adoption of this scheme. Schools and councils could initiate trial areas especially in highly visual areas. A scheme that I have long wished to see made part of our building regulations and district plans is the compulsory adoption of solar design and devices together with grey water use in all new houses and commercial buildings. We have made excuses for far too long. Let’s see Hawke’s Bay lead the way in taking some concrete environmental action!
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Bee in the know ~ jan/feb 2012
Unity on the value of water
be to have in 3-5 years’ time a unified position on the value water delivers for the whole of Hawke’s Bay, with the acceptance that storage for irrigation is a critical piece of the water plan. This will require public acceptance that intensive agriculture can be managed with regard to water quality and that water users accept change in supply and management. Setting catchment limits on nutrient run-off and creating management systems that meet those limits will be the corner piece of delivering the above goal. This piece of work will be a first and will be very complex to get right and implement. Executed well, it will give peace of mind to the wider community and security to water users, reducing tension between the rural and urban communities with the expectation that both will benefit.
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Feature What will keep our young earners here, or make them return?
VISIONS Needed: Regional solidarity JACOB SCOTT Artist An opportunity that’s on our doorstep … a regional project approach to establish a positive dynamic. If we could get some solidarity as a region and muster a dynamic for change it could make a difference. I detect a general feeling that we’re all left floundering in limbo land while there are issues to be addressed, decisions to be made and follow through actioned. We all know the world is a changing place, but we seem to be bogged down and managed by a bunch of clerks. A disenfranchised population does not project positives. What if we made a stand with these cruise ships that visit Napier and said: ‘If you come here, then this is how we will do it. We know we’ve got a standout place in Aotearoa and the world. We want to show it off properly and grow the experience. Our businesses and people want to benefit more, because at the moment we’re being used as a port of call and nobody wins.’
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Improving movement skills COLIN STONE Chief Executive, Sport Hawke’s Bay Through the Sport Hawke’s Bay Strategic Plan Tui Tuia (Weave Together), we have identified some key areas where we see investment as critical.
We believe that the development of the fundamental movement skills of young people is absolutely critical in enhancing the physical activity pathway for kids through sport and active recreation. If young children cannot run, jump, throw, balance properly, have limited eye/hand coordination and lack spatial awareness, it is harder for youngsters to progress through activities and into the specific skills required for individual sports. We currently employ two staff in the early childhood area who specialise in Active Movement and the Heart Foundation’s Healthy Heart Award. We now want to put greater emphasis on this area of our work by connecting the Early Childhood sector to specialist providers to really advance the Fundamental and Foundation skills pathway. Our Primary School Teachers also need greater support in the delivery of the PE curriculum and we are looking to improve and develop our resources to give teachers more confidence in this area, thus improving the movement pathway for kids. Finally, it will be our goal to use sport and active recreation as part of a coordinated community development initiative with our local authorities, for communities such as Wairoa, Maraenui, Camberley and Flaxmere.
Establishing a Mãori innovation centre NGAHIWI TOMOANA Chairman, Ngati Kahungunu One of the goals set by our hikoi around our 90 marae in 2001 was to establish a Ngati Kahungunu Cultural Centre by 2026. We intend to do this by early 2013! We have rebranded it an ‘Innovation Centre’ that will cater for the modern needs of the Iwi including a small business and tourism hub, an R&D centre, a niche retail sector, a specialist seafood restaurant,
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a recording centre and small film studio, an amphitheatre for live performances, with many other facets including a gym and a place for multi- sports people to train and store their gear. All totally immersed in our Kahungunutanga, of course, but reflective of the wider Hawke’s bay and Wairarapa regions. This will be situated in the Pandora area and will allow us to revive the ancient navigating and sailing arts and skills, once the double-hulled Te Matau A Maui returns from its Pacific voyage around 2013. The Centre will act as host to local regional, national and international business and cultural conferences and festivals, and parade the best our region has to offer. We will be showcasing our region with the eye on the enterprise and entrepreneurship especially of rangatahi and the younger generation.
Strength through unity GERALDINE TRAVERS Principal, Hastings Girls’ High School My vision is of a well-educated population who are healthy in every sense and acknowledge that the province of Hawke’s Bay is where they belong, rather than being residents of this town or the other. If we truly wish to move forward as a province or a brand, then our strength is through unity. Singly the two cities are not much more important than New Plymouth or Wanganui, but our combined strength turns us into a major metropolitan area worthy of hosting events and able to provide first rate facilities to our citizens. There is a real risk that a province such as ours could be a refuge for only the young and the old, while the people in the middle who are the real worker ants of the economy, earn their living in more dynamic places. Let us learn to have pride in the achievements of all and encourage each other to achieve, so that the rest of the world does not regard us as a sleepy backwater.
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Reduce Mãori youth unemployment ALAYNA WATENE Chief Executive, Te Taiwhenua O Heretaunga It is a tragedy that in Hawke’s Bay over 50% of Mãori youth are unemployed. This is not good for Hawke’s Bay’s future. We need to act purposefully together to reduce this figure by at least 40% by 2015.
Economy predicated on innovation HAMISH WHITE CEO, Airnet
Telling the Hawke’s Bay story HAMISH WHYTE Managing Director, Furnware The best companies in the world usually have a story to tell. This enables them to stand alone, and gives them a place to own
The destination MARTIN WILLIAMS Planning Lawyer and Community Advocate My vision? Hawke’s Bay as the destination, the place to be. Neither Napier nor Hastings are on the road to anywhere else in particular, except perhaps each other. And both are a long way from other major centres. Yet the region’s geography can be as much an attraction as deterrent. Amalgamate? I am not so sure. Each city is indeed a twin match for the other, separated by three rivers, part of Hawke’s Bay’s unique overall identify – adding diversity and resilience; brand even. Instead, a stock take. What will keep
our young earners here, or make them return? What have we got? What is missing? Where does it need to go? When? What are the priorities, and who will fund the investment? This is what I think is missing, planning. And I do not mean resource management style planning – a series of rules about what you can and cannot do. I mean real planning, some call it spatial planning. Planning about how we develop and connect the necessary resources around which our communities can thrive. These resources include the EIT, the Port, our road and transport networks, our areas of production – orchards, farms, wineries, industry. Our retail centres and destinations. The hospital. Places where people live and more will want to. Water. This will require collaboration between public and private, and across cultures as well as region. Common sense must prevail over ideology. A self-sustaining Hawke’s Bay may then result. The destination. A place people will come to stay.
Coming home from Perth LAWRENCE YULE Mayor, Hastings 2012 begins with hope and optimism, although I expect the economic conditions in the world to be particularly challenging. I am excited about new developments at the Regional Sports Park, the visitor centre at Te Mata park and the new Splash Pad in Flaxmere, which will be advanced during 2012. However my main priority is to get the regional study on prosperity completed. It should not be just another door jamming document; rather an honest, crisp analysis of where we find ourselves and what we can do to improve the situation. We need to fundamentally lift our game and sights if we are going to keep our young and families. A month ago on a flight from Auckland, I sat next to a hard working family man who had to work in the mines in Australia just to keep food on his table at home. He was on his way home from Perth. There were five people on our flight doing the same thing. Sobering isn’t it!!
Bee in the know ~ jan/feb 2012
It’s about creating a dynamic community and economic environment that will provide our children with as great a career opportunity as any metropolitan centre could offer. To build an economy that is less dependant on domestic tourism and primary industry, but rather one that is predicated on innovation in the areas of food, beverage and technology. These are infinitely scalable and could bring enormous wealth to the region. There’s no good reason why Hawke’s Bay is not home to some service sector giants, including banking, insurance and telecommunications.
and defend in their respective markets. I believe Hawke’s Bay must improve on telling the world what an amazing place we live in. We started off with the “Hawke’s Bay Wine Country” rebranding some dozen years ago and the community had a focal point to collaborate around. It was a success to have Hawke’s Bay united under one banner. Marketing is all about getting your product or service into a position that can be defended; so all investment into creating that position is worthwhile and drives greater results. Most of us believe we live in a region that is the best place in NZ … and potentially the world. So let’s get our story right, using our abundance of fantastic real stories and real experiences. And let’s share our story on a new global platform. We should increase our investments from all councils and the private sector, supporting a powerful entity that sticks to the plan and backs the region, not the cities. Some cities promote themselves with large signs on hills; some tout their beaches or rivers. We have an opportunity way beyond these communities. Hawke’s Bay is an energetic but livable region with diverse lifestyle experiences … capable of offering a strong appeal to a world that is getting more hectic by the day.
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Thriving locally by ~ DAVID TRUBRIDGE
Bee in the know ~ jan/feb 2012
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Above our bach at Mahanga there is rare and precious remnant of native coastal bush. [Tragically it is dying because stock are allowed to graze it, eating the seedlings that should be replenishing it, but that is another story.] I love to wander under the dense canopy of trees such as Kohekohe, Karaka, Rewarewa, Kaikomako, Pukatea, Titoki and Tawa, some of which I have never seen anywhere else. There is also a rich profusion of other growths such as creepers and epiphytes. Large Rata and Kiekie grow as big as the trees, but there are many smaller creepers whose names I don’t know. And lodged in the canopy are the mass growths of epiphytes, somewhat like the boulders that dislodge from the steep hillside and end up rolled against a tree trunk further down the slope. It is the creepers that particularly interest me. In England where I grew up, creepers such as ivy are parasitic: they eventually smother and destroy their host trees. But these creepers here are symbiotic, meaning that they live in balance with the trees (arguably even the rata), as do the epiphytes. It strikes me that flora reflect society, although actually it is probably the other way around! The British model of the ivy’s growth at all costs results in cycles of boom and bust as the plant pulls down the rotten trees it killed, allowing new
trees to briefly emerge. The New Zealand ecology finds a balance, and creates an environment where all can thrive in a mutually supportive community. Well at least, in human terms, that is more the Mãori way; it is not the way of our rulers and captains of industry who gleefully emulate their ex-colonial masters in their lust for short-term riches for the few, cavalierly waving aside any concerns about the long-term destruction of our environment. They have duped enough followers into believing that they too will share the benefits, but we now see this for the lie that it is. They are the parasites,
An epiphyte growing on a puka climber, growing on the host tree
leeching our creative and natural wealth. So let us build our own communities and ruthlessly weed out any parasites before they take hold. How do we do this? It is not easy and it does not come without some personal cost and sacrifice, and we have to believe in the vision of a better society to do this. Spend in the community The key guiding principle has to be that as many as possible of the dollars we spend remain in the community. This ensures that cause and effect remain within reach, and hence can be controlled. If you buy cheap furniture from China, the clear-felled timber, the polluting factories and the exploited labour are all conveniently out of sight and out of mind, while the profit goes off-shore. When everything is local, you couldn’t avoid the ravaged forests, and the pollution spilling on your doorstep. If materials run short, then that is bad community planning and you will have to wait. If the furniture falls apart or contains pollutants, you will take it back to the factory and no one else will buy there until they improve. Local people will be employed, and some of the profits from the business will go back into local causes. And of course we won’t be frantically trying to export more of our heritage to pay for the imported junk.
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We can enrich our lives with ideas and culture from around the world, without any material transfer.
The New Zealand ecology finds a balance, and creates an environment where all can thrive in a mutually supportive community.
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“One of the reasons why we have embraced the parasitic model is greed. It has seemed to offer us abundant riches with the added attraction of deferred payment.” david trubridge have people here now who can do that, but currently they are struggling because we buy most of our entertainment internationally. It is important not to see this as xenophobic or isolationist. We are not turning our backs on the outside world, because now we have mass global communication with instant sharing. We can still enrich our lives with ideas and culture from around the world, without any material transfer. And it is really important that we continue to do this, so that all like-minded communities can share what they are doing and feel part of the greater global caring community. As I wrote this I realised that the withering of the Mahanga bush is not actually ‘another story’ – it is all part of the same story and metaphor, because the imported farming methods and business values are the parasites that are destroying the bush. My vision for Hawke’s Bay is a sustainable local community free of parasites, and we can do this by starving them of the nutrients they need, or in other words, denying them the dollars they suck from us.
Bee in the know ~ jan/feb 2012
Similarly with food. Hawke’s Bay has some of the best growing conditions in the world. There is very little we need import, especially when we learn to eat only seasonal produce. We should not expect everything all the time because that usually means airfreighting in not only produce, but someone else’s precious water. And we should not expect meat at every meal, because the land can’t support that much production without abusing animals and environment. Similarly with services. International bankers, investors and phone companies couldn’t give a toss about Hawkes Bay. They have no stake locally, will bleed it for all they can, and leave when they wish. We can build local micro-finance, as been proven in other parts of the world. Local profitable businesses invest locally to support the community that supports them. One of the reasons why we have embraced the parasitic model is greed. It has seemed to offer us abundant riches with the added attraction of deferred payment. “Go on buy it now and pay us later. You want a loan? Sure, here’s twice as much!” This is where the sacrifice comes in, because to build our supportive local community we are going to have to forego some of the addictions. We have to learn to replace instant consumer gratification (which is designed to be utterly nonsatisfying to ensure you keep coming back for more) with more wholesome and lasting community fulfillment. We should learn to be satisfied with less material goods, which will not be easy because it is like coming off a drug. So we have to be creative and generate our own distractions and entertainment. We
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Tamatea HS Trades Academy students built mini bikes as part of practical learning experience with EIT tutor John Banks and Tamatea technology teacher Ross Webb.
by ~ CLAIRE HAGUE
Let’s leave our gang colours at the gate Sometimes visions can grow from something small. A 15 year old boy from Hawke’s Bay wrote the following in his application to attend the new Hawke’s Bay Schools’ Trades Academy in 2012. “Since I was little I’ve wanted to work as a builder - I love this sort of work and can’t imagine doing anything else. I will be able to use these [trades] skills to help my family. I really want a job. I want to do something that helps my hometown.”
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And a 16 year old girl (and teenage mother) from the East Coast wrote in her application: “I want to be a better person. I want a nice life and future for me and my baby, but most of all I want to make my Mum proud of me - I want to be something.” The Hawke’s Bay Schools Trades Academy is due to open in 2012 on EIT’s Hawke’s Bay campus. In addition, the Academy will also operate on EIT’s Tairāwhiti campus for the Gisborne and East Coast schools. For one day per week, students from schools all over the region will attend the Academy to take part in a range of tertiary programmes, from hard trades, to hospitality, to hair and beauty, to animal care. The intended outcome is retention of
these students in the education system, achievement of NCEA Level 2 with the help of the additional tertiary credits, and the opening up of pathways to future education, training and work. This Academy is a partnership between EIT, the regions’ secondary school Principals, staff, students and their parents, and local industry who are helping with materials, plans, mentors and learning assistants. The Academy has generated huge interest, and as I write I’m looking at 245 formal applications for 160 places across Hawke’s Bay and the East Coast – they are all signed by the student, their parents, and the school. All contain personal statements from each student as to their hopes and dreams for an Academy place. Some from up the coast are written in Mãori – a wonderful testament to a bilingual society tucked away in the farther reaches of our region. Encouraging positive response This positive response is not typical in all regions that are running Trades Academies, and this is what gives me such hope for the future of Hawke’s Bay. Here, we already have models of high trust partnerships that we can work with to achieve what must surely be the key vision for everyone in the Bay – 100% of our young people in education, training or work, contributing positively to the
Claire Hague
economic, social and cultural fabric of our communities. Evidence of these partnerships at ground level is everywhere. Last week I visited a group of carpentry students who were working with the Department of Conservation to build and install picnic tables, seats and paths at A’Deanes Bush near Onga Onga. This group, mostly young men, mostly Mãori, are the focus of a partnership between a local Taiwhenua, EIT and the Ministry of Social Development. All of these young people looked me in the eye, shook my hand, told me about what they were doing. They come from backgrounds that most of us would find unthinkable, but they have picked themselves up, and three found work within weeks of starting the course. Others
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Most of all I want to make my Mum proud of me ... I want to be something.
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A transition trust I met recently with people from one of our local councils, and the Ministry
of Social Development. We were brainstorming a concept by which a Hawke’s Bay-wide trust or entity of some sort could be formed to ensure that all of the excellent work going on to help young people make good transitions to adulthood and to work could be better co-ordinated and more effective. We all agreed that employers were a key component of any such trust, particularly those willing to look beyond the immediate profit line, take risks for the longer term good of the region and contribute to the training and mentoring needs of some of the young people I have described. And that somehow we all needed to get people excited about a shared vision for our work. Recently a campaign ran in local newspapers featuring regional identities who wanted a ‘Better Hawke’s Bay’. I’d like to suggest that a better Hawke’s Bay starts with people like the ones I have
featured in this article stepping outside their comfort zones and the confines of their organisations’ current policies and ways of working. These people have been willing to lay aside egos and ignore territorial issues, combine funding, and focus on doing the right thing as opposed to always doing the thing right. If the carpentry students can leave their gang colours at the gate before starting their programme each day, so can we. It’s happening at ground level everywhere in Hawke’s Bay, and there is no stopping this region once central and local government, the education, health and other sectors all commit to actively breaking down the barriers that currently divide so many of us. Only then can we further explore what can be achieved if we do things differently and collaboratively, and always, always have our young people as the centre of our efforts. They are the future of Hawke’s Bay.
Bee in the know ~ jan/feb 2012
are enjoying work experience with some incredibly supportive employers in the region … and exceeding those employers’ expectations. Kaumatua, kuia and family members are mentoring, nagging, and monitoring attendance and achievements. Various community groups are providing project work for the students and in so doing are gaining access to otherwise unaffordable constructions and repairs. Dedicated tutors take an active interest in these youth as whole people with partners, many with babies on the way, and some with children already. A recent evaluation of this programme drew some great written feedback from the students involved. They appreciated their “awesome” tutors; getting out and about and meeting so many people; learning the mathematics in the context of their building work that they had not bothered or been able to learn at school; being able to see their carpentry projects through from start to finish; and bonding together as a group, leaving gang affiliations at the gate each day. One student also commented that the course would “teach me to be a better person within myself - you can always talk to someone if you need to.” This is a wonderful example of a regionwide partnership that can influence two generations – young people and their own children – and in doing so contribute to breaking the cycle of youth underachievement and unemployment that dogs Hawke’s Bay.
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Beyond the bandwidth blues Redistributing the future.
by ~ KEITH NEWMAN paperless office systems which to date have been as elusive as the paperless toilet.
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Competing fibre optic networks will help eliminate the bandwidth bottleneck in Hawke’s Bay from mid2012, presenting both a challenge and opportunity to businesses, schools and ultimately residential internet users. Locally-owned power company Unison and Telecom’s former network arm Chorus plan to take the region’s communications infrastructure beyond the present excuse for broadband to a digital superhighway with no speed bumps. A recent Deloitte-BusinessNZ survey claimed that after physical transport, broadband and telecommunications infrastructure had the greatest potential to contribute to New Zealand’s future economic prosperity. However, talking about bitumen and direction signs doesn’t tell us what’s in the cars and trucks that travel our roads and neither does rattling on about cable lengths and capacity without considering content and consequence. Shifts happen Hamish White, the new CEO of soonto-be rebranded Hawke’s Bay telco Airnet, says fibre signals the beginning of the end for traditional media and will massively change access to games, music and videos. “People will stop buying CDs and DVDs; they’ll just subscribe to a library,” says White, a former Telecom head of consumer marketing. “A lot of people with iPads for example are no longer subscribing to the NZ Herald, they access media through iTunes for a much richer experience. We’re seeing the displacement of traditional news and TV – the industry is being redefined.” Airnet is among an elite group of ‘tier one’ carriers, and the only one in Hawke’s
Bay able to connect directly into the Chorus network. The company has just recapitalised and restructured for growth based on access to fibre from Chorus and Unison, alongside its fixed wireless and broadband-overcopper offerings. While cagey about its imminent make-over, it hints at future offerings including streaming video and radio through its reseller channels. Fibre access will also create a ‘techtonic’ shift for businesses, throwing up endless possibilities for those who have an ear to hear and the motivation to make a strategic shift. “Competing on price is dumb; businesses need smarter tools so they can do business more successfully and that means using technology to build relationships,” says White. Essentially people want to be validated by technology whether they’re customers of inner city retailers, manufacturers, processing companies, horticulturalists or wineries. Fibre can change the way we work, teach and learn – from creating efficiencies in the supply chain, linking and tracking everything from source to shelf, to using high definition video conferencing and workgroup or collaborative applications to minimise travel costs. The new communications conduits will improve access to remote applications hosted in the ‘cloud’; enable full conferencing with Skype so the images keep pace with the voice; connect PBX systems; encourage the use of GPS and map-based services; and facilitate the sharing of 3D and engineering diagrams, X-rays, animations or raw footage for movie editing. Fibre will also support workflow and
Fibre to the door Chorus, the new owner of much of the copper and fibre optic cable already across the greater Bay area – around 1100 km last count – has a mandate to deliver fibreto-the-door, as part of the government’s Ultrafast Broadband (UFB) network. Chorus, which won a monopoly role in the $1 billion UFB deployment, began work in Napier and Hastings before Christmas, with access for 90% of businesses, all health premises and schools promised within four years. Chorus cable will deliver at least 100Mbit/sec speeds to around 125,000 Hawke’s Bay homes, around 2,500 business premises, 70 schools and more than 700 medical and other healthcare services. Its first next generation access (NGA) fibre cabinets in the Bay will not be in service until April-May 2012. Full region-wide coverage is expected before December 2019. Concurrently the Government’s Rural Broadband Initiative (RBI), a consortium of Telecom and Vodafone, will fill in the gaps with wireless, enhanced copper and cellular coverage to outlying areas. Earlier this year, when Unison lost its CentralFibre UFB bid to Chorus, it already had 140km of backbone fibre to its electricity sub-stations. Rather than pulling back, the plucky Hawke’s Bay operator, with the full support of the Hawke’s Bay Power Consumers’ Trust, escalated its roll out. From March 2011 it began extending fibre into the business areas of Hawke’s Bay, Rotorua and Taupo. “We believed Hawke’s Bay couldn’t wait, so we just got on with it,” says UnisonFibre sales and marketing manager, Wayne Baird. By the end of November over 100 customers were on board, from small innovative software companies and manufacturing firms to large multi-site organisations including the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board. UnisonFibre now covers much of the Hastings CBD and Onekawa, and is moving into Havelock North, Omahu, the Napier CBD and other areas where there’s clear business demand. Wasted on the Bay? So is having two networks capable of delivering up to a gigabit per second data speeds overdoing it for a digitally-deprived
Feature We believed Hawke’s Bay couldn’t wait, so we just got on with it.
Unusual activity urged UnisonFibre sales manager, Wayne Baird, would like to see a lot more activity on his fibre network rather than the current wait and see approach. “Hawke’s Bay is traditionally a bit slower than other
integrators and would-be telcos seem to have no idea what they’re doing and are already giving fibre a bad name. While some players are offering 10/10Mb fibre services for $100 a month, Deller says they’re doing a disservice to their customers who’re disappointed with the result. “They could get ADSL2 over copper and achieve speeds of 22Mb downstream and 2.5Mb upstream for a fraction of the price.”
UnisonFibre sales manager, Wayne Baird regions to take up new technology.” Aware competition is just around the corner, Baird says the company has to be nimble and stay close to its retailers. One of its big advantages is the ability to run cable across its power lines to speed up delivery and where it goes underground it’s open to Chorus sharing the trench or even capacity on its cables. Co-opetition options In fact it’s all starting to sound rather cosy with local telco Airnet interconnecting directly with Chorus yet still championing UnisonFibre, and concerned it doesn’t get a raw deal. CEO Hamish White suggests the main carriers will have “no love to show Hawke’s Bay” over the next two years as they’ll be primarily focussed on the major centres and not eager to interconnect with wholesalers like UnisonFibre. White says it’ll be up to Airnet to lead the local innovation wave and ensure UnisonFibre is an important part of the mix. “If we look after them, we could all do very well out of this.” Airnet’s full service network and its relationships with the major providers position it well as a vital link in the ultrafast broadband chain and as a provider of applications and content. It is however concerned many local technology companies are not up to the challenge. To that end, it’s moving into education mode to ensure equipment and service providers can leverage the opportunities. That may mean recommending smart new PBX or point of sale systems so people understand their business better and communicate more effectively with customers. Airnet sales and marketing manager Ben Deller is concerned that some
Business at light-speed In reality fibre is just part of a marvelous mix of technologies – fixed wireless, wi-fi, copper (ADSL2, VDSL), cellular and even satellite connections – that can deliver superfast connections to offices, warehouses, packing sheds, schools and homes around the country or the world. Users don’t need to know who put the fibre in the ground. What really matters is the quality of the service and what you are doing with it. Chamber of Commerce CEO Murray Douglas warns local businesses they need to start reclaiming their share of e-commerce from sites like Amazon.com which are taking double digits from New Zealand retailing. While some are at the leading edge, he fears those who don’t lift their game, for example retail outlets who refuse to have a computer, may not be around for much longer. “Dinosaurs are at real risk at the moment. We know fibre can transform low productivity of labour and capital, but we have to work really hard on this.” He says the value for money from fibre speeds will be in productivity gains, including eliminating the dilemma of ‘distance to market’ through videoconferencing or making good use of social media. Airnet’s Hamish White agrees. Bay businesses need to stop defining themselves by the 2.9% of the population that live here and start looking at 100% of the population of Australasia. They need to be asking why would people want to transact with them, what their point of difference is, and how can they use these new tools that can connect them to a much wider market than they could ever have imagined? So, will Hawke’s Bay take a back seat as consumers and importers? Or rise to the challenge as producers and exporters, innovating and adding value to the regional economy as the world of borderless, on-demand connections goes light-speed?
Bee in the know ~ jan/feb 2012
region with an entrenched rural mindset? Chamber of Commerce chief executive Murray Douglas thinks not. He reckons competition keeps everyone honest, although he’s concerned local businesses need urgent help to get up to the mark. “We need businesses to see ultrafast as a transformational technology that can increase productivity and our connection to the world, not just a faster way to do emails.” To raise the level of knowledge and skills, Business Hawke’s Bay, the region’s new growth promotion group, is creating an e-commerce hub to showcase leading edge uses of fibre, wireless and related broadband technologies. The demonstration and training space will open early in 2012 with connections to all the main providers and access to a multitude of applications. Chorus, Gen-i, Telecom, True, Unison, FX Networks and Airnet are all “in the conversation”, although the big question remains, what’s in it for them? “In order for Hawke’s Bay to benefit, these providers must get the business. That means we have to showcase, demonstrate, encourage, educate and basically connect businesses to this underground spaghetti,” says Douglas. “We have to change business processes and people’s head space to do things faster with bigger packages and different technologies.” He’s talking about bringing in experts or ‘translators’ to make the case clear and even giving local technology managers a tickle up to get acquainted with smarter technologies. The Chamber of Commerce is leading by example. It recently moved its in-house business servers into a virtual or cloud environment. In other words their core applications, databases and software are now hosted off-site – in fact offshore – and they access everything over high speed internet. That’s removed the cost of owning, maintaining and managing computer server hardware and the associated network infrastructure. Staff can use iPhones and iPads anytime, anywhere to access the software and services that make the business tick. “I’d say we’ve saved hours and days even,” says Douglas.
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Cycling Hawke’s Bay Hawke’s Bay’s new network of rural recreational cycle tracks is a roaring success, but for everyday cyclists, dangerous roads are still the reality. Kathy Webb takes a look at the imbalance of pedal power in the Bay. by ~ KATHY WEBB
Photo courtesy of Tim Whittaker
Feature Only 35% of cyclists feel safe in their designated road lanes.
It’s a turf war, playing out as a
Is everybody happy? And there’s no doubt, cycling is coming back. But not everyone is happy about that. Cyclists, bloody cyclists. The last thing we need careering around the roads, demanding their own space. Well, they needn’t think it’s going to be that easy. They’re going to have to tussle for their tarseal. Cyclists call it “cycle hate”. Motorists call it “cyclist fault”. It’s not unique to Hawke’s Bay; it happens everywhere motorists are being asked to give up some of their road space and look out for others. They complain of cyclists all over the road, appearing out of nowhere, getting in their way and holding them up. Their pent-up rage spills out. “Don’t pay for roads, but expect to use
them maybe they shd be chgd, ” texts Angry Taxpaying Driver. “Y is cl giving road space 2 bikes,” says Get Out Of My Way. “No wun uses them, dumb idea,” curses Subaru Supremo. In turn, cyclists all over the country tell horror stories of screaming abuse, accidental near-misses, and non-accidental near-misses. They say it’s getting worse. Small wonder, then, that the 180km of safe, off-road trails that have sprung up around Hawke’s Bay have proven to be such a hit, not just with locals getting out for a spin at the weekend, but tourists. Safe cycling has become a novelty, a tourist attraction. It’s bringing in a lot of visitors, some serious cash, nurturing a string of businesses and sparking new ones. National and international media are writing glowing pieces about the network, now officially named the Hawke’s Bay Trails. It’s taken 15 years, but in its own disparate way the Bay has pulled together for success. The challenge now is whether it can capitalise on that and extend the trails concept to the next stage -- safe urban commuter cycling. Ambitious projects are unfolding in Europe, Canada and North America to build routes that promote cycling as a viable, alternative form of commuter transport, while capturing the multitude of social, health, financial and environmental benefits that come with it. Velo-City Global in Vancouver is one example.
www.velo-city2012.com The Ministry of Transport has a theory that there is safety in numbers, so if more people took to the roads on their bikes they would have less chance of being killed or injured. Another school of thought says that might reduce statistical rates of death or injury, but actual numbers would inevitably increase. Nicholas Jones, medical officer of health for the Hawke’s Bay District health Board, says the cost of inactivity among Kiwis is about $300m a year. That’s in health terms alone. Making it easier for people to walk or cycle to work or school has a range of flow-on benefits. It keeps them fitter and healthier and gives them a sense of wellbeing. It brings them into more social contact with others, and for a low income family, the financial benefits of not having to keep a car on the road could be far-reaching. They could eat better food instead. “It puts money into family pockets for other expenses.”
“Don’t pay for roads, but expect to use them maybe they shd be chgd.” text frm angry tax-paying driver
Photo courtesy of Tim Whittaker Research indicates that the health benefits to individuals and the national health budget is $1.30 for every kilometre we cycle, and $2.60 for every kilometre we walk, he says. “It’s a virtuous cycle.” Hastings District Council is one of two cities to have been given $4.5 million by the Government as part of a scheme called Model Communities. Part of this is to encourage walking and cycling. Most of the $4.5m has been going into a safety campaign and painting cycle lanes on Hastings roads. The glamour piece will be a $1m boardwalk-style cycle path between Hastings and Havelock North, built over the top of deep drains, and separated from the road by a 3m planted strip. “This is groundbreaking for us. It will be magnificent,” says deputy mayor Cynthia Bowers. Work is about to begin. A recent survey by the council revealed that only 35% of cyclists feel safe in their designated road lanes. That’s an improvement on the 28% who felt that way in 2008, but still not good. Conversely, the 48% who felt cycling on the road was very dangerous in 2008 had reduced to 36% this year. Continued on Page 34
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Bee in the know ~ jan/feb 2012
game of life-and-death dodgems. The battle formations are basic. Cyclists put on a plastic helmet and head out into the traffic to mingle with vehicles travelling at anything between 50km/h and 150km/h. In between them, for safety, is a line painted on the road. In just one year, the casualties mounted to 10 dead and 895 injured, 186 of them seriously. This was back in 2008, and these cyclists were killed or injured when they were hit by cars. The Ministry of Transport says the “social cost” of those cycle-vehicle clashes was $224 million. All up, 22 cyclists died in 2491 crashes with vehicles on New Zealand roads between 2005-10. Another 1932 suffered injuries ranging from minor to serious. Once upon a time it was safe as houses to cycle on the roads, but during the past 30-40 years vehicles have taken over, and the people driving them seem to have become ever-more impatient, fractious and readily-offended when their “rights” are transgressed. Road rage is a fact of modern life, and there are plenty of drivers always keen to knock another ten seconds off their journey times; whose speed is held in check only by the sight of a police car. Understandably, cycling has been in retreat, but now the world is changing again. Concerns are mounting around the world about unhealthy, unfit populations sitting in cars for hours a day; about fuel-polluted environments, the cost of building more and more roads as oil prices rise inexorably. There are campaigns to get people walking and cycling again as part of their daily lives. It’s called “active transport”.
33
Feature Motorists need educating. Nobody’s got any patience these days.
SPORT hawke’s bay’s cycling statistics • A survey by Sport Hawke’s Bay of walkers and cyclists on Rotary Pathways in April 2010 revealed the Marine Parade path to Awatoto as the overwhelming favourite at ... 43% • The next most-popular section was the Black Bridge-Tukituki-River Rd section with ... 27% • The least popular route was Te Awanga – Clifton with ... 1% • The Westshore – Bay View path came in at ... 3.8% • The division of walkers/cyclists was fairly even at ... 49%
Walkers
47.4% Cyclists
• The biggest age group of users was 46-55. Overall, people aged 26-75 made up the bulk of pathway users.
Bee in the know ~ jan/feb 2012
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Cycling champions Businessman Paul McArdle, returning to the Bay after 10 years in the Netherlands, was struck by the absence of bikes on our roads. He and his wife established the Bike On NZ trust, with the goal of building cycle paths within school grounds and setting them up with a supply of bikes and helmets for pupils to use. So far, four schools in Napier and Hastings – St Mary’s, Riverslea, Peterhead and Maraenui -- have them. The results have been astounding, says McArdle. Learning to ride a bike is a milestone. It brings confidence and self-esteem, which is flowing through into classroom work, he says. “It makes school an attractive place to be. We’ve haven’t found a kid who doesn’t want to learn to ride a bike.”
Don Kennedy, a Havelock North lawyer who has biked to work in Hastings daily for decades, also loves bike racing and Formula 1 car racing. He holds F1A accreditation to attend races. “I could be labelled a pedalling petrol head,” he says. Kennedy says he could fill a newspaper page each day with complaints about the behaviour of motorists who “still struggle” with the concept of sharing the road with cyclists, and often, simply do not notice them. He cites drivers opening their doors without first checking for cyclists; passing a cyclist then turning left directly in front; racing a cyclist into a roundabout and crowding them out; or pulling over into cycle lanes for a chat on their cellphones. “You have to concentrate the whole time,” he says. “The potential hazards are everywhere.” Cyclists pay their share and have an equal right to use the roads, he says. “I pay tax, rates, ACC and own two cars. I would guess that 98% of cyclists also drive vehicles,” he says. On May 30, 1997, Kennedy wrote to the Hastings District Council, noting that its roading plans made no reference whatsoever to cyclists, and that “the current attitude seems to be that the motor vehicle is king and all other forms of road use are secondary”. In that same letter, he suggested a novel idea -- a network of pathways separated from the roads for use by walkers and cyclists. Simple and inspirational, it was immediately condemned to languish in the dungeons of long-term council planning. It was not until 2001 that Kennedy achieved his first “success”, when the council implemented a Napier-Gisborne rail line – a potential cycle trail?
Photo courtesy of Tim Whittaker
“We’ve haven’t found a kid who doesn’t want to learn to ride a bike.” paul mcardle, bike on nz “Cycling Strategy” and put $500,000 in the budget for it. “Of course, it never happened,” he says. “Each year the CEO happily slashed the budget by taking out the $500,000, and eventually took it out of the annual plan completely. Council used surplus funds from its minor roading to put in the odd cycle lane. “We did get to spend about $10,000 on cycling education back in 2004, I recall, but no direct funding until council secured $4.5 million in the Model Community Initiative (the iWay project).” Despite the iWay programme, Kennedy remains sceptical about the council’s longterm commitment to cycling. The test will come when the iWay money runs out, he says. “Then we will know how serious the council is about making Hastings the cycling capital of NZ.” Will momentum continue? Bowers – also a keen cyclist and member of the council’s cycling strategy group -- admits the record makes sad reading. “It was really, really hard work because there was no recognition by the council of the benefits of cycling and active transport,” she says. “We absolutely battled to make anything happen.” However, she is confident the council will not lapse. The iWay project brought not just cash, but a turnaround in attitude. There is momentum now, she says. “It’s about getting the building blocks in place, then when you’re doing roadworks, you can incorporate cycleways as best suits the street.” She believes Hastings has options for the creation of urban cycle commuting. One would be to narrow some residential streets, and use the space gained to take cyclists right away from busy roads. Those narrowed roads would also slow down any traffic -- “so residents get an immediate benefit” -- and create more green space, which brings social change. “It gives you a street completely different in character. It gives children a space to play out front, and starts a change in the whole nature of a community.” Such communities would be likely to attract young families, says Bowers. “The main benefit of cycling is an economic
one, and the housing stock around central Hastings is in the more affordable price bracket. That’s an attraction for young families if you can co-ordinate that with safer streets for cycling and walking. You bring back more of the community elements that I think we’ve lost.” Nevertheless, Bowers is encouraged by the council survey showing most cyclists don’t feel safe in their roadway cycle lanes. It’s the trend that counts, she says. “I’m pleased with the trend. That’s what the whole iWays programme is about, encouraging people to share the road.” Robert Oliver, veteran cyclist and owner of The Hub cycle shop in Hastings, says painted cycle lanes on the roads are better than nothing – “if they save even one child’s life then they’re worthwhile” – but cyclists are not going to venture out on the roads in much greater numbers until it becomes a whole lot safer. Even when they’re wearing high-viz clothing and sticking to 2m-wide cycle lanes on the shoulder of the road, they have no guarantee of safety, he says. “Roundabouts are lethal. You get halfway through, it’s so narrow and tight, and cars try to pass me. Motorists need educating. Nobody’s got any patience these days.”
barbara arnott and the hawke’s bay cycle ways It could be the achievement Napier mayor Barbara Arnott is best remembered for. It was 1997 when a friend told her about England’s plan to build 7000km of cycle pathways to celebrate the new millennium. The idea appealed to Arnott so much she came up with her own, more modest, plan – to build 150kms of paths around Hawke’s Bay during the next 20 years. The response was typical. “Don’t be ridiculous, no one wants to walk along a path there,” said her fellow city councillors. Undaunted, Arnott enlisted the help of Napier Rotary clubs, who formed a trust, raised the funds and built 1.6km of 2.5m-wide concrete pathway along the beach crest from Westshore to Bay View. It opened in November 2003, followed soon after by another section, 3.5m wide, along Marine Parade. All up, those two sections cost more than $3 million. They were an instant hit with the public. Arnott remembers clearly the amazed faces of those who had thought she was mad. “They had to see it to understand,” she says, charitably. These days, those paths are seldom
everyone is now agreed we’re on to something. Chairman Fenton Wilson announced enthusiastically in October that “we can see how the trails lead to other opportunities, with potential to the north and south of the region. On the one hand there are public open spaces at Waitangi, Pakowhai and Pekapeka Wetland and possible pathway linkages in Central Hawke’s Bay. On the other hand there are potential pathways leading to Tutira, north of Napier. And we can’t discount the idea of trail network connections into and out of Hawke’s Bay.” Tourism Hawke’s Bay and the regional council are now charged with promoting the Trails locally, nationally and internationally. Annie Dundas, general manager of HB Tourism, says Continued on Page 36
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empty of walkers, runners, skaters, cyclists, toddlers on trainer wheels or elderly in wheelchairs. Even land yachts use them. They draw people who would not normally think to go for a walk, says Arnott. The secret is that they’re easily accessible, and they’re in a place where people do in fact want to go. The Napier Rotary Pathways Trust has never stopped fundraising, and the success of the whole project has wrought a sea change in the thinking of council engineers, says Arnott. “They never look at a road now without thinking about adding cycle paths. It’s in the consciousness of people.”
Bee in the know ~ jan/feb 2012
Hawke’s Bay Trails In complete contrast, the off-road Hawke’s Bay Trails have revolutionised recreational cycling in Hawke’s Bay, particularly among the over-60s, Oliver says. “It’s huge.” “My generation are getting back on their bikes. That’s where the market is. All our generation rode bikes, and now they’ve got the pathways and they’re getting back on their bikes.” They’re also introducing their grandchildren to safe, distance riding – something they would never have been able to experience without the safety offered by off-road paths, says Oliver. The obvious success of the first offroad paths in Napier prompted Hastings to follow suit. The Hawke’s Bay Regional Council allowed paths to be laid out along stopbanks, and more recently has given cash for another trail, connecting wineries in the Gimblett Gravels and Ngatarawa areas west of Hastings. The taxpayer-funded New Zealand Cycleway has also linked in. Most of the paths are off-road, along beachfronts, riversides and more latterly, an estuary. So far, they’ve cost about $5.5 million, and it seems we’re not finished there. The light has officially gone on, and
Photo courtesy of Tim Whittaker
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New Homes Alterations Commercial Project Management
027 235 5989
021 380 874
Johnny Phillips
Glen Downie
www.phillipsanddownie.co.nz
K ES
TUTIRA, WAIROA & GISBORNE
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Loop from Havelock North Visitor Info Centre to River Road to Black Bridge to Haumoana to Te Awanga to Clifton and back via Red Bridge to Havelock North Visitor Info Centre • 56km*
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De La Terre Winery Crossroads Winery CJ Pask Winery Matariki Wines Unison Vineyard Stonecroft Wines Trinity Hill Winery Te Awa Winery Ash Ridge Wines Salvare Estate Ngatarawa & Farmgate Triangle Cellars: Bridge Pa, BushHawk & Hawkes Ridge Abbey Cellars & Quail Lane Alpha Domus Sileni Estates Winery Vidal Winery & Restaurant Red Barrel Vineyard Black Barn Vineyards & Bistro Te Mata Estate Winery
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The Hastings community cycle network linking Flaxmere, Hastings, Havelock North, Whakatu and Clive. Only part of the total network is shown here. The Clive route and Havelock Road will be off-road from June 2012.
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20 Craggy Range Winery & Restaurant 21 Askerne Vineyards 22 Te Awanga Estate 23 Clearview Estate Winery & Restaurant 24 Elephant Hill Estate 25 Beach House 26 Brookfields Winery 27 Church Road Winery 28 Mission Estate Winery 29 Moana Park Winery 30 Sacred Hill Winery 31 Crab Farm Winery 32 Esk Valley Estate 33 Linden Winery & Café Please note winery opening hours are subject to seasonal changes. Some vineyards have food options. Please call ahead to confirm opening hours and for wine tasting enquiries.
Feature I would like to see a track from here to Gisborne.
the trails are “becoming a major part of our tourism puzzle. It has given us a wonderful new opportunity to market Hawke’s Bay. They’re fabulous”. About 130 media representatives – domestic and international – have tried the trails during the past three months and gone away enthused, she says. Otago Rail Trail model Of course, they already know about this sort of thing in Central Otago, where a dead railway line has been transformed into an international success story. Work began on the Otago Rail Trail, covering 150km between Middlemarch and Clyde, when the line was closed to trains in 1990. A Rail Trail Trust was formed, and worked with the Department of Conservation to convert the railway into a cycling, walking and horse riding trail. It opened in 2000. It’s now getting more than 14,000 users each year, mostly attracted by word of mouth. Nearly half travel from the upper North Island, and 22% come from overseas. The rail trail has created a string of new businesses and more than 120 full-time jobs. It’s injecting $18m a year into the local economy and reversed a population slide in the Maniapoto
area. The direct business beneficiaries are those offering accommodation, food, luggage-transport, guided tours and bike hire, but wineries and tourist attractions such as the historic Otago gold fields also get spin-off. At Bay View, north of Napier, Takaro Trails is based in stylish headquarters. Founder Jenny Ryan established the business in 2009 and was a finalist in this year’s Hawke’s Bay Business Awards. Ryan and her team are now renting out 82 art deco bikes to corporate, conference or family groups, and business is good, says Ryan. Her clients get to sample Hawke’s Bay scenery, wineries and restaurants, chocolates, olives, fruit, honey, arts, pickles and gannets. She and her staff transport the luggage for three-day and five-day cyclists, and collect the purchases they make along the way. “We’ve picked up sculptures, handbags, paintings, dresses – they spend a lot,” says Ryan. Brian Fisher, owner of FishBike on Napier’s Marine Parade, says just over half his bike-hire customers are from overseas, and most of the rest are from Auckland and Wellington, then Manawatu and Waikato. Clients tend to be fit, active and middle-aged, and “think
A national walking and cycling conference, entitled “2 Walk and Cycle” will be held at the Opera House in Hastings from February 22-24. Two groups – Living Streets Aotearoa and Cycling Advocates Network – have combined forces to stage the conference, which will focus on everyday walking and cycling for transport, recreation, health, the economy, environment, tourism, and related issues including promotion, infrastructure, safety, policy and training, and how they all work together.
Photo courtesy of Tim Whittaker
Bee in the know ~ jan/feb 2012
national cycling and walking conference 2012
nothing of biking 50km-plus”. However, we’re still not as good as the Otago Rail Trail, which is long-distance and point-to-point, offering changing vistas along the way. “Ours are all loop tracks. I would like to see a track from here to Gisborne. That would be greater than the Otago Rail Trail.” Even Napier to Tutira “would be wonderful”, he says.
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New age is old age People with visions are usually outward looking ‌ determined to transform their business, community or even the world. As a counterpoint, BayBuzz asked Mark Sweet to explore the realm of personal transformation, visiting some practitioners whose aim is to help individuals achieve inner health and harmony.
Feature Their fellow Villagers have no clue they are rubbing shoulders with adepts of white magic.
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designed a set of Tarot cards. Ngaio Marsh was bound to observe that Havelock North provided a writer “with wonderful raw material.” “By night the wizards of Whare Ra meet secretly in an underground room. Dressed in flowing robes they perform their rituals using ancient symbols and incantations. By day they mix with their fellow Villagers who have no clue they are rubbing shoulders with adepts of white magic. And when they visit Dr Felkin they are not to know he may have summoned Pan to assist him.” The founders of Whare Ra would find Havelock North unrecognisable today, but what remains unchanged is that many people are deeply immersed in the esoteric world of spirit. Lucinda and Christine “It’s not a question for me,” says Lucinda Sherratt. “I know there’s a spiritual dimension.” We are driving to Waipukurau to visit her osteopath. “That’s why I go to Christine. She sees my guides and works on a spiritual level, not just physical. She works in a way that allows my spirit to do the healing.” Lucinda is a qualified Iyenda yoga teacher. “Mostly I can balance my body through the poses, but sometimes there’s stuff I can’t shift.” She taps her chest. “I had a congested sternum a while ago. I was going through a difficult period with people I love, and Christine asked right away, ‘What’s up with your heart?’ She looks beyond the physical to how emotions affect my health.” Christine Thrush had a career in nursing including 13 years as a theatre nurse in Auckland’s Greenlane Hospital. On a recommendation she visited an osteopath for treatment of a long term debilitating back injury. “Suddenly my T4 and T5 slipped into place and I had equilibrium for the first time in ages.” She asks Lucinda to sit upright on the edge of the bed and to bend her head backwards and forwards. “Any tingling or numbness in your fingers,” she asks. “Yes.” Lucinda wiggles her fingers. Lying on the bed now Christine cradles Lucinda’s head in her hands. “I’m connecting with the body rhythm – the primary respiratory rhythm – that comes in at conception.” She closes her eyes. “There it is. Eight cycles per minute.” There’s no manipulating or adjusting. “I’m working with the cranial fluid which is produced in the brain. It’s the most nutrient fluid in the body and runs down
“It’s not a question for me, I know there’s a spiritual dimension.” lucinda sherratt Christine Thrush treats Lucinda Sherratt
the spinal cord. It’s our life-force.” Her hands move. “The bones of the skull move in the smallest amounts,” Christine says, “I’m just assisting the body back into balance.” Healing hands? “My passion is healing using spirit,” says Christine. Spirit? “Well, as beings we come from light. Lower the frequency of light and it becomes matter.” Her blue eyes are radiant. Continued on Page 40
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Bee in the know ~ jan/feb 2012
There is a story told by Ngaio Marsh. She asked the opinion of the director and male lead in her play, Little Housebound, where they thought it would be best performed. “They looked at each other,” she said, “and with one voice ejaculated, Havelock North.” Little Housebound is a hero’s journey, and it would have been the nature spirits who travel on the wind to visit distressed seekers of truth that triggered the consensus of where the play would flourish. Havelock North had a reputation. Among Marsh’s memories of her stay was a poetess, and that “yoga regulated many families. Rudolf Steiner was a name to conjure with and handicrafts abounded. The esoteric found a fertile soil there. Eurythmics flourished and psychic research was not ignored.” ‘Psychic research’ was a reference to Whare Ra, whose existence was known, but the ‘goings on’ there were shrouded in mystery. Its members included the ‘who’s who’ of Hawke’s Bay, and at the time of Marsh’s visit in 1920, was led by Dr Robert Felkin. Felkin first visited Havelock North in 1912 at the invitation of the Society of the Southern Cross, a group of devout seekers, whose practices included ritual chanting and meditation. Their guest had impressive credentials; a former leader of the Order of the Round Table, and presiding Chief of the Order Stella Mundi, he was also a practising physician whose interests embraced colour therapy, homeopathy and herbalism. He was once part of a Freemason’s group, that included Rudolph Steiner, who called themselves the ‘Illuminati’, and he
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Feature I groan like a beast giving birth, and commit my toxic emotions to the light.
» Energy equals mass to the speed of light? Albert Einstein? That greatest of men did say, “Great spirits have always encountered opposition from mediocre minds.” And what about my guide, the grumpy old man, a clairvoyant told me about years ago? “He’s not too grumpy,” Christine says, “Just impatient.” She smiles. “But he is old.” Beyond the fences on the road back to Havelock new plantings of squash are creeping across ground bordered by rows of fresh green maize. The hilltops are already beginning to brown. “Yes, I did have a tumour in my brain,” Lucinda says, “and the first time I had an epileptic fit was terrifying. It was as if my body was possessed. I just sat looking at my stomach convulsing like you wouldn’t believe.” Sigourney Weaver in Aliens? “Yeah, and the surgeon said the tumour was too small to operate yet, and I should do yoga and meditation. He was Indian.” A fresh bunch of yellow flowers lies at the foot of the sacred stone on the roadside at Peka Peka. It’s where bearers rested the dead on the journey to Te Hauke. I nod my head in thanks for a safe journey, just as my mother showed me when I was a boy. “No, I never thought I was going to die. Never. I was not willing to die. I was very clear about that,” Lucinda says emphatically. Now the traditional Indian medicine, Ayurveda, is Lucinda’s primary health carer. “We’re all capable of our own self healing and good health, and it starts
Bee in the know ~ jan/feb 2012
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with what we eat.” And the tumour? “Gone. Disappeared. It just went. I think I willed it away.” Sheila I ask Sheila Sutherland-Leyden what she thinks about Lucinda’s tumour experience. “Well, she had faith, didn’t she? She believed she would heal. Mind over matter. It’s very powerful.” Sheila shares a suite of rooms with a psychotherapist and nutritionist at the Cathedral Lane end of the elegant Sainsbury Logan building in Napier. As we get acquainted I ask Sheila if she has an opinion about the 12th of the 12th, 2012. “The end of the Mayan Calendar?” Doomsday theories are again potent. “No, not really,” Sheila says, “but I do think that a lot of the old ways of being – those that no longer support us – are falling away fast. It’s no longer a time to live in isolation. There’ve been so many catastrophes, and as awful as they are, they actually bring people together. The spirit of community is what I see rising.” What I’m most curious about is Sheila’s work with chakras; the seven energy points whose colours correspond to the bands of a rainbow. They are mentioned in the records from Whare Ra, and were incorporated into the painted panelling on the walls of the temple. When I lie down Sheila’s hands move over my body. “I work intuitively,” she says, “and will draw on whatever tools I feel are needed … maybe Reiki, but it could be crystals, or chakra clearing, or I might
Sheila Sutherland-Leyden works with chakras
include herbs and incense.” She tells me to breathe deeply – in through the nose, out through the mouth – and to feel for tension or discomfort in my body. My shoulders ache. Her hands hover above my root chakra. It is red and harbours fear. She moves on, and hands linger briefly with guilt in the orange sacral and shame in the navel, but when fingers brush my chest we both know she’s found the spot. Sorrow lies in the heart. “Breathe into here,” Sheila says, gently tapping my chest. “Go deeply into your feelings. Breathe, breathe.” My chest heaves and tears flow. “What are you feeling. Tell me the words.” They come. Harsh words attaching themselves to hard feelings. “Now I want you to imagine a column of white light,” Sheila says, “and I want you to let go of the feelings. Give them to the light.” Easier said than done, but with coaxing from Sheila, I groan like a beast giving birth, and commit my toxic emotions to the light. “Now lie very quietly and feel.” The pain in my shoulders has gone, and my body seems weightless, as if it’s hovering above the bed. As I walk lightly through the town, I’m still trying to feel how I feel, but an irreverent thought sneaks in, and what I think is: that was as good as three Martinis. And I allow myself a wee chuckle. Allowing is a word that comes up a lot. Paula My tarot card reading with Paula Devine was all about words. She hadn’t heard of Dr Felkin’s tarot, and when I told her that, as well as tarot, the Whare Ra congregation studied alchemy, angel magic, and divination, Paula smiled and said, “Cool.” We sat around the hearth in her shop. The symbols of her craft were all around. “I follow the Correllian tradition.” It descends from a line of Cherokee shamans who intermarried with a line of Scottish witches. “Do what you will and harm no one,” Paula said. When she mailed me her e-book, subtitled Self Development in Psychic Abilities, I noticed many corresponding subjects in her introduction were offered at Whare Ra. Paula asked me to choose six cards. The first represented, ‘Thoughts drive action.’ And the rest were about words. ‘Use of words, changing words, making new words, words creating reality.’ That’s what
Paula Devine and the Mahachohan Tarot card
I heard. And the last card was, ‘The Law of Attraction.’ Several decks of Tarot lay on the table in front of me. I cut the pack that looked most used and pulled a card. The Teacher - Mahachohan Ragoczy - ascended master, and guide to St.Germaine.
Continued on Page 42
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Bee in the know ~ jan/feb 2012
Patricia “I don’t know him, but we can look him up,” says Patricia Iversen. “I’m working with Paul the Venetian at present.” We’re having lunch at Clearview. It’s a treat. We haven’t seen one another for five years. “His last embodiment was Paolo Veronese, the painter,” Patricia says. When I tell her about the spiritual work of Whare Ra she’s surprised to hear it was
so extensive as to include Rosicrucian Magic and Chaldean mysteries. “That’s so interesting,” Patricia says, “because the woman I’m working with at present, Marjorie, has come to live in Havelock from Scotland. She specifically came here, to this place, to do her spiritual work.” A resonance left over from the outpourings a hundred years ago? Patricia smiles. She started her work as a physiotherapist. “Just the physical … manipulation, adjustment, usual stuff.” She was married to a doctor. “And I only started looking for other ways of healing when my children had conditions he couldn’t heal, or he could, but only with medication.” Then living in Palmerston North, Patricia attended lectures and discussions
offered by the Theosophical Society. She read widely and studied deeply. Dr Felkin was a member of the Theosophical Society in Edinburgh before joining Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Many of the Havelock North residents who founded Whare Ra were Theosophists, who believed that humanity’s spiritual evolution co-existed with the evolution of the Universe, and was overseen by a spiritual hierachy, including the ascended Masters. At Whare Ra it was the Sun Masters who presided over the The Temple of the Golden Dawn. Over the years Patricia Iversen has explored many paths, both in her work as a health professional, and in her quest for spiritual development. Her appointment book is full, and her world is inhabited by a rich plethora of spiritual beliefs, ceremony and ritual, sourced from traditions as familiar as Jesus and Mother Mary, and as exotic as the Vedic period in India, four thousand years ago. In a glass geodesic dome, in her luxuriant veggie garden, Patricia shows me the frame on which cow dung has been spread to dry. The sheet has been scored, and with ease she breaks off a weetbix size piece. “This is the purest fuel we have. We burn it as part of the Agnihotra work.” The Agnihotra devotions are performed at sunrise and sunset. Their purpose is to heal and purify the atmosphere. “There’s a 30 second window when the prana from the sun is most potent. There’s a mantra, and fire, and the prana finds the ash, which we use as a purifier.” Patricia sees a growing number of people whose health is affected by chemical poisoning in their bodies.
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Feature If you’re skeptical you immediately block – men in particular – they are scared to feel.
Jacki Chambers
Havelock North today, she too might remark that it “had become a cultural centre and thought of itself as such.” And although the outward signs of culture are upmarket boutiques and world class cafés, she could rest assured that underneath the superficial there still runs a current charged a hundred years ago, where seekers of the spiritual dimensions are quietly doing their work, and we are all the richer for their efforts.
Patricia Iversen in her geodesic dome
Bee in the know ~ jan/feb 2012
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» “Now we have electronic pollution which is limiting the function of the electro-magnetic fields. The Agnihotra work is my way of helping the Earth in her healing.” I suggest some people might find her theories a ‘bit out there’. “Of course,” Patricia says. “People who don’t want to change can’t abide Agnihotra. If you’re skeptical you immediately block - men in particular they are scared to feel. It’s fear that holds us back from feeling.”
Whare Ra inner room
Before I leave we look up Mahachohan in Patricia’s book on The Masters. He has some relationship with Homer through Palla Athena who’s a central figure in the Illiad and Odyssey, and in The Hierarchy he represents the Holy Spirit of the Mother-Father God, of Alpha and Omega. “Wow,” says Patricia. What do I do about it? “Ask,” she says, “All you have to do is ask.” By chance I meet Jacki Chambers. Her great-grandfather, Thomas Mason Chambers, helped pay for the Felkin family to come to Havelock, and he gifted the land on which Whare Ra stands. She doesn’t know if her forebear was a Wizard of White Magic, or not. When I tell her about the people I’ve met who work with spirit in their healing, she says, “I totally accept that. I had an amazing experience a while back with a man who obviously worked with spirit in some way. He didn’t talk about it at all, but I just knew. In the session these memories flooded in from way, way back. It was great.” If a 21st century Ngaio Marsh visited
Acknowledgements: Grateful thanks to the contributors who generously gave me their time. Sources of historical information were: Havelock North - The History of a Village, by Matthew Wright; Islands of the Dawn, by Robert S Ellwood; Black Beech and Honey Dew, by Ngaio Marsh; The Masters, compiled by Annice Booth, and most of all kimshistory.blogspot.com meticulously compiled by Kim Salamonson.
F I N E C O N T E M P O R A RY J E W E L L E RY
7 Village Court, PO Box 8492, Havelock North PH:06 877 6072•www.unio.co.nz
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Do hens suffer in battery cages? by ~ janet luke
Chickens have a life worth living!
Bee in the know ~ jan/feb 2012
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It seems incredulous to me that someone has to even ask this question. If we were put in a small cramped metal cage and denied all natural light and opportunity to go about our normal activities of daily living, would we suffer? The average New Zealander consumes 230 eggs each year and 89% of these eggs are produced by caged hens. As a western society we may abhor animal cruelty, but we fund it daily in the supermarket. Our desire for high quality, low cost protein food ensures that millions of hens live in an environment that I believe is a living hell. Many people may think ‘It’s only a silly chicken’, but at a recent conference, American biologist Dr Balcombe argued what many of us already know. Chickens feel pleasure, joy, pain, aggression, anxiety and boredom. If you have ever observed a chook having a dust bath, spreading her wings out in the sun, scratching for insects, running for cover when they spy a hawk or fighting over food, you will know what he means.
Who are we to say that chickens don’t have a life worth living? Battery farmed laying hens live in grossly abnormal and cruel conditions. In NZ, hens can be kept in cages with 550sq cm of space each. This is slightly smaller than the page these words are written on. The law is currently being reviewed with the proposal to allow them 750sq cm of space each, slightly larger
than an A4 page. Whoopy do! What difference is that going to make to their miserable lives? A life where their beak is cut so they can’t peck their cage mates out of boredom, a cold sloping wire cage to lay their daily egg, long hours of artificial light to keep them laying, the stench of ammonia created by the other tens of thousands of birds above them and below them in similar wire cages in a windowless shed. Nowhere to perch, stretch their wings or scratch and dust bath. Times when they are withheld water and food for a number of days until the stress causes them to moult which can jolt them back into another relentless cycle of laying. And after all this, when their production of eggs drops below a profitable level they are killed at just 18 months old. Still just babies in the chicken world, as a normal, healthy chicken can live for up to seven years. What can we do as consumers? We use the most powerful thing we have and it is inside our wallets and purses!
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Ideas & Opinions
VISIONS
Six ways to stop worldwide VISIONS chicken abuse Buy your eggs from small time producers from the farm gate who are happy to show you their chickens. Buy from the Farmers’ Market where you can meet the producer face-to-face and ask what sort of living conditions their hens enjoy? Only buy supermarket eggs which have the SPCA Blue tick, Certified Free range or Organic egg label. To earn these labels producers must provide an environment where poultry are allowed to move around freely, socialise, perch, nest, dust bath and gain access to the outside. If your supermarket doesn’t stock them ask them to. Don’t be fooled by the ‘Barn eggs’ or ‘farm fresh’ brands. Take time to read the small print.
In NZ, hens can be kept in cages with 550cm2 of space each.
A Colmar Brunton survey of New Zealand consumers in 2002 found that nearly eight out of ten New Zealanders would be prepared to pay more for eggs if battery cages were banned. As a province which prides itself on “unique food, by producers driven by a passion for quality, and made with an uncompromised dedication to authenticity and craftsmanship” (www.foodhawkesbay. co.nz), my challenge to our Councils is to be at the forefront of chicken welfare and to ban all caged poultry systems. Imagine if Hawke’s Bay becomes the first area of New Zealand where all locally sourced eggs are from happy, free range chooks who have been given the kind of considerations that we accord our own species. It is time to stop treating them as little more than food producing units, treated as machines rather than a living
animal. Why don’t egg producers get on the ‘Brand’ wagon as many vineyards do and market their free range eggs with a ‘Hawke’s Bay terroir’? Hawke’s Bay sun filled eggs, full of minerals and vitamins gleaned and naturally processed from the fertile Heretaunga Plains, generously shared by happy Hawke’s Bay hens. Want to do more? Why not keep your own happy hens in your backyard? My next article will discuss what you need to know and how fun and simple it can be. Janet Luke
You wouldn’t want to spend the night here would you?
Ask the café where you enjoy brunches or baking if they use free range eggs? Boycott if they don’t.
Write to the Minister of Primary Industries, David Carter, telling him that cages are cruel and should be banned.
(www.nocages.org.nz)
Bee in the know ~ jan/feb 2012
Insist that battery farmed eggs are labelled as such in your supermarket.
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Corporate punch up for battered families by ~ KEITH NEWMAN
Keith Newman explores the irony of a violent charity event for victims of violence.
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More than a few eyebrows are raised over a black tie fundraiser for the Napier Women’s Refuge, where local businesses have paid up to $5,000 a table to watch their peers pummelling each other. In between the cocktails, canapés and a three course meal, punters will see18 local businesspeople, including two women, pair off for nine boxing matches at Pettigrew Green Arena on January 28. The corporate punch ups – three, two minute rounds each – will be mixed up with full-on bouts between top local, US and Thai martial artists as part of ‘Merciless’, billed as Hawke’s Bay’s first ever cage fight event, Organiser Jerry Sargeant of Fierce Fitness, says the grand finale, an intensely contested New Zealand middleweight MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) championship fight, will see some serious “kicking, punching and breaking bones…” Sargeant, who trained the corporate contenders, came up with the idea of cage fights in the MMA hexagon well before deciding on Napier Women’s Refuge as the charity. His concern is not only for women at risk, but children who face “extreme violence and disappointing behaviour” at home. He’s convinced boxing and martial arts are a healthy means for kids to regain self control and respect “by channelling all their energy and aggression in a controlled environment”. Perspective needed When Napier Women’s Refuge manager Brenda Campbell was approached about
the fundraiser, she first sought reassurance from the local Police family violence coordinator that it was appropriate. While the hard out publicity posters raised concern, she wanted to keep things in context. “If people think boxing is violent then they need to take another look at what happens on the rugby field. Where do you draw the line?” Jerry Sargeant (Photo courtesy of Tim Whittaker)
The Napier Refuge already encourages parents to involve kids who are being bullied or becoming bullies at school to engage in sport, including martial arts, as an outlet for anger and self-expression issues. Another motivation for Jerry Sargeant in recruiting locals for the event was to challenge Hawke’s Bay businesspeople to have a healthier lifestyle.
Many of the corporate sparring partners had never been to a gym, but after rigorous training, healthy eating and nutrition they’re now “fitter, healthier and happier”, with some shedding up to 30kg in six weeks. While they’ll only spend six minutes each in the ring, a gradual work up was required to prepare them for the event. “Boxing requires more mental and physical effort than any other sport; it’s demanding,” says Sargeant. Squaring off in the cage will be a number of local personalities; a baker, printer, financier, mortgage broker, car dealers, a policewoman, a bar manager, supermarket manager and representatives from the real estate, transport, construction and steel industries. Thousand times fitter John Brady, sales manager at Mercedes Hawke’s Bay took up the challenge to celebrate the fact he’d turned 50 back in August. “I was in an inactive job and it seemed like an opportunity to have one final blow out.” He was overweight and unfit. “After five months of serious training and dieting I’ve dropped 9kg and I’m a thousand times fitter,” says Brady. “A lot of us had a chuckle when we learned it was full on fighting for a women’s refuge. In some ways it’s a contradiction in terms, but it’s also been a big talking point. Everyone in the business community knows about it,” he says. It’s been life changing to even get to the ring. “We’re at the gym up to five times a
Feature A lot of guys haven’t grown up in good homes, so it’s intergenerational violence.
week, and it looks like it’s going to become a Friday night fight club for the boys with a lot of others now keen to join us.” Sargeant named the event ‘Merciless’ because that’s part of his philosophy at Fierce Fitness. “As a strength and conditioning coach, everything I do is merciless. If you want to be a mixed martial artist, a boxer or any kind of athlete you have to put everything into it. My motto in the gym is ‘sacrifice plus pain equals glory’.” The sacrifice could be going to bed earlier, avoiding the pub and spending time away from family to face some serious pain in “brutal, merciless training sessions” pushing through physical and mental boundaries. And the glory? Well, says Sargeant, if you’re a middle-aged grumpy businessman, working 18 hours a day and drinking a lot, it could be winning a world title, fitting into a new pair of jeans, bringing down your blood pressure or improving your relationship.
Beating the numbers The official reported domestic violence numbers in Hawke’s Bay are sad – second in the country to Hamilton. However, Campbell says some perspective is needed. “Is that because the community here is more violent or because people are more willing to pick up the phone and ask for help?” Napier Women’s Refuge representatives view Police reports daily and meet with CYPFS, the Police, intervention and
education group Dove Hawke’s Bay and other agencies weekly. “While our workload is increasing we’re not panicking. There’s been a huge drop in the number of serious offences; less than 50% of the women using our services have been assaulted,” says Campbell. It could be argued that Hawke’s Bay is a healthier community because programmes being run by groups like Napier Women’s Refuge are making a difference. “People are seeking help a lot earlier and deciding what kind of relationship they want to be in. They’re more likely to ring up when they’re arguing which results in Police attending more incidents.” And she says there’s been an increase in self-referrals to men’s programmes as a direct result of the ‘It’s not OK’ and ‘It’s not OK in the Bay’ programmes. Once the bills have been paid, including the cost of importing international fighters, the ‘Merciless’ event will be able to show some mercy by delivering a cheque that will make a difference in the lives of women at risk and children who’ve had a rough start in life.
Accounting services Taxation Company administration Brenda Campbell
Business planning Trust administration Business comparisons with peers
Preparing for the fight at Fierce Fitness gym
06 871 0793 www.borriegroup.co.nz
Bee in the know ~ jan/feb 2012
Macho man resurfaces Brenda Campbell of Napier Women’s Refuge wouldn’t argue with that. The main trigger point that tips many over into family violence is a complex mix often fuelled by alcohol. “A lot of guys haven’t grown up in good homes, so it’s intergenerational violence.” If someone’s not feeling good about themselves, can’t get a job or communicate that well, or their employer is in their ear all the time, they often take it out on the family when they get home. Underlying the problem she suggests, is often the weary old Kiwi macho stereotype of what it is to be a man, compounded by jealousies, drugs, gambling, anger and emotional issues. Sometimes, she says, it’s the women who
abuse their children. “When they’re being abused by a male partner and are in a state of helplessness, they often turn on their kids where they feel they still have some sense of control.” The Napier Women’s Refuge has a four bedroom safe house, deals with an average of 80 women every month and runs a series of ‘kids programmes’ that are full each term. The only official funding is from Children, Young Persons and their Families Service (CYPFS) contracts and Ministry of Justice protected persons orders. Mostly it relies on donations and fundraisers like the ‘Merciless’ event for operational expenses.
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Inside Havelock North
What’s in store for Havelock North in the year ahead?
by ~ TOM BELFORD
Bee in the know ~
jan/feb 2012
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Most sweeping in its implications will be a new ‘Village Framework’ to be formally codified in the Hastings District plan. Once adopted, the Framework will establish the future growth parameters for the urban ‘Village’ part of Havelock North – what kind of activities (retail, light industry, etc) can be located where, and what building requirements must be met. Submissions were heard on the proposed Framework in December, and HDC’s plan change should be finalized by mid-year. Of course adopting a plan change is one thing, but the course and quality of actual future development will depend on myriad individual decisions over the coming years by property owners and developers. Of interest to Havelock food shoppers, as anticipated in the plan, the existing New World will remain in place (not move to former Nimon’s site). Progressive Enterprises (Countdown) has proposed a new supermarket in the Donnelly Street area. The current plan does not include this, but a hearing on it is planned for February. Foodies of a different sort can look forward to the opening of McDonald’s at the Havelock Road entry into the Village. A Village Piazza? One area of special interest might be the central fountain area behind the Visitor Centre. Some aspire to close the small lane in front of Jackson’s, allowing more of a ‘Village Piazza’ effect to be created. This area would ultimately be bounded on the opposite side by a new complex planned by Mackersey Development at the present Happy Tav location. Not everyone agrees with the Piazza concept, especially business owners who might be affected by any street closure.
Plans are afoot to install more community tables in the plaza, which will increase opportunities to hold events there. The Havelock North Business Association is eager to see more community and commercially-sponsored events occur in the plaza, as well as in the Havelock North Domain, where work is also planned. Recent events have included fitness programs and arts exhibitions. HNBA’s Adrienne Pierce says the group is working hard to ensure these assets of the Village are enhanced. Wayne Bradshaw would like to see more public green space and a “public heart” in the CBD. Whatever its future, the plaza area is presently nameless. Isn’t such an important centrepiece for Havelock North deserving of one? Another key development might be establishment of more commercial retail space on the property owned by St Columba’s Church, opposite E’s Café. And with New World’s staying in place, a big question is what will become of the former Nimon’s site, which is dedicated to light industry. Adrienne Pierce dreams of a ‘white collar’ business park, populated by tech-oriented and service firms. She notes that Unison Fibre will be installing ultrafast broadband throughout the Village centre area in the first quarter of the year, making it possible for such businesses to readily service customers far beyond Hawke’s Bay. What’s to worry about? The traditional bugaboos alarming Havelock North have involved parking, vandalism and that elusive concept, ‘Village character’. The decibel level surrounding parking issues – and particularly, paid parking – has diminished significantly. BayBuzz cannot
detect any unhappiness about the fact that parking meters haven’t made it to Havelock North! And the latest parking studies maintain that the Village has “more than sufficient” car parking at present. On the other hand, weekend drunkenness in the Village, coupled with vandalism, remains a concern. The recent episode where storefront windows of nine shops were deeply scratched has turned up retailers’ temperatures. And now vandals armed with ladders and booze have taken to the rooftops in the Village centre, damaging heating and cooling equipment and other fixtures. It seems that although HDC and the Police can invest in video surveillance, lighting and personnel on the street, none of that can compensate for Havelock North parents tolerating – even abetting in the case of booze – destructive behaviour on the part of their offspring. And finally, there’s the issue of protecting the ‘Village character’. That’s a tough one to pin down. In the debate over McDonald’s coming to the Village, numerous writers to BayBuzz claimed the whole concept was bogus … Havelock North had long ago lost any special character it had. Certainly if that notion entailed any distinctive and noteworthy architectural style or ambiance. But others see it differently, and often their notion of the ‘proper’ ambiance revolves around scale … as in small scale. No ‘big chains’ or ‘big boxes’ (whether fast food or national retailers). On-site owner-operators of businesses. Easy access and walkability to and around the Village centre. And the very compactness of the Village. Somehow, ‘village’ does seem to capture an appealing quality. And at least for now, the Village seems in no jeopardy in 2012.
Feature Not wanted in Havelock North: big chain stores or big boxes.
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49
Humour BY BRENDAN WEBB ~ The great god Artus Decus has blessed our town and its people.
Dim Vision
Bee in the know ~ jan/feb 2012
50
The chattering in the council chamber stopped as the tall figure strode in through the main doors. The senators of Heretuscany watched in silence as Lawrencus Yulus removed his helmet and took his seat in front of them. The Provincial Governor cleared his throat then closed his eyes for dramatic effect. “I have a dream,” he began. “Oh God, not those those bloody red boots again,” murmured someone. Lawrencus opened his eyes and glared around the curved chamber table. He couldn’t tell who had spoken so he shut his eyes again. “I have a dream that one day all men will be free,” he continued grandly. “Make everyone free?” interrupted Senator Whinus Badsaw. “What about the slaves? You can’t just let them go. Who’ll do the work around the place?” Heads nodded in agreement. Lawrencus hesitated for a moment. “Well, yes. I meant all men except slaves of course,” he added quickly. “And what about all the women?” asked his deputy, Senator Cynical Bowels. Lawrencus took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “When I said all men should be free, I meant all women too,” he said after a moment. “So all slave women would be free?” insisted Senator Bowels. “Well, except those we need for cooking, washing and that sort of thing,” said Lawrencus, shifting uncomfortably. “Doesn’t leave many people to be freed then, does it?” retorted Senator Badsaw. Lawrencus took another deep breath. This was hopeless. How could he inspire his senators with his vision when they kept interrupting his flow? “I need people of vision to see the way ahead for this province,” he tried again. “Then count me out,” said Senator Lackus Luster. “My vision isn’t what it used to be. I can’t even read the order papers any more.” “Don’t look at me either,” added Senator Rottus Heapus. “I’d need to have a long look at some gannet entrails before
I could get wind of where to go.” Lawrencus gritted his teeth. This was getting nowhere. Then a sudden thought occurred to him. “I propose we ask our officials to prepare a document for us, indicating what we should think about the future and directing how we should vote on their recommendations.” “All those in favour?” “Aye!” came the unanimous reply. “Time for afternoon tea yet?” asked Senator Bowels hopefully. Two days later Lawrencus was escorted into the inner chamber of the Napierion
Artus Decus featured on Napierion coins council. He had asked for a meeting with Barbarus Arnottus to see if she could provide him with a bit more visionary inspiration than his own council. She was sitting behind her desk, watching him with a steely eye. “I have a dream,” Lawrencus began. “If it involves amalgamation – or changing anything – you can forget it,” snapped Barbarus. “We Napierions like things the way they are . . . or as they were 80 years ago to be precise. The great god Artus Decus has blessed our town and its people. People come from around the world to buy our straw hats and walking canes. And quite frankly, we share the view of
Artus Decus that nothing ever came of change,” she said. “Does Fentonius, leader of the Hawkus Bay Regional Chamber, agree with that vision . . . or lack of it?” said Lawrencus boldly. “Ha!” scoffed Barbarus. “Fentonius was raised in the far north among the followers of the Mongol Mob. He’s a barbarian. He can barely see his way to Napierion for a few meetings each year, let alone look ahead to the future. He and his chamber are interested only in hoarding money and storing water.” Lawrencus sighed. She was right. The damn regional chamber had pots of money and unlike him, didn’t need to placate the money-lenders hovering outside his headquarters back in Hustings. “Well,” he tried finally, “what do your own councillors think?” “They don’t,” said Barbarus with a thin smile. Lawrencus excused himself and walked down the steps into the street. As he walked along the alleyways of Napierion, he came across a cluster of people staring up at the facade of a building across the road. A guide wearing a straw boater was explaining its architectural features. Lawrencus noticed pictures on a nearby wall, showing buildings in the heart of Napierion before the great tremor of AD31 and how they looked today. He looked from one to the other. He couldn’t see any difference. Even the clothing worn by the people was exactly the same. The realisation sank in. The vision of Napierions reached no further than their beachfront boundary. In 100 years’ time they would still be complaining about heavy chariots using the Paradus Marinus and the rising cost of straw. As Lawrencus rattled home in his chariot, squinting at the distant hills of Havus Northus, he remembered how the ruling Torus Party had the foresight to force the petty rulers of the great northern city of the Jaffas into a single administrative body. Perhaps it was time to get them to turn their vision to his part of the country, he thought with a quiet smile. Suddenly his vision had improved.