Letters 7 May
Mystery bike ride
I would like to thank the team who organised this amazing event that was so exciting and popular. Being of an uncompetitive nature it proved to be a fantastic idea as it got lots of people to participate who would not have done so otherwise. Catering for different abilities was very considerate and I could not detect a grim face fighting the obstacles.
I also think that the owners of the land that we passed deserve a big hurray for allowing us to trespass and I just hope that there will be lots more who open up their land for future rides like this, which hopefully will follow!
There is nothing more satisfying than pushing your bike through a heap of cow manure. A truly unique experience. Thanks guys.
Astrid Gluth
My favourite part was when we got up to the Salmon’s house and there was the man in the bottle suit and the juice bar. I think you should do it again because when I first heard about it I didn’t want to go but then I tried it and it made me more interested in the bike ride.
Lizzie Laws
Although I was amazed that the Jennian Homes Mystery Bike Ride course was so challenging (my body is definitely complaining today), surprised that no vegetarian pizza was available for lunch, and concerned that the large group of us that participated may have left some major ruts along the route for the landowners to resolve, I’m delighted that I went.
It was impressive that so many Golden Bay residents, many of whom I’ve never met before, signed up and the wide age range represented amongst us was extraordinary. Whakamihi to everyone who rode and helped create the event which was so well organised. Kia ora to all the landowners who generously agreed for us all to ride through their spectacular properties.
Scott Mieras
A I reached the top of the first ‘hill’ I wondered what on earth I’d got myself into. Riding my non-mountain bike was not even achievable at this point; I’d had to push her to the top, breathless but turned to see the most spectacular view of the Bay, coupled with the cutest little villa nestled quietly behind an old totara fence, and I realised that the Mystery Bike Ride was looking pretty exciting too.
I approached my second downhill and, frankly, I got a little scared! Brakes held as tight as can be, I edged my way down, a tad crutch-bruised by this stage, I realised it’s all on now so I let rip. Onward we approached the daunting task of climbing Clifton hill (cripes!); fortunately the very muscular marshalls gave me a “hand” (I got a push up the hill, nice!). The incentive to complete the rest of the ride was completely down to the homemade lemonade (glorious) which worked a treat. As they said, hills make views; we just had to push it all the way, and what great rewards.
Delicious lunches to satisfy us all, sweet music and the great gift these local landowners gave us - to be able to experience the world they live in, the beautiful farmlands of Golden Bay. Thank you. See you next year (hopefully sporting a spongy saddle and set of shocks). Takaka’s brand-new off-road rider.
Kiely Campbell
Pohara cliffs and Tarakohe quarry
I was holidaying in Golden Bay recently, and I must say this is one of the most beautiful parts of the country. So imagine my surprise and disgust when I noticed a drilling rig sitting on top of the cliffs west of the port. Locals I spoke to said the cliff was being blasted and the rock used for roading material. I was shocked. The cliffs in this area are one of the scenic gems of Golden Bay - surely no one can think that a better use for them is to be broken up and placed under a road?
How has this been allowed to happen? Surely the cliffs in this area are protected? Does no one in Golden Bay care about their environment?
Ian Hemmingsen, Tauranga
Road users travelling from Pohara to Ligar Bay are using a road cut through fallen debris from the Tarakohe Cliffs. This area is a highly modified landscape that has morphed into a beautiful landscape over time. This coastal road passes over privately owned land and it’s adjacent to a working quarry that has been operating for 100 years. The quarry supplies rock for roading, subdivisions, coastal protection, building and landscaping and is a very valuable asset to have in eastern Golden Bay.
We are presently quarrying rock for road repair at Ligar Bay and for the Pohara walkway. Of course we are not “blasting off the cliff tops”, but while we have machinery working close by, we are removing the loose rock that has been identified as a possible threat to road users below. We have regular quarry visits by various authorities (mines inspector, OSH and TDC personnel). TDC Compliance recently checked the cliffs below the present working site and everything was in order.
There will always be people in a community who have the privilege of simply enjoying the landscape and using the facilities, without recognising the work and responsibility that goes into constructing and maintaining Golden Bay’s infrastructure.
Joan Butts, Port Tarakohe Ltd
International Film Festival
The International Film Festival has now concluded for another year. It was a huge success for the Village Theatre, giving us a great start to the new financial year. Thank you to all the committed festival-goers, and also to those who only watched one or two movies. You make it possible for us to continue to hold this event, and to keep the theatre operating successfully throughout the year.
Sarah Kay, Village Theatre manager
Integrated health project
As the author of the 10-page flyer recently circulated across the Bay, I wish to apologise for two errors. First, and most importantly, the Golden Bay Medical Centre Trust is a fully participating member of the Interim Management Group (IMG). Their omission was a simple slip on my part.
Second, I should have made it clear that the flyer was a formal piece of communication from the IMG.
Pete Watkins, IMG member
Joan Whiting Memorial Trust, trustee
I wish to clarify and expand on two points that were reported in The GB Weekly regarding the public meeting held last week.
I was on the original integrated health steering group. I was invited to join as a practitioner of complementary medicine, but was not speaking on behalf of other practitioners, and was giving my own personal views.
One of the original statements given by a member of the health board (NMDHB) was, to paraphrase, “not just do the same, existing medical approach, but to bring in better ways of improving health treatment for the people in Golden Bay”.
I have actively encouraged making provision for an indoor therapeutic pool, which can be taken up later. Such a pool would greatly help with recovery from accidents and operations, maintaining mobility of the pregnant and elderly and many other uses.
I have not been needed for this current phase of the project. However, I keep in touch and understand that rentable use of a room by complementary health practitioners is welcomed and expected to be available. It is still early days and health practitioners can talk to Andrew Swanson-Dobbs at Nelson Bays Primary Health.
Chris Rowse, osteopath
Promoting integrated health without a proper needs assessment doesn’t make good business sense. What are the primary concerns to improve the GB community health system? Surely improved patient services and staffing are primary. Also is it necessary to co-locate all health services under one roof? Centralised buildings have high costs but don’t necessarily improve access or patient services. After all, a big new flash building is mainly brick and mortar which requires vast sums of money to build and maintain over years.
It’s like a farmer deciding whether to repair an old tractor or go further into debt and buy an expensive new model. At the end of the day the same paddocks need tilling, but what can the farmer really afford?
The new model depreciates over time and the higher the price the longer required to pay for the investment. Before making the choice to spend heaps on a new tractor, the farmer takes into account benefits and costs.
The IHG projected cost for the GBCHC would top $10 million considering mortgage principal, interest and donations, even before the inevitable cost overruns.
Can GB afford this? What does GB need for better health care delivery that we can afford?
Ro Piekarski for GB MORE,
Money to Revitalise the Economy
One issue that was not addressed at the recent IMG presentation is the question of rest home viability. Everyone seems to agree that Joan Whiting Rest Home, in its present form, is not viable. What has not been explained is how it will magically become viable upon integration. It will have no more income, but will have considerably more expenses, servicing increased borrowing, suggesting that it will actually be worse off. Granted, there will be some small savings, but chicken feed compared with what is needed. The only solution is cross-subsidisation from profitable services, ie the medical centre.
The question is: Are you happy for a portion of your doctor’s fees (already high by NZ standards) to be siphoned off to support the rest home? Think about this before making up your mind about the integration proposal, and think also about the consequences to the whole integrated service if the rest home part is still not viable. This is something the IMG should have told you, but has not done so.
Dick Wenzel
If the opportunity still exists for alternative and complementary health practitioners to play an active part with the integrated health proposal, I wholeheartedly support it. Confirming John McKinlay’s concern about “the absence of complementary and alternative healers”, I’ve felt uneasy as well.
I’m surprised that Dr Clark said “that the complementary and alternative healers had been represented on the original steering group but they opted not to continue their involvement” because this is the first time I’ve known that any of us were consulted at all. However, this may have occurred before I moved to Takaka four years ago and I’m eager that the opportunity be revisited with all registered holistic health practitioners currently active within Golden Bay, particularly those of us who are ACC treatment providers.
After all, shouldn’t any “integrated health” initiative fully welcome and embrace a holistic view of health, which encompasses taha wairua (spirituality), taha hinengaro (thoughts and feelings), taha tinana (physical well-being) and taha whanau (family)? This view is mirrored in the aspirations supported by the Ministry of Health’s “comprehensive approach to coordinating holistic and integrated programmes within health and disability services”.
I’m especially appreciating the online discussion forum that The GB Weekly is providing for public commentary.
Scott Mieras
New Zealand’s mining strategy
Last week, Paul Marcussen asked how much New Zealand would benefit financially from mining (GBW Letters 30/4).
The story of oil exploration in the Great South Basin makes us seem to be quite naive when we deal with big mining companies. We seem to be easily manipulated and legally outmanoeuvred. These articles tell part of this story:
www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/PR11014.html - tells us that we didn’t require a liability bond to be posted in case there was an oil leak like the one in the Gulf of Mexico. We rely totally on the power of the NZ Maritime Transport Act 1994 to compel the operator of an offshore installation, such as a drilling rig or a production platform, to be responsible for the full costs of any oil spill response, cleanup, and/or restoration activities.
www.gasandoil.com/GOC/company/cns64772.htm - is the story of the legal fight by Exxon Mobil to have a monopoly of a 30,000km grid of old seismic data of the Great South Basin, dating from the 1970s, that was provided by the New Zealand Government.
briefingroom.typepad.com/the.../07/great-south-bas.html Here, (Great South Basin - NZ’s Royalty Folly) Investigate Magazine tells that we charge Exxon Mobil a 1% royalty on NZ’s oil, while Britain charges 52%, Australia 61% and Venezuela 88%.
Moira Tilling
Climate change
I understand what Peter Foster (GBW Letters 30/4) is on about regarding correlation as opposed to proof.
I have spent a lifetime involved with farming and I know that farmers commonly observe apparent cause and effect usually without the means to scientifically test the hypothesis. Yet decisions need to be made for the benefit of livestock, people or business, while we wait, or hope, for the science to be done. That is, we attempt to make the best decision on available information, having regard to the consequences of taking action, or not.
Consider that in the 1970s, scientists observed that human activities were damaging the ozone layer, but lacked proof. To my dismay we waited and it took 20 years for that proof to be found, with serious effects that we all know about today. Again, I make the point that with global warming we can wait and see or take precautionary action - but this time the consequences of our decision are likely to be even more serious. That is all I have to say on the matter.
Ian Alach
Well done Peter Foster for keeping the spark of rational debate alive regarding climate change.
It is the supreme ego of mankind to believe that it can significantly alter planetary cycles in any way. We are dealing with the new religion of ‘eco-fundamentalism’ here; same blind faith only a new deity called ‘computer modelling’.
Everything has its time and we are not immune. Yes, we are in a warming cycle, but we are in an inter-glacial period too. Nothing new in that.
Given a decade of negative sunspot activity and a few Mt Pinatubos, we will be digging coal fast just to warm the place up. Not to mention developing new feed to enhance the flatulence capabilities of our dairy herds.
Emissions trading is a deluded scam that will make a few people very rich on the backs of the working people.
The real issue of our times is the wholesale degradation of the planet due to runaway population growth - this remains firmly in the ‘too hard basket’; global warming a distraction.
In its own time the ‘malthusian knife’ will fall. The planet will tend to itself in its own way; as dispassionate as ever.
Keith Handley
Students need your help
HOOF Productions, a group of students from Golden Bay High School’s 10P English class, have made the top 10 in New Zealand in the Best Mum Ever short film competition. The students entered the national competition last term and are now in the running to win the overall group title as “Best in New Zealand”. Entries that were judged most effective were placed on the sponsor’s website and uploaded to You Tube.
The secret to winning the competition is getting the most views on You Tube. Therefore, it is up to the public. Obviously, we need people to view the video so we get as much support as we can - especially since we have such a small population. The students worked incredibly hard on this. If they win, they will receive digital and video camera equipment and spend the day with a commercial television production team. It would be a fantastic reward.
The competition closes midnight Saturday, just in time for Mother’s Day. HOOF Productions is urging all of the Golden Bay community to view their movie on You Tube.
Search You Tube BME1658 or You Tube: Best Mum Ever Group 2 2010
Tasmin Palmer
Earth-leyline-grid distortions
NZer Bruce Cathie, along with others, have rediscovered the earth-leyline-grids (similar to the soccer ball’s surface pattern). Plato wrote of these also.
Anyone can download the main grid overlay onto Google Earth from www.vortexmaps.com. It then becomes apparent many cultures built cities and monuments to interface and interact with these grids, which are the “chi/nervous system” of our planet.
Currently, inappropriate city planning, electrical byproducts, metal buildings, deforestation, fossil fuel waste, etc have upset the natural flow of grid energies.
Disrupted energy flow along acupuncture “chi” lines in the human anatomy causes overheating. A similar problem exists on earth: extra heat in our solar system (previous letter) does not download correctly.
Earthgrid engineering (a science lost to the West), was once practiced worldwide as websites like vortexmaps.com show. Physics has proven that observer/object of observation interact, folk with appropriate scientific understanding and extended mental capabilities can log on to, and adjust grid energy flow, working in a similar way to where contaminated water becomes purified by intent alone as before and after photos reveal. Join the many who are actively involved with this work: contact me.
Futurists Jacque Fresco’s “Future by Design” www.thevenusproject.com and Dan Winter www.goldenmean.info offer many inspired solutions.
Grayham Forscutt
From The GB Weekly
Last week we were sent the wrong number of bundles by our printer so there weren’t enough papers for all the Post Office box holders. It was not the fault of our distributors nor the people at Aubergine Café. We apologise to our readers for this error and we have taken steps to try and ensure that it does not happen again.
The Ed miscalulated in last week’s issue the proportion of people who live in Takaka. Thank you to the two people who contacted us. Correct figures are: 23.8 per cent of Golden Bay’s population lives in Takaka, and 76.2 per cent lives in the rest of Golden Bay.
In the article on Social Welfare reforms in last week’s GB Weekly, Gerard Hindmarsh quoted Alli Gardener of the Golden Bay Workcentre as sayng “September is pretty short notice to find them all jobs, especially in Golden Bay”. Alli has since contacted Gerard to say that particular sentence was a misquote and that her comments only meant to imply that it takes time to come up with a sustainable plan for future directions.
The GB Weekly is trialling a new arrangement of sport articles, notices and advertising. Physical activities advertisements will be included in the new look; see page 8 this week. Please let us know, in a few weeks’ time, what you think of the new layout.
