Progress Update

[Kazel]

Hi Transition Town Opotiki Coast.

A couple of really great initiatives have gotten started in Opotiki.

One is that we have started a collection of gardening hand-tools for a
Community Tool Library. We approached a local lawn-mower and chainsaw
repair shop Central Service Centre to be the drop-off point and
holding site for the Tool Library until we can find a more permanent
home for this and Bet was enthusiastic about the project. There will
be an article in the next Opotiki News about Bet and the Tool
Library.

If you have an old pair of secateurs, garden fork or trowel, or even a
wheel-barrow rattling around unused in your shed, now is the time to
release these tools and give them a new life in the Opotiki Community
Tool Library. This is going to be part of the awareness raising in
Opotiki.

We’ll be using these tools to help people make vegetable gardens in
their back-yards as part of our garden make-over project. I’ve put a
copy of our draft flyer in the documents on the group page. You can
download it to see what the garden team is up to. We need a contact
person to add to the bottom of the flyer. The job is simple, just
answer the phone, take peoples names and addresses and maybe explain a
bit about the project. Then pass that information onto the garden
advisers. (We need more garden advisers too, by the way, and some
practical people who can help with building stuff a bit later.)

Here’s the basic premise of the Garden Make-over project. We will put
flyers down one street at a time. If we get 3 or 4 responses we can
go ahead, otherwise we will follow up in a week with door-knocking.
As soon as we get 3 or 4 people wanting a vege-garden and agreeing
provide their time and labour for 3 or 4 Saturdays in a row we can
send around the garden advisers.

The advisers will assess the layout of the site, discuss the needs of
the family living there, and find out what skills and equipment are
available on site. If we need to contact any landlords we will do
that.

Then we will be ready. All 3 or 4 families will meet at the first
house and everyone will pitch in to dig/build a garden. Whether that
is raised or not is up to the available resources etc. We may send
people to the resource recovery centre or Mitre ten to get offcuts
etc.

By the end of the month, all families have helped each other and the
first ones are ready to plant. The goal is to create a friendly
neighbourhood gardening group where these families can now swap
seedlings, seeds and later produce.

A film-screening fundraising night will be held at the end of June to
get supplies for the gardens, things like seeds, seedlings and organic
plant foods.

Things are also underway towards applying to be a Charitable Trust.
This is a step that will allow us to apply for funding from people
such as Env-Bop, Ministry of Social Development, Community Grants,
etc, and could be a big catalyst in moving all of the ideas into
practical realities.

I have applied to the board governing Muriwai Hall with an outline of
all possible TT activities we hope to run from there, and emphasising
the benefit to our community to be able to access all the information
and support from a central venue. If this goes ahead expect to be
invited to a working bee!

Cheers

Kazel Cass