Nelson Weekly Locally Owned and Operated
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Selwyn Place, Nelson • theringmaker.co.nz/diamonds
Tuesday 14 July 2015
Stoke Methodist Church
94 Neale Ave, Stoke, Nelson
Ice-cream shop ‘forced’ to close Page 6
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Caller to NCC: ‘Get rid of my neighbour’ Jacob Chandler “Help me evict my neighbour, I don’t like them.” That’s one of the many weird requests put to Nelson City Council call centre staff over the past year. Each month, the council receives an average of 4600 calls and 900 emails from local residents. As expected there are plenty of building consent enquiries, questions about permits and people making noise complaints. Along with the usual requests come some very strange ones too. “I had one lady wanting us to remove a dead mouse from her compost heap as the council should be responsible for mice,” says a council call centre staff member. Others have included a lady wanting the council to clean her garden because it had been flooded and got a bit muddy, while one man phoned the council to find out if they had a register for dead cats found on the side of the road.
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Gymnastics competition at Saxton
Weirdest questions to council phones • What’s the quickest way to get a divorce? • What age can my son own a gun? • Can you cut down some trees in the park as the leaves blow onto my lawn? • Why is someone dumping rubbish in my rubbish bin?
Victory Community Centre programme and facilities coordinator, Rob Brown, with some of the bread that is donated to the centre to be given to local families. Photo: Kate Russell.
“Sadly, this gentleman’s cat was missing,” says the staffer who took the call. Just last week, the council had a call from a man wanting to know why someone was dumping rubbish in his rubbish bin and one staffer had a call asking what the quickest way to get a divorce was. The council’s communications manager Paul Shattock says the council also receive various emails meant for Nelson in Canada, a city home to around 10,000 people.
Free bread popular with Victory families Kate Russell Short-dated supermarket bread is being offered to families in need at the Victory Community Centre, and it’s proving to be a very popular initiative. Rob Brown, programme and facilities coordinator at the centre, says the bread, which is supplied by Fresh Choice Nelson, is being offered every weekday. It is collected by either himself or another staff member on their way to centre each morning.
“We get a range of bread including budget white or wholemeal loaves, as well as garlic bread, foccacia, soup rolls and speciality breads. We put it out front of the centre at around 8.30am weekdays, and by 9am it is usually all gone,” he says. Families are allowed to take up to two loaves a day. “It always goes quicker during the school term - people tend to pick up a loaf after they have dropped their kids at school, and we tend to get regulars coming every day,” he says.
He says the local families are very appreciative. “I’ve had comments from a family who can’t afford bread, saying that they really appreciate it – this effectively is their food for the week,” he says. “Families are also able to use our kitchen and use our toaster, butter and spreads if they need to.” The centre also gets fruit, vegetables and assorted household items donated to them for distribution in the community from time to time, and Rob says they are always happy to distribute food.
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