keeping it local
Igniting minds through music The Fringe wants to help our businesses and community groups and makes space on these pages available for current advertisers and non-commercial organisations, at no charge. To be included in our next issue, email info@fringemedia. co.nz before March 12.
The bright new orange and blue signage at 406 Titirangi Road in the Village indicates that MusoMinds has taken up residence. The company is the lifelong dream of founder Patrick Dwyer, a registered teacher for over 20 years. Patrick, a Westie and father of two young boys, returned home from Singapore, due to Covid19, where he was the Regional Lead of Juilliard Performing Arts for Southeast Asia. “At MusoMinds, we're on a mission to ignite minds through the power of music,” says Patrick. “We aim to empower young minds while elevating their wellbeing in six attributes: self-confidence, creativity and innovation, self-expression, empathy and compassion, mind-body connection, and cultural awareness,” says Patrick. The company offers a holistic approach to music education by embedding specific competencies into teaching and learning. “We use artificial intelligence, audio sensory technology and virtual reality to instil a habit of continuous learning that is entertaining and experiential,” says Patrick. “Our approach ignites the whole mind and integrates literacy and numeracy skills into each session, meaning skills developed from learning music cross over to improving reading and maths. “Like parents, we genuinely care about a child's
education. Our passion for teaching using innovative approaches, successfully used overseas, means that Kiwi kids can now also benefit from such research. We bring over 20 years of music teaching experience in New Zealand and internationally, having been trained at the worldrenowned Juilliard School in New York. “Seeing minds grow as a result of effective teaching, where children experience the joy that performing music brings, is what MusoMinds is all about.” Musominds offers guitar and keyboard lessons – both following selected curriculum pathways – in groups or individually. It also runs the KinderMinds programme for children aged 18 months to 4 years, stimulating the auditory and kinesthetic senses of early childhood minds through movement, rhythm and rhyme. In MusoMakers sessions, children learn theory, song writing, film scoring and much more. Help with NCEA, IB, IGCSE and CIE is also an option within such programmes. For a limited time, Musominds is offering free trial sessions, so children and parents can experience the fun approach first-hand without having to commit to lessons first. Visit www.musominds.com, ring (09) 972 4153 or email admin@musominds.com to book your free trial.
We need a council that understands the basics Auckland Council and its CCO’s are now publicising their draft budgets and long-term plans. Mostly these involve huge price rises, justified by unprecedented growth and panicked responses to supposed crises. But these justifications ignore the failures and shortcomings resulting from the decade-long Supercity experiment. Amalgamation was supposed to answer all our problems and growth was supposed to deliver economic stability but Council is more indebted than ever, and infrastructure and core services are bursting at the seams. Council’s response to this is even more growth and higher rates. Council grabs every opportunity to advocate for higher rates and more of them. The 3.5% ‘general rate’ increase which resulted from an emergency budget and unprecedented 34,000 public submissions, has come and gone like a flash in the pan. Council’s draft budgets now propose that existing ‘targeted rate’ charges be increased, and that they stay in place for a longer term. It is also proposed that new targeted rates are established to fund Council activities which were historically covered by general rates. Already the Waitākere Ranges ‘septic tank pump-out’ targeted rate has increase from $195 to $290 a year. Watercare is looking to significantly increase its income over the next 10 years and Auckland Transport has indicated needing an extra $8.9 billion within the same period.
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The Fringe MARCH 2021
But nowhere in the draft documents does Council suggest how ratepayers are going to find this extra money. To the contrary, Council’s draft long-term plans focus on reducing activity (to lower carbon emissions). Closing Glenbrook steel mill, reducing private rural animal numbers by 15% and removing all animals from regional farm parks are some of the suggested ways residents and ratepayers could help achieve this. (It is important to note that Councils’ rural areas make it one of the country’s biggest rural councils and these areas contribute significant revenue to Council’s coffers.) No Council documents offer insight into how people will bridge the gap between increased public charges and decreased private income. Council is setting fire to its candle at both ends, with little consideration of residents and ratepayers caught in the middle, other than espousing electrification. But again, Council’s planning fails to identify and quantify what is practically required to achieve even this goal. Electric cars still require roads, parking, and most importantly fuel. Auckland needs more than a token charging station at each shopping centre. We need more grid capacity and underground wires, so the supply is more resilient. We need a council which is getting to grips with the basics, being effective and cost efficient. That’s what will best deliver a resilient future for our communities. – Ken Turner WestWards
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