Exciting opportunity to join a vibrant community office space at the Halswell Community Hub

Halswell Community Hub are looking for local businesses, organisations or groups to join us in our Community Office Space.

Halswell Community Hub has been operating for nearly 4 years in what was the Old Halswell Library and is now a thriving community space used by many many groups and organisations. It is a great place to work and a great place to connect.

We are in a great location on the junction of Halswell Road and Sparks Road with off street car parking and everything you need on your doorstep.

Due to some recent changes we now have office space available for the right person, group or organisation.

If you are community minded, keen to connect with local people and groups or are looking for a place to work from, get in touch.

We have a space with 2 desks that would be ideal for either a small organisation with 2 people or for 2 people working individually. 

With approximately 11.5m2 there is plenty of space for storage whether that be filing cabinets or small cupboards.

Included in the price is your Power; Unlimited Internet; Use of communal facilities (toilets, kitchen) and Use of our interview room (shared between tenants so fair use applies)

Contact Kate or Keri at halswellhub@gmail.com for more information or to arrange a viewing 😊

 

Halswell Connections - March 2021

At our March meeting our speakers were Ross and John from the Halswell Residents Association. HRA has been around for 26 years in which time they have had 2 chairmen and 3 secretaries. The group was formed originally around discussions regarding the swimming pool and land from the domain and has spent the last 26 years fighting for the community on various issues.

For 15 years HRA fought the council and developers to keep the land on the domain, eventually winning through the environment court to retain 13 of the 15 hectares for the community.

Other projects over the history of the HRA have included:

• Discovering and uncovering a sunken forest on Quaifes road that has been there for 900 - 1200 years.

• Keeping the No 7 bus route past the hospital.

• Protecting the historical farm buildings at Aidanfield and erecting the monument on the corner of Aidanfield Drive and McMahon Drive.

• Erecting a memorial stone in Wigram to the 7 Airmen that lost their lives in 1953

• Fighting the increase in the number of liquor stores in the area and their opening hours. HRA took legal action against the liquor store proposed for the shops on Ensign Street and lodges an appeal when it was approved. The liquor stores licence application has been in for 12 months and there have been no incidents. Ross and John acknowledged the support they received during this battle.

Ross and John also discussed some of the issues currently facing Halswell as a community that HRA are working on.  These  include the ongoing growth, with 6750 sections left to be developed, traffic and speed issues,, bus routes and the CCC and ECAN long term plans as well as the local representation review and the schooling in the area. 

HRA also run the ANZAC parade which will be held on 25th April 2021

Halswell Residents Association meet on the last Monday of each month at St Mary's Church - their next meeting is on 28th March and all residents are welcome.

News from around the Community:

Halswell Community Project.

Keri shared that the Halswell Hub has been very busy with many new residents dropping in for information about what is happening in the area and what clubs, activities etc they could get involved in.

Sadly both the Market and our Children’s Day event were cancelled due to the sudden move to level 2 and the uncertainty around how long it would last. For 2021, the market will run quarterly and hopefully return to monthly in 2022 when things are a bit more settled.

Children’s day will run belatedly in the Spring - hopefully September and planning is under way for the April School Holidays for free activities at the Hub.

Anne Galloway (Councillor for Halswell)

Anne discussed the need for feedback on the long term plan - submissions can be made online as well as in paper form and help is available at Te Hāpua between 3 and 5pm on Wednesday afternoons between 17th March and 14th April.

Anne also raised the issue of Hillmorton High School which is our local High School needing a new gym. They are currently fundraising and raising awareness and would appreciate help from any local business or organisation who may be able to help.

Te Hāpua

Kate shared details of the better digital for seniors course which is now in its 3rd week and running well. This is a free course for over 65’s

Halswell Community Hall

The Halls AGM was a great success with Anton Matthews as a great and inspirational speaker.

Judith noted that the Hall had received several enquiries for space on a Sunday for Church groups but had no availability at this time. This is the same for the Halswell Hub and shows a growing need for spaces that are available at weekends.

Judith also shared that the Hall receives income each year from hirers and relies on fundraising and funders for the rest. Currently the Hall is looking for $7000 to trim trees which are posing a risk to the car park and passing public due to their size.  More work and volunteers are needed to help with landscaping at the Hall.

The Drama group have begun their rehearsals for the upcoming performance of Little Shop of Horrors later in the year and the hall has managed to secure funding from Rata for a foldable stage which will make the space more user friendly.

Halswell Friendship Club / Garden Club.

Robyn noted that both clubs are running well and ticking along as usual.

Halswell Lions.

Peter discussed the Lions connection with Hillmorton High School and the Halswell Scouts.

Lions are currently selling pea straw with 300 - 400 bales available. They have been updating their presence on facebook and social media and have a strong focus on membership.

Meeting closed 1.30pm

Next Meeting:          April 13th 2021     

Emma Pavey - Community Development Advisor and

Sam Holland - Community Recreation Advisor

Halswell Connections - Feb 2021

February 16th saw our monthly community networking meeting restart with a great group of people from the community representing both local residents and local groups/organisations.

Unfortunately our planned speaker was ill so we spent the time sharing what each group had been up to and had planned for the next few weeks and months. 

This was a great discussion covering the rebuild at Oaklands School as part of the Canterbury Schools Rebuild, traffic and speeding and the need to engage as a community in the long term plan to ensure that Halswell gets a fair representation in funding for future facilities and infrastructure to support our growing community.

Halswell Hall

Judith outlined that the Hall now has a 5 year strategic plan in place covering long term plans, maintenance schedules etc.

The Hall is currently running a Spring Bulb fundraiser - details can be found on the facebook page or by emailing Judith for orders. Judith is hoping to be at the Halswell Market on 28th Feb to promote this and take orders.

Halswell Menzshed

Adrienne said the MenzShed is going very well and has been running for approx ⅚ years now.

Roger Spicer is managing the Shed and doing a very good job of getting out and networking with local groups and maintaining and growing the groups community focus. They are working on lots of projects both at the Shed and around the community and are always open for groups who need some help with building projects to make contact.

Friendship Club/Garden Club

Robyn said that the friendship club has just celebrated their 12th Birthday.

They have monthly meetings at the Library and in between have monthly coffee meetings and outings.

The Garden Club also meets monthly and is going well.

Halswell Lions

Peter outlined that the Halswell Lions are an established local group and are looking at networking with as many local groups as possible. They hold their own events - Carols in the Quarry for example as well as supporting other local events like the Celebrate Halswell event and others.

The Lions are keen to grow and develop their membership and would like to hear from community groups wanting/needing support with events and activities that they can help/get involved in

Halswell Community Project

HCP exists to promote activities and events across the community and connect people regardless of who they are or where they come from.  Kate and Keri outlined some of the activities that HCP run - the local market, events, school holiday activities, monthly newsletters, website, weekly coffee morning and mahjong groups and the Halswell Hub

Upcoming events to note - Halswell Market - 28th Feb; Children’s Day - 7th March.

Halswell Residents Association

Ross outlined some of the work of the Residents association. Currently they are advocating for an increased share of facilities in the Halswell area to cope with the continuing growth. He pointed out that Halswell still has 6570 sections to be developed before it is considered completed. This is a huge number of sections and will need an investment in the infrastructure for the area.

Local Residents.

Ashley, Philippa and Mike described issues with traffic and lack of facilities/infrastructure as well as speed limits and the way Halswell Junction Road divides the community. They also pointed out that commercial hubs were either non-existent in some parts of the community or consisted of very similar shops. For example - Longhurst is almost entirely food outlets. 

Tracey McLelland - MP.

Andrei said that Traceys office had been really busy with a wide variety of issues. Tracey will be holding another drop in clinic in Halswell on 13th March from 9.30 - 11.30am at the Library.

Community Board

Andrei outlined several issues that the community board are looking into at present.

Speeding - particularly around the new Richmond Avenue intersection as local residents report not feeling safe

Consultation on the Long Term Plan - Halswell needs more input into this in terms of submissions in order to get fairer access to funding for infrastructure for the future growth of the community.  He felt that we needed to be getting into the hundreds of submissions to be heard and in order to help guide this we need to first gather information from the community on what is needed so that Halswell remains a desirable place to live and doesn’t become over congested due to the lack of facilities and infrastructure.

Community Facilities Network Plan - despite the map showing a huge gap in facilities in the Halswell area, the document stated that there were no geographical gaps. This has now been amended.

Land at Quaifes Road - the land has not been sold and the community board are encouraging the council to retain at least some of the land for future community facilities. They have gone back to Ngai Tahu for consultation as this was not done previously to determine any significance of the land to them. The group felt that as a community the discovery of the ancient totara stumps on this site meant that the land had a significance to the whole community. Halswell Residents Association are working with the council to get a land survey of the site to determine if there are any sizable sections of wood left that could be used as an example for significant carvings

Water - the council are in full agreement over the removal of chlorine from the drinking water and are awaiting the exemption from central government to do this.

Oaklands School

Margaret outlined the progress with the rebuild. The School is almost finished with just the last part being the hall and final landscaping. With the exception of 2 pre existing classrooms all students are now in new facilities and the new courtyard and sports court are complete.  The rebuild has been 3 years in the making, the school is looking really good and it has been a positive start to the year.

There will be an official opening coming up and next steps are looking at the schools branding to incorporate the gifted name Te Kura o Ōwaka.

Oaklands currently has a roll of around 575 with 120 year 7 and 8s

Meeting closed 1.30pm

Next Meeting:  March 16th -    Halswell Residents Association

        April 13th -      Emma Pavey - Community Development advisor and Sam Holland - Community Recreation Advisor

Time to Change our Local Voting System?

 

There are discussions afoot in Christchurch on the topic of how we vote for our City Councillors and Community board representatives.  Many feel that we would be better served as a city if we used the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system instead of First Past the Post (FPP).

Why? Because this system, used on a ward or community board basis, should deliver much better representation than first past the post.  A number of cities in NZ already use Single Transferable Vote and this appears to be the case.

In the last election where First Past the Post was used, six mayors in NZ were elected with less than 30% of the vote.  The same happens quite often on a ward by ward basis.  The first past the post system that we use causes this when there are a number of good candidates.   So, for example, in the last election in South Canterbury, a strong farming area, one of the representatives on ECAN is Green which is not what you would expect from that area!  This happened because a number of farmers stood  and the vote got split between them as per the illustration below. 

Of course, this can happen differently in other wards where it might go the other way.  There might be a number of strong advocates for clean water but one with different views get in because the vote FOR clean water gets split across the other candidates who were all campaigning for it.

 

Under STV, voters are asked to rank candidates in order of preference.  If your preferred candidate does not get in, then your second vote will be counted and then your third.  This means that the overall best ranked person will get in and the vote cannot be split in the same way.

If you would like the opportunity to discuss how we vote for our local councils, keep an eye out for people collecting signatures asking to have the conversation, or message this page https://www.facebook.com/stvcanterbury to get hold of petition sheets (only original sheets with original signatures are acceptable).  

 

Surprising facts about Happiness

I was reminded this morning about a lot of resources that can help us be happier whether times are tough or whether they are good.  They all work on the premise that happiness is a practice rather than just good luck.
Here are some great resources from psychologists and others to help you find out more and try out some of these ideas and enjoy life that little bit more. 
 



Here is psychologist Dan Gilbert being interviewed by Chris Anderson of Ted on the surprising science of happiness  

And here are thirteen of the best TED talks on happiness  There is a link in this article to even more talks on the same topic.

This podcast series offers heaps of ideas about being well and keeping it that way. 

This video A good day is hard to go past if you want to see day to day things in a new light

And of course there is our very own All Right campaign for tips on maintaining your wellbeing whether in difficult times or in good ones.  

Economy in post lock down

As the economist Kate Raworth puts it in this video discussion , the economy is the way we provision for our wants and needs and that can be done through:

•  Public provision (what local and central governments provide),
•  Market exchange (what we buy and sell),
•  Household relations, and
• The commons – all the activities that involve communities and resources created and /or held and maintained by those communities for those communities -

This means that we should think not of The Economy but rather of many different economies that we participate in.  Not all economies are purely money based – In some cases they may be gift based and /or reciprocity based.  The way these different economies collectively provide for our wants and needs varies over time and we are seeing that clearly now.  Household production and public provision are much more important than they were before lockdown.  

We are seeing more focus on household economies.  Examples are more people baking rather than buying bread, people are painting their houses rather than getting someone in to do it, and an increase in the numbers who are starting to grow veges in the back yard. 

Public provision:  Likewise, we are seeing government step in to provide a lot of public resources to provide for the needs of people who find themselves unable to work.

Over the last decades, the market economy has taken over things that used to be supplied by our commons. For example, we often pay for babysitters rather than reciprocating with our neighbours.  We buy recreation that clubs once provided, we throw out food or produce when it could be shared – we buy rather than borrow tools or books which then sit in our sheds or on our bookshelves unused or unread for months and sometimes years at a time.  It is no longer common to share transport with people. 

All this has increased our need for money.  However as the market and our just-in-time systems struggle to deliver what we need, it might be a good time to remember that a lot of our needs can be taken care of by getting to know and trust people around us, by working with others to set up local share resources and even to share work that needs to be done.   All this is essentially starting to think about how to build (or perhaps rebuild) local commons. 

Communities around the world have developed a wide range of commons - much wider than the ones we saw in past generations.  For example, we might be able to develop financial commons (such as the Grameen Bank or local savings pools),  We could use a Timebanks to ask for and offer time and skills.  We could grow more locally produced food in community settings, increase access local food growers through local markets,  share knowledge and skills, create recreational opportunities through clubs,  share tools and make our local book and food sharing spaces hum.