Tutukaka Coast, Whangarei

Have you made your house all Christmassy yet?

Have you made your house all Christmassy yet?

Why not share a snap to be in to win spot prizes! (and the title of NZ's Merriest Home)

2346 days ago

Thank you for the thank yous

Fire and Emergency New Zealand

Our dedicated Fire and Emergency New Zealand volunteers received many wonderful messages from people all over New Zealand during National Volunteer Week. Thank you for taking the time to recognise the work of Fire and Emergency volunteers in your community.

Volunteering can be rewarding. If you … View more
Our dedicated Fire and Emergency New Zealand volunteers received many wonderful messages from people all over New Zealand during National Volunteer Week. Thank you for taking the time to recognise the work of Fire and Emergency volunteers in your community.

Volunteering can be rewarding. If you want to know what it takes to become a Fire and Emergency New Zealand volunteer, find out more at fireandemergency.nz/volunteering

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2346 days ago

AMP Scholarships. Dreamers wanted.

AMP

Since 1998 AMP has dedicated more than $2.4 million towards helping over 300 everyday Kiwis realise their dreams. If you’ve got a passion you want to turn into a reality, an AMP Scholarship could help you get there. Apply today! Find out more

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2347 days ago

Matapouri Beach is in line for sand replenishment work.

Online Content Publisher from Whangarei District Council

Council is planning to do the job that nature has been prevented from doing by taking the sand from the orange areas (see image) and placing it back in the yellow areas. The fix should last 10 to 15 years depending on how many major storms happen in that time.

Over time sand has settled in the … View more
Council is planning to do the job that nature has been prevented from doing by taking the sand from the orange areas (see image) and placing it back in the yellow areas. The fix should last 10 to 15 years depending on how many major storms happen in that time.

Over time sand has settled in the orange areas because two bridges have reduced the flow of the stream that used to flush the sand back into the bay to settle along the shoreline.

Read our full story here: ► bit.ly...

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2352 days ago

Has a jet ski ever got to close to you in the water?

Georgia Reporter from Stuff

Hi neighbours,

Have you had a near miss with a jet ski? Surfers in the Far North have a simple message for jet ski drivers: 'No skis if people are paddling it'. Locals have said it's simply too dangerous.

Do you think it's a fair message? What's your experience in … View more
Hi neighbours,

Have you had a near miss with a jet ski? Surfers in the Far North have a simple message for jet ski drivers: 'No skis if people are paddling it'. Locals have said it's simply too dangerous.

Do you think it's a fair message? What's your experience in the water? Let us know in the replies!

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2351 days ago

Creative writing workshop tomorrow in Whangarei

Michael from Tikipunga

Hi everybody, just to let you know I have three places available on this fiction writing workshop tomorrow. Tell any friends who are keen on creative writing.
creativenorthland.com...

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2353 days ago

Hypnosis Safe Option To Beat Addiction

Michael from Tikipunga

A Whangarei hypnotherapist wants to see more clients using hypnotherapy to beat drug addiction.
Arpi Procter, a registered social worker who was for eight years an alcohol and drug counsellor with Northland District Health Board, regularly treats people with addictions and says she would like to … View more
A Whangarei hypnotherapist wants to see more clients using hypnotherapy to beat drug addiction.
Arpi Procter, a registered social worker who was for eight years an alcohol and drug counsellor with Northland District Health Board, regularly treats people with addictions and says she would like to see more people utilising hypnotherapy as an organic, safe and holistic way to address addiction – especially considering other treatment options can require medication, inpatient admission to a detox unit, and time away from work.
Arpi has been inundated with clients seeking to quit smoking following the January 1 rise in tobacco tax, but would like to see more people breaking addiction to other drugs via hypnotherapy.

“If people come to me, they don’t have to worry about going away to rehab,” Arpi says. “Women don’t have to worry about losing custody of their kids. A person’s work is not impacted. They keep their lives while they are in hypnotherapy treatment rather than going away and being put in a system.”

“Hypnotherapy enables you to remain at home, living your everyday life while you make changes.”



Beating Addiction Without Drugs or Detox

Under Te Ara Oranga, Northland DHB refers most clients experiencing drug addiction to non-residential treatment programmes delivered by providers such as Salvation Army, Rubicon, Odyssey House and iwi health providers. Hypnotherapy is an ideal option for mostly well-functioning people whose problematic behaviour is due more to addiction than to mental unwellness. Medical journals including The Lancet have published studies linking hypnotherapy with success around methadone withdrawal, irritable bowel syndrome treatment and ulceration treatment.

Hypnosis is a blend of physical relaxation and extreme mental alertness. When a person undergoes therapeutic dialogue during hypnotic trance, the therapist is able to address problematic behaviour by talking to a person’s subconscious rather than conscious mind. Arpi likens the subconscious to the ‘base of the iceberg’ rather than the tip and estimates 96 percent of clients she sees do not relapse into addiction after a recommended 4-5 sessions across five weeks.

Arpi said her approach is focused more on where the client wants to take his or her life in the future than on regression. “I get a person to reflect on where they’re going; I eliminate cravings. That’s the big part of it – if you don’t eliminate cravings, people are going to be back into using.”

While methamphetamine is the most difficult drug to break addiction to, Arpi says she has seen many patients in Kawakawa and Kaikohe respond well to hypnotherapy for alcohol and cannabis cessation. “While social work is about social change, hypnotherapy is about individual change.”

“One successful patient I’ve worked with was a 40 year old male out of jail and rehab who was sent to me by probation services. He was difficult to do an assessment with. He demanded to know what I could do with him that no one else had done. I suggested hypnotherapy and he just went for it. Not only did the addiction change but the anger and hostility disappeared.”

“I remember another young man who was in the probation system with addictions to cannabis and alcohol. After hypnotherapy he was very excited about going out to find a job. For the first time, he was motivated about the future.”

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2351 days ago

Matariki Festival 2018

Kristi Neighbourly Lead from Tikipunga

Please share - free family event

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2352 days ago

A new space for Otangarei playground!

Online Content Publisher from Whangarei District Council

Are these features prehistoric creatures? Two super-strong see-o-sawrusses guard the brand new play equipment.

This new space will be a welcomed attraction to the community and provide a much-needed interactive playground for the tamariki, who were the instigators for this idea back in 2013.

View more
Are these features prehistoric creatures? Two super-strong see-o-sawrusses guard the brand new play equipment.

This new space will be a welcomed attraction to the community and provide a much-needed interactive playground for the tamariki, who were the instigators for this idea back in 2013.

Read our full story here: ► bit.ly...

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2355 days ago

Tyre Slashing

Annette Lambly-Robinson Reporter from Whangārei Leader

Hi Everyone.
There has been a spate of tyre slashing over the weekend. This type of senseless, thoughtless behaviour needs to be stamped out before it takes hold.
I would really like to hear from some one who had their tyre/s slashed so I can get a story up. It about awareness and letting … View more
Hi Everyone.
There has been a spate of tyre slashing over the weekend. This type of senseless, thoughtless behaviour needs to be stamped out before it takes hold.
I would really like to hear from some one who had their tyre/s slashed so I can get a story up. It about awareness and letting people know how inconvenient, and costly this is to the victim. Image a young mum trying to get her kids to sport or an elderly person trying to get their shopping. Not everyone can change a tyre or afford a replacement and with the weather as changeable as it is who want to try doing in the rain?

Give me a call on 09 470 4054.

2353 days ago

Northland Writers In Flash Fiction Finals

Michael from Tikipunga

Northlanders have achieved highly in this year’s National Flash Fiction Day competition, which celebrates one of the shortest forms of creative writing.
13 year old Jana Heise, who was raised in Whangarei, won the NFFD Youth Award on June 22. Her story was then performed, with those of other … View more
Northlanders have achieved highly in this year’s National Flash Fiction Day competition, which celebrates one of the shortest forms of creative writing.
13 year old Jana Heise, who was raised in Whangarei, won the NFFD Youth Award on June 22. Her story was then performed, with those of other Northland and national finalists, at a workshop and open mic event on June 24 in Kawakawa put on by Bay of Islands resident Kathy Derrick, who is a National Flash Fiction Day Committee city chair.
Former Whangarei writer Lola Elvy was in the youth top ten shortlist and Michael Botur was longlisted three times. Lola’s mother Michelle Elvy, who lived in Opua and Whangarei from 2008 to 2014, contributes much to flash fiction, as one of the editors of the Bonsai anthology, which will be published in August by Canterbury University Press. That collection includes at least six Northland flash fiction writers.

Flash fiction is a form of storytelling with a strict 300 word limit. National Flash Fiction Day is celebrated each year on the shortest day. This year’s competition attracted around 500 entries.

Northland has just three percent of the country’s population but achieves disproportionately well at flash fiction. Flash fiction took off nationwide after Ms Elvy and friends published the first edition of Flash Frontier magazine in 2012. Highest-placed Northland writer and top ten NFFD finalist Vivian Thonger of Kerikeri said when she arrived four years ago, the region was “a flash-fiction writing hotspot where people at all levels of experience could learn and hone their short-form writing skills.”

Thonger said flash fiction can be addictive. “It doesn’t take long to write a piece, yet it’s a delicate game trying to fit meaning and tension into 300 words or fewer. It’s a kick getting published, and it feels less painful when you’re rejected; you bounce back and try again quickly, or have several pieces on the go at once.”

“Many of us have a collection of vignettes, of unforgettable moments, stuck in our heads; flash is a way to bring those snippets to life as a feeling evoked, or a brief encounter leaping off the page, real or imagined, like a frisson of truth or recognition passing between you and the reader.”

Other organisers of the Kawakawa event included Whangarei author Martin Porter, a National Flash Fiction Competition Committee member. Kathy Derrick is also judging the Whangarei Libraries Flash Fiction competition 2018, which is having its prizegiving on June 27.
More at: writeupnorth.co.nz...
Vivian Thonger’s Bay of Islands Writers Group is looking for more members. Contact vthonger@gmail.com to join.

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