Grey Lynn 2030 Transition Community

Grey Lynn 2030 is made up of a number of focus groups. If you have an idea for a group we can help you promote it and find people who want to get involved.

The object of education isn’t knowledge; it’s action. – Thomas Kempis

How will you be in action? Don’t say it is too hard, I don’t know enough etc etc. If you have the idea and the energy things can happen.

Grey Lynn 2030 Water Group

To give you the idea of how a focus group can start. I know nothing about streams except that I walk across the WellPark Reserve stream often on the way to Westmere School. The stream looks dirty and unloved. Here ends my knowledge on streams.

At the end of last year, a few neighbours got together to pick up the rubbish around the stream. Then we contacted WaiCare who came and had a look at the stream quality. They told me to have a chat to the council about the stream which I did. The council are now going to clean up all the weeds and also have donated $4,000 of plants!  I mentioned my idea at the Grey Lynn 2030 meeting and have now found some knowledgeable people in our community who have professional expertise on streams and water in our area. Grey Lynn 2030- Water group is now in gestation. We are looking at what other stream groups have done like Project Twin Streams and Friends of Oakley Creek and seeing what we can copy and implement here in Grey Lynn.  Now am sorting out the community planting working bee on Sunday June 28th….So it just takes somebody to get things moving and then other like minded people get involved too.

I have loads of ideas but not enough hours in the day…

Waste Free Lunch Day – Pt Chevalier Primary is running a weekly Waste Free Lunch Day. I have the information on how Pt Chev school have organised it. Looks very easy. If you would like to encourage your kid’s school, your own school or your workplace to take up this idea, let me know and I will send you the files.

EcoMamas - is there a group of Mums with little kids who want to meet other like minded parents in the community?

Plastic Bag Campaign - contact Lynn Green at Waste Away if this is of interest to you. Once Lynn has caught her breath after the eWaste Action I have heard she is hatching a plan…

Traffic Calming on Warnock St – Pt Chev used to have a group called Slower and Less Traffic – Salt. They did some great work around Traffic Calming. Would be excellent to get this going in the area.

Any other ideas?

We have a fantastic community of talented people, we just need some people to put their hand up  and lead the groups.

Suzanne Kendrick

I read Keith Ng on the Public Address blog this morning having a rant about why get involved with Earth Hour. He suggests there is no need to bother. So if you forget about it, load up some energy efficient light bulbs at home or give some to your friends. And if you can’t afford to buy energy efficient lightbulbs, I have some good news from the council below.

It is a long and (quite funny) post but he makes a good point…

Go buy an energy efficient lightbulb and spend Earth Hour with the lights on watching TV – you’d come out ahead by a long, long way. Better still, take an hour’s wages and buy energy efficient bulbs for people who don’t have them. That’d actually be worthwhile.

Just further to the Earth Hour promotion. In support of Earth Hour, Auckland City is helping to distribute 10,000 energy saving light bulbs (compact fluorescent lights) to the Auckland community. These are Ecobulbs and are being supplied by a NZ company called EnergyMad (they are not being purchased by Council). 500 bulbs are being delivered to each community library to distribute.

The bulbs should be available from Community libraries from Thursday 26th March, morning onwards (and will continue to be available until they run out). The limit is 3 bulbs per person.

These bulbs use 80% less electricity, and last around 10 times longer than ordinary incandescent light bulbs. As most people will probably know, they do contain a very small amount of mercury, however information about this is located at the link below. I note that the mercury in most dental fillings contains up to 50–100 times the mercury of an Ecobulb.

http://www.ecobulb.com/nz/FAQs.htm#3A

Cheers
Keeping Auckland’s Future Bright…
Brent Bielby
Senior Sustainability Policy Analyst

Meola Reef Community Picnic

Grey Lynn 2030 are invited to a community picnic at Meola Reef, organised by Auckland City Council, on Saturday 21 March 2009, 1-5pm.

There will be musical performances and presentations from local groups as well as activities for adults, young people and children. Learn about fresh water invertebrates in the stream with Wai Care, go on a tour of the reef, meet Fairy Clare and find out about how you can volunteer in and around Meola Reef and the creeks. Pack a picnic lunch, water and sunscreen and celebrate your community and environment at the reef.

If it rains, the picnic will be delayed to Saturday 28 March. Due to limited parking near the reef, walking or cycling is recommended. There will also be a free bus operating throughout the afternoon to and from Meola Reef, Pt Chevalier and Westmere.

Bus stop pick up points are:

Pt Chevalier Shopping Centre, Great North Road, Pick up outside WINZ
Pt Chevalier Road. Pick up corner of Dignan St
Garnet Road Shopping Centre. Pick up opposite Oban Road
Garnet Road. Pick up opposite Warwick Avenue

For more information, go to the Auckland City Council website www.aucklandcity.govt/events or call the helpdesk 379 2020.

Eva Lawrence

Grey Lynn 2030 has been asked by Bee if we would like to get involved with testing the new product range

We are B_E_E – a family-owned Kiwi business (all girl power) who create and distribute a range of environmentally responsible household cleaning products (the ones with the cheeky, talking labels) – see us at www.bee.co.nz

Our products are meticulously designed, made and externally accredited to the highest environmental and health standards – and all formulations are checked and approved by one of NZ’s leading dermatologists for skin safety. Now, because we’ve done some extra work and further improved our products, we want to re-test – which is where we hope you can help us!

We’re looking for a lovely bunch of people to join our team for our standard round of dermatological testing (we don’t test on animals – just willing participants and ourselves!).

Testing will be held in Freemans Bay, Auckland over three consecutive weeks for around 60mins – 90mins (Thursday evening, first being the 19 March, and kick off after work), and participants must be able to attend all three sessions.

We’d love if you were interested – of course you’ll be remunerated, and it should be a bit of fun. Please email us to register your interest and for more information – info@bee.net.nz

Do you find you barely use the Yellow Pages and tend to use the online directory services instead? www.whitepages.co.nz or www.yellow.co.nz?

I read recently in Good Magazine that you can contact Yellow Pages and ask to not receive the phone books anymore.

It is very easy. Just go to www.Yellow.co.nz – on the contact us page send your request to stop the phone books. They need your home address and phone number. All done. As easy as that.

Grey Lynn 2030 is a community group. People give of their time freely and with pleasure to make it happen.

I would like to support these people in their paid endeavours and hope you will too.

Lynn Green – Our Waste Away expert and local bee keeper.

For delicious Grey Lynn honey,  contact Lynn -  thefairy@xtra.co.nz

Jason Kemp – Our Web Guru who helps me to keep  www.greylynn2030.co.nz cranking. Jason works with small and large companies who need web sites and online marketing. He is particularly skilled at setting up sites using wordpress.org or wordpress MU in a jiffy.

Chris Morris - for designing the, soon to be released, new logo. Chris is a graphic designer with years of experience. This is why she can come up with a logo for something as amorphous as Grey Lynn 2030!

Tania Miller – of the  Grey Lynn Centre where we have our meetings. The centre has lovely new rooms upstairs which are perfect for small meetings.

Now is there anybody who would sponsor some free photocopying and or printing to publicise our events?