Minutes Monthly Meeting Tuesday 8 September 2009

Transition Pt Chevalier

Monthly Meeting Minutes September 8th 2009

In attendance

Yolanda, Niki, Geoff, Deryn, Sara, Ally, Ruth, Elly, Keith, Jenny, Amanda, Cathy, Finn

Apologies

Ellen, Jo, Guido

Chair – Yolanda           Minutes - Niki

Grey Lynn farmers market – Several of us attended this and noted that it was very crowded, it will be moving to St Pauls School soon.

Wind power – Amanda raised the possibility of wind power in an urban setting and ‘The Swift’ which is running in Waitakere. It is about $12,000. Michael Lawley who engineers windmills has indicated that they are more efficient on a neighbourhood scale. It may be that the government starts to make wind power and solar power more attractive at a domestic level, as in other countries.

Communications – Ruth will be handing over communications next month. Yolanda volunteered to do the first hand over. Amanda can definitely do November.

Treasure hunt – Public meeting this Thursday evening 7.30 – 8.30 at the Community Centre in Huia Rd and a follow-up public meeting two weeks later on Sept 24.  The group is wanting to bring in the rest of the community so it is a community owned event. They attended the Pt Chev networking meeting and it was warmly supported. ARC has given $500 for it and ACC is also supportive. The group have been in touch with BISC and the schools and the sports clubs. Tasks and major roles have been identified. It is hoped that Transition Town people come along to add weight to the event. You don’t have to volunteer to help, it is fine to come along and contribute ideas. Two dates are being considered, the 8th and the 22th of November.

Purchasing group – We had our first successful purchase from Ceres and Chantals and will be getting back to the main group about setting up purchasing clusters in the near future. The next meeting of the group will be Tuesday 22nd September at 7.30 at Geoff’s place, 31 Seacombe Rd.

Community garden – The hot compost pile has been increased. Crops planted include: broad beans, mustard, taro – crops primarily aimed at improving the soil. There is decision making going on about what will be planted. There is an opportunity for people to register their interest in certain crops on the Internet. Deryn is making a sign for the community garden – ‘The Old Homestead Community Garden. A Transition Pt Chevalier initiative, with the website’.

Garden group – Next meeting is at Jo’s place, this coming Sunday at 3pm.

SLIPS – Pt Chevalier is one of the three suburbs in Auckland being trialled for fruit trees in public places. The trees will include nuts, citrus and feijoa. Deryn suggested that people within the suburb are able to adopt a tree and take care of it. Finn will be planting out their verge soon on Moa Rd and asked if anyone would like to help.

Cellphone tower – Deryn attended this meeting and there were 70 people in attendance. One woman spoke about problems she felt her son was experiencing as a result of living near cellphone transmitters. Telecom advised her to put her son behind chicken wire or corrugated iron. Some countries (NZ amongst them) have a limit that is 100 times greater (or perhaps more) than in some other countries. The sites where transmitters are installed are considered ‘industrial’ which means they are often near schools. A working group came from the meeting.

Sustainable landscape plan – Cathy and Elly talked about their course at Unitec and the possibility of having projects that work with groups like Transition Pt Chevalier. If we come up with ideas for the community, we could think about approaching Unitec and setting up possibilities for the students to experience real community engagement. Geoff mentioned that some people are trying to get a group going on sustainability research at Unitec in connection with a sustainability conference that they are holding.

Permaculture course –Running a course from 9am-5pm this coming Saturday. See Finn if interested.

Meeting finished at 9pm.

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