Community Wealth Building in Porirua
This week’s speakers were Richard Norman and Richard Whatman, who are involved in a pilot project in Porirua City exploring the possibilities of Community Wealth Building.
Richard Norman is a long-standing and very active member of the Rotary Club of Wellington and chaired the editorial committee overseeing the Centenary History of Rotary in New Zealand.
He began by reviewing Rotary’s role in building social capital and as a prime mover in the New Zealand voluntary sector.
Richard Whatman is a career government advisor with previous postings in Labour and Housing. He took a break of seven years to work in consulting in Edinburgh. Now he is back, with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, tasked with finding out whether overseas examples of Community Wealth Building can be replicated here.
Why is it that some cities, towns, or communities seem to thrive, and yet others languish?
One of the answers lies in how effective local initiatives are: especially, how local needs can be met from local sources. In Preston, (NW England), 4000 jobs were created by ‘localising’ the supply of food and other things needed by the city. This had a positive knock-on effect on other parts of the local economy.
Community Wealth Building works, but requires the initiative and collaboration of many local actors, working alongside the government. They are already involved. In Porirua, things will be kick-started by hefty construction projects already underway, with local labour, supplies, and training being pushed along by Ngati Toa.
There are also opportunities in vegetable production, the digital economy, and transport.
The theme is ‘looking after ourselves, and regenerating the local community within a single generation.
We in Rotary will have a part to play (e.g. our new community garden) and we will follow the progress of the pilot project with keen interest.
⚠️ DOGS DIE IN HOT CARS. If you love them, don't leave them. ⚠️
It's a message we share time and time again, and this year, we're calling on you to help us spread that message further.
Did you know that calls to SPCA about dogs left inside hot cars made up a whopping 11% of all welfare calls last summer? This is a completely preventable issue, and one which is causing hundreds of dogs (often loved pets) to suffer.
Here are some quick facts to share with the dog owners in your life:
👉 The temperature inside a car can heat to over 50°C in less than 15 minutes.
👉 Parking in the shade and cracking windows does little to help on a warm day. Dogs rely on panting to keep cool, which they can't do in a hot car.
👉 This puts dogs at a high risk of heatstroke - a serious condition for dogs, with a mortality rate between 39%-50%.
👉 It is an offence under the Animal Welfare Act to leave a dog in a hot vehicle if they are showing signs of heat stress. You can be fined, and prosecuted.
SPCA has created downloadable resources to help you spread the message even further. Posters, a flyer, and a social media tile can be downloaded from our website here: www.spca.nz...
We encourage you to use these - and ask your local businesses to display the posters if they can. Flyers can be kept in your car and handed out as needed.
This is a community problem, and one we cannot solve alone. Help us to prevent more tragedies this summer by sharing this post.
On behalf of the animals - thank you ❤️
Poll: Would you rather: Christmas in summer forever or winter forever?
Just a bit of a fun poll to get you thinking.
If you had to live out your Christmas days, would you prefer it was a summer Christmas or a winter Christmas?
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61.9% Summer
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36.6% Winter
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1.5% Other - I'll share below
Worst Xmas ever?
There's a a lot of planning that goes into Christmas day and sometimes things just don't go to plan. But it can be a good thing - a family mishap or hilarious memory that you can laugh about in Christmases to come.
Whether you burnt the dinner or were stranded at an airport...
Share your Christmas mishaps below!
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