12 February 2016 Devonport Flagstaff

February 12, 2016

Interview: mindfulness practitioner Maya Nova…p18

Public acess battle lost at Torpedo Bay… p2

First division Lotto win in Devonport … p3

Relishing the chance to perform Phantom of the Opera… Alice Cunliffe (left) and Gabrielle Jones. Full story p 11.

Teenager survives five-metre cliff fall at party

To page 3

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A top young surfer has survived a five-metre fall off a Stanley Point cliff during a teenage birthday party last Friday night.

Lewis Mennie suffered a fractured skull in the fall into shallow water.

Lewis (17), who was Surfer of the Year at Takapuna Grammar School in 2014 and 2015, was initially helped by surf lifesaver Hannah Williams, who was attending the party.

The function was held at the home of North

Shore ward councillor Chris Darby, whose middle daughter Taija is about to turn 17.

Darby called emergency services imme-diately the accident happened at 10.42pm. Lewis “landed first on a pohutukawa branch, which likely broke his fall, before hitting the oyster-shelled rocks,” Darby said.

Hannah said: “As soon as I saw Lewis I knew I had to get down there to help him. So I ran down the jetty and waded through the water to

where he was lying on the rocks. Oliver McFarlane was al-ready there and he was doing a really good job. I checked his responsiveness

Injured…Lewis Mennie

Devonport ballerinas in high spirits

The DevonporT FlagsTaFF page 2 February 12, 2016

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A marginal strip of only six to 10 metres has been set aside at Torpedo Bay in the recent Treaty settlement with Maori.

Generally 20-metre marginal strips are provided when the Crown sells off land.

The Devonport Takapuna Local Board and Auckland Council fought for a wider strip, but failed to gain much traction.

All meetings about the Crown sale of the Torpedo Bay land and the marginal strip were held behind closed doors. This is a government requirement when dealing with Treaty of Waitangi settlements.

Marginal strips are required under law to allow the public and future generations access to the coastline.

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson con-firmed to the Flagstaff: “The marginal strip to be reserved from the transfer of the Torpedo Bay property is of varying width of between 6 and 10 metres.

“The marginal strip provides for public access to, and use of, the coast for recreational activities. The marginal strip will be reserved when the NZDF lease (that will commence on the settlement date for the Torpedo Bay property) ends. The initial term of the lease is for 21 years with six further rights of renewal of 21 years each.”

Councillor Chris Darby said after protracted negotiations council wanted at least an 8-metre marginal strip over the length of the coastal edge, “but with increased depth at the arrival

point adjacent to the boat ramp and King Edward Parade” something over 10 metres.

Council and the Devonport-Takapuna Local Board had originally wanted a 20 metre strip and had “reluctantly” entered into negotiations, said Darby, who is a member of Council’s Treaty of Waitangi Settlements Committee.

“It is highly unlikely that Auckland Council will pursue a greater width through the select committee process.

“Sometimes it’s hard to back down, but my view is council and the community need to now knuckle down and cement a strong relationship with iwi to allow for generous public use and access into the future.

“If any redevelopment on this site occurs in the decades ahead, a framework plan will be required and that’s our opportunity to take another look at boardwalks, adding to the now-confirmed 6-metre marginal strip.

“I fought hard on the Narrow Neck settle-ment and behind the scenes I have scrapped hard for this one. But don’t see value in pursuing further through a select committee process that our community knows all too well is pretty much procedural on Treaty settlements,” Darby says.

• The Defence land at Torpedo Bay was sold to Maori for $2.3 million after years of behind-closed-doors negotiations. The 0.58 ha block was part of the Ngai Tai ki Tamaki Settlement with Ngati Whanaunga, Ngati Tamaoho, Ngati Koheriki and Marutuahu Collective.

Public access to Torpedo Bay to be restricted

The Devonport community is rallying around Virgil Evetts and his family. The local writer, beekeeper and gardener is battling cancer.

Evetts (39) has been receiving treatment for 18 months, but is now in the final stages of the disease.

Friends and neighbours set up an online Givealittle page for Evetts’ partner Charlotte Perry and their two daughters Olive and Violet Evetts-Perry. This has so far received more than $7,000 of donations.

Members of the Devonport Locals Facebook page are giving practical support via a roster of helpers cooking and shopping for the fam-ily. And parents at Devonport Primary School have offered a helping hand with playdates and school runs.

The donations will help the family through this financially difficult time. Perry, who is a contractor, had to take leave from work and the family is without an income while she cares for her partner.

Members of the Ngataringa Commu-nity Garden are looking after Evetts’ four chickens

Kenzie’s Gift founder, local Nic Russell has also reached out to the family. Her charity offers

Local writer, gardener and father battles cancer

Devonport helps family… Virgil Evans with partner Charlotte Perry and their two daughters Olive (5) and Violet (1)

help to families affected by cancer.You can support the family at givealittle.

co.nz/cause/evettsperry

NEXT ISSUE: February 26 ADVERTISING DEADLINE: February 19

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February 12, 2016 The DevonporT FlagsTaFF page 3

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Surfer survives Stanley Point cliff fall

Two centuries for Shore cricketers

Centuries by Michael Olsen and Graeme Beghin against Waitakere last weekend have given the North Shore Cricket Club Premier side a real shot at promotion to Auckland’s first division.

Olsen hit 133 and Beghin 111 as Shore posted 353-6 against Waitakere in the Tom Hellaby Cup second division. Waitakere was in deep trouble at 10-3 in the two-day match.

• Shore wins Auckland 20/20 title. Pic-tures and story p 38, 39.

First responder…surf lifesaver Hannah Williams was quick to help Lewis Mennie when he was injured

First Division Lotto win in return for a favour

and Oli and I held his head in place, because I knew that due to the mechanism of how he fell it could possibly be a spinal injury.

“We made sure that one of us was holding his head at all times, and tried as best as possible to assess the damage around his head without moving him. Once he started talking to us we made him squeeze our hands, keeping him as conscious as possible. He originally said that he didn’t feel pain anywhere and was fine. I noticed he had blood on his shirt and his body was bent at a funny angle.”

“I verified that he was most hurt around his head and knew that because that it was a poten-

tial injury to his skull. “Oli and I continued to try

our best to calm his friends, who were really distraught throughout the event. Then the paramedics arrived and we handed over to them.

“Honestly I just did what anybody else would’ve done in my position,” said Hannah, who was last year named Under 19 Sportswoman of the Year by Piha Life Surfing Club.

Darby said two boys were also injured while trying to

help. “They started descend-ing the cliff to get to the boy

despite my clear commands not to. Both fell, one lacerating his legs and the other spraining an ankle,” he said.

Around 40 teenagers attended the party. They were invited through a closed Facebook page that included a warning about the cliff at the bottom of the house.

Lewis was not on the party list but he and sev-eral other boys arrived with one of the invitees.

Taija Darby said she became aware of extra boys at around 10.15pm, about half an hour before the accident. “I said to my friend that we should kick them out and that’s when it

From page 1

happened,” she says.“I knew them and they are nice people, but

next time I would tell my mum and dad straight away about them rather than wait,” she says.

Darby says he and wife Diana did not supply alcohol to the teenagers, but some of them brought beers and pre-mixes.

• In January 2015, Lewis was one five surfers who saved a mother and her two teenage sons from drowning at Bethells Beach. The surfers hoisted the swimmers, who were caught in a rip, onto their boards and paddled them to safety, a New Zealand Herald story said.

Accident site…the cliff Lewis Mennie fell down

Sold winning Lotto ticket… Grant Hayward

A Devonport couple has won a $500,000 Lotto prize – from a ticket bought by another Devonport local as a thank you for a favour.

The winning ticket was sold at Hayward’s Paper Power and shared half the $1million prize in a Wednesday Lotto drawn in Jan-uary.

Hayward’s Paper Power owner Grant Hayward said the couple was “over the moon” with the win.

He said he understood the winning ticket was bought by another Devonport local as

a thank-you gesture for “looking after his daughter-in-law.”

“It was a much appreciated favour and in return he bought them a Lotto ticket.

“It is a great feel-good story and how good things come to fruition, karma and all those sorts of things.”

It is the 15th First Division Lotto ticket Haywards has sold since Lotto began in 1987. The Victoria Rd stationers sold the first ever Lotto winning ticket and for many years was the luckiest Lotto shop on the North Shore.


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Katherine Badham’s win in the New Zea-land Junior Triathlon champs automatically qualifies her for the Triathlon Junior World Championships in Mexico in September.

Katherine (17) says she went to the Wellington Sovereign Tri Series qualifying event determined to win. “I knew the first person across the line would gain automat-ic qualification for the junior worlds, and I would have been disappointed with any other placing. It’s good to know where I am going with the rest of the year and what I am building towards,” she says.

Her improved swim time was a big part of the win. “I came out of the water nowhere near as far back as I have done previously, which is a big positive for me in what is my weakest discipline,” she says.

On the bike, Katherine moved to the front of the field halfway through the race. “The competitors - including myself – were a bit shocked that I managed to do this, I think.”

When she exited transition with seven girls onto the run, the pressure was on. “I ran out of transition hard and the only way I know how to – go hard from the start and then tough it out until the finish,” she says.

The race plan worked and Katherine fin-ished around 20 seconds clear of the chasers.

The Wellington win in late January has opened multiple doors for Katherine. “I have now been given the opportunity to go the Gold Coast for two two-week training camps, races in Fiji and Japan, training camps with the high-performance squad down in Cambridge and training in Florida, USA – all to gain international experience and to ensure I have an ideal build-up for September,” she says.

Until then, Katherine is also working away in her last year at Takapuna Grammar School. “I’ll now be training very hard, keep-

Victory in Wellington a passport to Mexico

ing healthy and injury-free, and of course trying to keep on top of my school work as Year 13 is a big year,” she says.

The junior worlds are part of the World Triathlon Series Grand Final being held on the Mexican island of Cozumel.

Determination… Katherine Badham dug in on the run at the New Zealand champs to guarantee her a spot at the worlds

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A new $19,560 feasibility study to integrate Ngataringa and Dacre Parks has resulted in three options, which still see North Shore United Football Club and nearby residents at logger-heads over how the area should be developed.

Option one has a full artificial pitch and a slightly smaller one on Dacre Park, where North Shore’s Allen Hill Stadium is located. It retains a grass field on Ngataringa Park for the club to use. Additional parking is proposed, adjacent to the fields.

Option two is an artificial soccer pitch on Ngataringa Park. The current grass pitch at Allen Hill Stadium would become sand-based.

Option three is a full artificial field at Allen Hill Stadium replacing the grass pitch on Nga-taringa Park with a sand-based pitch.

The soccer club prefers option one, its spokes-man Steve Browning told a Devonport-Takapu-na Local Board workshop last week.

It emphasises sporting activities and comes closest to the club’s own vision for Allen Hill Stadium, he said.

The residents of Abbotsford Terrace and Victoria Road prefer option two, where the Allen Hill pitch would remain sand-based and a native glade would be planted near Abbotsford Terrace, shielding residents from noise. Car parking would be provided within Ngataringa Park.

A further report on the contamination of the site and the stability of the closed landfill is yet to be released and could throw yet another spanner into the works.

Moreover, no additional funding has been secured for any of the upgrades proposed in the feasibility study (apart from $2.4 million, which would cover only the artificial turf pitches). Nu-merous unknown factors associated with the site made any cost estimates virtually impossible at this stage, council staff told the board.

The Opus International Consultants report aims to resolve a number of other issues, in-cluding the possible relocation of the skatepark, a separation of recreation and business traffic around the new recycling centre and the pro-vision of further activities in the park, such as playgrounds, basketball courts and even a cafe.

This is not the first study into the sites, with three sepaprate reports in less than four years. In 2004, a Ngataringa Park, Dacre Park Reserve Management Plan was conducted. There was an eight-year hiatus until the Ngataringa Park Development Plan in 2012. Last year a proposal was issued to recap much of Ngataringa Park. Furthermore, the new operator for the adjacent recycling centre plans to reconfigure the layout of and access to the centre in the near future.

The most recent (Opus)feasibility report was triggered by residents, who expressed concerns about potential issues – traffic, noise, light, and smells – the after the soccer club had secured council funding for artificial turf pitches at Allen Hill Stadium.

Board member Mike Cohen said relocating the artificial field to Ngataringa Park (option 2) could impact residents on Bulwer Street and Ngataringa Road.

No end in sight to turf wars at Ngataringa Park

Option 1 (above)

Option 2 (above) and option 3 (below)

February 12, 2016 The DevonporT FlagsTaFF page 7 The Flagstaff Notes

By Rob Drent

Once again the public has missed out in a government-sanctioned sell-off of Devonport land as part of a Treaty of Waitangi settlement.

This time it is Defence land at Torpedo Bay that has been sold to Maori for $2.3 million.

After years of behind-closed-doors negoti-ations, the 0.58 ha block was sold as part of the Ngai Tai ki Tamaki Settlement with Ngati Whanaunga, Ngati Tamaoho, Ngati Koheriki and Marutuahu Collective.

At issue with this piece of land is the marginal strip, which the Crown has set aside as six me-tres up to 10 metres in some places.

The laws governing marginal strips are set out in the Conservation Act 1987: “There shall be deemed to be reserved from the sale or other disposition of any land by the Crown a strip of land 20 metres wide extending along and abutting the landward margin.”

The Crown can reduce the size of the mar-ginal strip and it can also publicly notify the reduction so people can make submissions. It chose not to notify.

Local MP Maggie Barry, who as Conserva-tion Minister, has the final say, told the Flagstaff

last year she was happy with the marginal strip provisions at Torpedo Bay.

But once again Devonport people have had no say in what happens to a publicly owned piece of coastal land.

Likewise the public was shut out in the sell-off of Narrow Neck land to Ngati Whatua – land earmarked as parkland when Defence vacated. But which the National government circumvented by a law change.

In that case submissions to a select committee held at Orakei Marae proved a farce.

And now Auckland Council’s ability to influ-ence Treaty claim detail appears to be limited.

Added to the government sell-off of re-claimed coastal land at Bayswater – again with no public consultation – National has a very poor copybook on consultation with Devonport. But would it have been any different under La-bour? Probably not, given the party’s silence on the issues surrounding Treaty claims.

Council-commissioned consultants, rather than laughing all the way to bank, must be standing in the front the tellers with a permanent smile on their faces. The latest fiasco is the Opus plan for Ngataringa Park. Various options have been put forward, but there is no money to pay for them (expect budget for improvements to the soccer pitch).

And all the options could be blown out of the water after a further report on the status of the clay cap over the park.

Some of the blame for these ‘road to no-where’ concepts must fall on the board members who commission them.

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A Cheltenham developer, who demolished, lifted and partially extended his 1933 bungalow in the Residential 3C Zone has been granted retroactive consents by council with no fines for the illegal work.

Steve Barrett’s plans to turn the one-storey hipped-roof bungalow at 84 A Vauxhall Rd into a three-level, five-bedroom, three-bathroom house complete with media game room, cellar bar, library and scullery, have been green-light-ed with resource consent approval.

Barrett has been on the radar of council’s consent team since July 2013 for a string of offences. Since then he has received two no-tices-to-fix orders, plus an abatement notice to stop work.

Now, an independent commissioner has granted retroactive consent for the demolition and construction work already done and further planned. Barrett has not been fined for any of his previous breaches.

The plans for the rear section, located on a cliff and within the foreshore yard area, include numerous works restricted under the

Three storey house given ok in heritage zone: Council signs off

rule-breaking development

operative North Shore District Plan, such as excavations in the foreshore yard area deeper than 1.5 metres. Barrett will excavate to nearly twice that depth.

Developments are not permitted to intrude into the 15-metre foreshore area, But 65% of Barrett’s house, (or 121 square metres) does and and consent has been granted for this by council as a non-complying activity.

Height in Relation to Boundary infringe-ments on neighbouring properties have also been approved.

The retroactive consents leave Barrett’s neighbour Robert Weber completely disil-lusioned with the regulatory process. “The moral for every developer: don’t worry about the rules, just do whatever you like and find a pliable commissioner to sign off all your deeds retroactively,” he says.

“As neighbours our only option for redress would be applying for an injunction against council at the High Court on very narrow per-missible grounds – something that would cost several hundred thousand dollars,” he says.

An application to change a planned cafe at the Masonic apartment development to offices should be notified, says Councillor Chris Darby.

“As one who was around through the En-vironment Court hearings when much was made of retaining the historic use of hospi-tality in the building through the provision of a café, I believe there to be a strong case for notification of any change in use.”

Darby said notification of the change sought should be, at the minimum, to sub-mitters to the original application, and partic-ipants in the Environment Court hearing on the Masonic apartments. Both groups should be able to put their views forward.

Promising schoolboy cricketer Jock Mc-kenzie scored a century for Westlake Boys High School in the New Zealand Community Trust Year 9 tournament.

McKenzie scored 116 against Macleans College. He followed that up on Wednes-day with 77 against Auckland Grammar the next day.

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McKenzie hits century

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Budget for wharf developments resurfacesBayswater ferry terminal appears to be back

on the radar.The project has been on again-off again

over the last decade. It was finally dumped due to lack of budget.

However, it now seems to be on again ,with Auckland Transport (AT) holding confidential workshops for local boards and briefings for councillors and council officers.

If the ferry terminal redevelopement does get the go-ahead, it’s likely to be allocated less than half the original $8 million budget.

The Flagstaff understands that as part of the wharf project at Bayswater, greater security would be offered to Takapuna Grammar Row-ing, which has been in a temporary location at Bayswater for years. A briefing about Bay-

swater was given to the Devonport-Takapuna Local Board last week by AT officials.

Briefings to the board are supposed to be public after a succesful Flagstaff campaign to attend the meetings. However AT has always been uncomfortable with the set-up.

Sources close to the briefing have told the Flagstaff that they could see no reason the Auckland Transport item needed to be considered under commercial confidentiality.

Takapuna Grammar Rowing Club president Chris Hume refused to comment when asked by the Flagstaff how the rowing club was affected by recent AT plans.

The Flagstaff has filed a request under the Official Information Act to make the briefing documents public.

Further work on Devonport Wharf likelyThe partially renovated Devonport

Wharf looks likely to be completed, with Auckland Transport showing some desire to front up with the money.

One-third of the wharf has been upgraded over the past couple of years. But there was no budget for the remainder, which has left some, especially tourists, bemused. Toilets on the wharf remain in an appalling state.

A source close to the project said there seemed to be some impetus from Auckland Transport to complete the renovation.

The time frame is unknown.

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A surveillance camera on Devonport Wharf has been easily outmanoeuvred by bike thieves.

The camera, located on the roof of the ferry building, points close to the bike rack located under an awning on Victoria Wharf – but not at it.

Sebastian Clark (14) found this out last week after he returned on the ferry from St Peter’s College and found his white Mon-goose mountain bike was gone.

Sebastian and his mother Nicki Sumicz returned to the wharf at 6 pm to investigate.

“We also grabbed the security guard and he said he already knew about it,” says Sumicz.

He told them that two witnesses had spo-ken to one of his colleagues in the morning. “They had seen two people with bolt cutters at around 11 am. He also told us that more than one bike was stolen,” she says.

Wharf security cameras missing the point

Encouraged, Sumicz then called Auck-land Transport (AT) asking them to check their surveillance camera footage to iden-tify the thieves.

“At first I was told that there was no foot-age because the cameras were not linked up because of budgetary issues.

“Then they called back and said they had checked the footage but the security cameras were not aimed at the bike racks, which are also hidden under an awning,” says Sumicz. AT also said they are waiting on a report from Armourguard.

Sebastian says he often wondered whether his bike would be stolen from the wharf one day. The security guards rarely patrol the side of the wharf where the bike racks are located, he says.

The Flagstaff found two security camer-as attached to the roof of the ferry building. They were not pointed directly at the bikes

or scooters, only in the vicinity of them.The wharf has been under 24-hour sur-

veillance since its spruce-up for the 2011 Rugby World Cup.

• In the January 29 Flagstaff, Devonport Community Constable Jasmine Bundle re-ported an attempted bike theft on the wharf.

Stolen bike…cameras and guards at the wharf were not much help for Sebastian Clark and his mother Nicki Sumicz


Wakatere’s golden year on the water continuesWakatere father-and-son team Andrew and

Cam Brown have won the 2016 Sunburst Nationals in Lyttleton – their third title in row.

Cam had his ninth birthday a few days before the nationals.

The 2015-16 season is turning into one of the Narrow Neck-based club’s most successful ever.

In other results, Paul Snow-Hansen and sail-ing partner Dan Willcox won the New Zealand 470 Nationals held off Manly, Whangaparaoa.

Josh Shon came first in the Auckland Opti champs in Maraetai, with Brayden Hamilton in third, from an Open fleet of 105 sailors.

In the age-group results, George Rush was first and Robbie Woolridge second among the 11-year-olds in the Open fleet. Joshua Hyde was second among the 12-year-olds. Alex Norman was third among the 10-year-olds and Brody Cooper third in the 12-year-olds Green fleet.

Henry Haslett and sailing partner Josh Berry came second in the Australian 420 Nationals at the Woollahra Sailing Club, Sydney.

Francesco Kayrouz (13) came third overall in the Starling National Match Racing Champs at Glendowie Boating Club Francesco was the youngest competitor, with sailors representing regions from all over New Zealand.

Wakatere’s commodore Ben Morrison won this year’s OK Dinghy Hurricane Classic in

Wellington and was second at the OK Dinghy nationals a few weeks earlier in Napier.

Peter Kempkers came third overall in the Standard Masters and first overall in the Grand Masters at the New Zealand Laser Nationals in Wellington.

Top team… Andrew and Cam Brown in action on the water

The results follow on from Wakatere sailor Robbie McCutcheon winning the rare double – Tanner and Tauranga Cups in P-class sailing – and Alice Haslett finishing top girl in the Tauranga Cup (both featured in the January 29 Flagstaff).


Valentine’s Day is celebrated on February 14 – that is this Sunday guys! It is the festival of romantic love and many people give cards, letters, flowers or presents to their partner – why not lingerie! We have a lovely selection of gifts from pants in cupcake boxes at just $19.90 to lace bodysuits or sexy chemise nighties. All gifts are wrapped for you, and can come with an exchange card. Or try a gift voucher to spoil your significant other.

Our end-of-season sale is now on too. Can you believe it’s now halfway through summer? Pop in to get a great bargain - at least 20% off and up to 50% off summer nightwear, robes, swimwear, resort wear and NZ-made towelling scuffs.

The sale also includes our toddler swimwear and the Funkita children’s swim range.

.

Phone 445 8347Open 7 Days

Shop 2, Queens Paradewww.donna.co.nz

with Donna Gustafson

Did you see Heidi Klum was in NZ last week? – To celebrate her visit we have your Heidi Klum brief range on sale at $10 a pair. Plus we have a great deal on the Pleasure State White T Shirt Bra at $39.95, saving $15. Just until the end of February so get in quick

Devonport ballerinas Gabrielle Jones (16) and Alice Cunliffe (18) are currently performing in the New Zealand production of Phantom of the Opera that is being staged at the Civic Theatre, Auckland.

Both girls have been studying dance with Christine Snowball at the Devonport School of Dance – Gabrielle since she was four and Alice since she was seven after moving from the UK.

The pair have been rehearsing since November. But in the lead up to the show, late nights now occur daily. “Now that school has started I get by with very little sleep,” says Gabrielle, who is in Year 12 at Takapu-na Grammar School (TGS) She is also part of the TGS Cactus Dance Company.

But the girls say it’s all worth it just to be on stage at the majestic Civic.

Alice, who is about to start an arts degree at Auckland University, says: “It just takes your breath away when you look up at the three tiers; the red and gold and the starry sky.”

Both Gabrielle and Alice have danced on other Auckland stages, including the Aotea Centre, Maidment Theatre, Q Theatre, Sky-city Theatre and the Bruce Mason Centre.

Alice eventually wants to perform pro-

fessionally following in the footsteps of her mother Maxine, who was a teacher at St Leo’s Catholic School and is now is a professional theatre and TV-commercial actor. Alice recently signed on with her mother’s agent.

Gabrielle just started the International Baccalaureate programme at TGS. “But being involved in amateur theatre on the way is something I really love,” she says.

The show runs from February 11 until March 5 at the Civic Theatre.

Phantom of the Opera the real thing for dancers

Star turn at the Civic… dancers Alice Cunliffe (left) and Gabrielle Jones


In conjunction with the Devonport Business Association,The Devonport Flagstaff is launching a shop-local initiative.

Each month an advert for the association will feature three Devonoport businesses providing

special offers available to Flagstaff readers. The deal is valid for a fixed period of time.

If your business has a special offer for Flagstaff readers, please contact the Devonport Flagstaff at

[email protected] for more details and costings.

If the initiative is successful we will look at running it each issue.

Shop local • Take care of the environment • Keep cars off Lake Rd!

Rob Drent, EditorThe Devonport Flagstaff

Advocating community-based childcare…Tessa Dunleavy

Amidst the furore about the proposed But-terbee Childcare Centre at 159 Victoria Road, the Flagstaff has discovered alternative plans for a community owned childcare centre have been in the works since 2014.

Tessa Dunleavy is behind the proposal and says she has even found the ideal location, in a council-owned villa at 56 King Edward Pde.

Dunleavy has worked at the Devonport Community House crèche for 21 years, has been its manager since 2006 and has provided care for hundreds of local children. In 2008 she won a national teaching excellence award.

Dunleavy has made some progress with the Devonport-Takapuna Local Board.

“At the end of 2014, we were shown through one of the three former park-ranger houses on Torpedo Bay and it met all of our requirements. And last May we gave council our business plan,” Dunleavey says.

The villa has plenty of safe and unused weekday car parking, it has fencing and it meets Ministry of Education (MoE) licensing criteria, she says. It has no neighbours and the site offfers easy access to Devonport’s natural environment, including parks and beaches.

Dunleavy believes it is an ideal place to pro-vide quality full-day child care for 30 children and part-time care for an additional 10 children.

Quality is her guiding principle. “It’s all about staffing and group sizes,” she says, add-ing that MoE requirements of one teacher per five babies or ten children two years and older, are the bare minimum in her view.

“From there you build quality because ac-tually five babies can’t be looked after by one teacher. It’s impossible,” she says.

Planning a centre for a group of 40 children is also about quality, she says. “With larger groups the children simply get too much noise stimulation over a whole day. It would be like working in a loud factory for 12 hours if you were an adult.

“Anything more than 50 we call ‘farming’ in the industry,” she says.

Affordability is Dunleavy’s second priority. “The cost of real estate in Devonport means it’s not possible to set up a commercially viable childcare centre. To make it financially viable either the quality has to go down or the cost has to go up,” she says.

If run under the umbrella of the Devonport Community House, like the crèche, all funds would stay in the centre and benefit the children and their parents, she says. “I personally just

Another childcare centre in the pipelinedon’t believe you should make money out of children.

“At the crèche, for example, we cap the cost of childcare at $40 a week, no matter how many sessions a child attends, because that’s what we consider affordable. And if there is a single parent or someone loses a job or has a hard time, we consider that as well,” she says.

Location of the centre is also key. Dunleavy rejected another coun-cil-owned building along Lake Rd because of traffic safety. “These are stressed parents who pick up tired children at the end of the day. Getting in and out of the centre needs to be safe,.”

Yellow no-parking lines will be painted all the way along the Lake Rds cycle lanes this May.

The line-marking is part of a city-wide programme by Auckland Transport and a new approach to keeping parked cars out of cycle lanes. Even though parking in cycle lanes is illegal, cars are often found parked blocking the lanes along the side of Lake Rd.

Not-so-Mellow yellow


A new $90,000 zebra

crossing proposed for outside White’s Dairy has raised eye-brows among nearby neigh-bours, as there are two other crossings close by.

Helene Thomas, who has lived on Vauxhall Road since 2007, says the plan to upgrade a small traffic island into a pedestrian crossing makes no sense.

“We already have a cross-ing 120 metres to the right near the kindergarten and 150 metres to the left at Holy Trinity Church.

“ I can’t see why it is a pri-ority for Auckland Transport to spend $90,000 on a third one in the middle,” Thomas says.

Thomas, who has three children and whose husband sits on the Devonport Primary School board, has been lobby-ing for a safer school crossing on St Aubyn Street for years without gaining any traction with Auckland Transport (AT).

“And other areas like Albert Rd, which has no crossing at all, that could really use one,” she says.

Zebra crossings for Africa

Thomas says she also worries about the loss of car parking spaces indicated in AT plans. “Parking around here is already com-promised during the rugby season, so I am a bit worried about that too,” she says.

Misdirected spending…Helene Thomas, pictured with daughters Noemie (12) and Rianon (9), questions the need for another crossing on Vauxhall Road

Submissions on the Vauxhall Rd crossings close on February 12. AT did not respond to queries about the reason for the crossing or guidelines for the installation of pedestrian crossings, before the Flagstaff went to press.

www.bayleys.co.nzAll companies within this composite are Members of Bayleys Realty Group

Olde world charm meets modern day living. This stylish fully renovated four bedroom/en-suite

home was selected for the 2015 Fine Homes Tour of Devonport. The vendors have artistically

transformed this pretty eco-friendly villa with flair, imagination and incredible attention to

detail. You can move in and enjoy comfortable easy living and entertaining in the open plan

lounge, dining and designer kitchen area which opens completely to an expansive louvered

deck and level, safely fenced, sunny, private, landscaped gardens, perfect for children and

pets. An attic retreat offers a second living space with a wide tranquil outlook. Completing

this character home is plenty of storage and garaging currently used as a studio. Proudly

located in a quiet street close to Devonport village, ferry to the CBD and city, shops, parks,

transport, beaches and excellent schools. This is a "must view" property.

25 Roslyn Terrace, Devonport

Auction 1.30pm, Thurs 25 Feb 2016 (unless sold prior)28 Northcorft Street, Takapuna

View Sat/Sun 11.00 - 11.45amwww.bayleys.co.nz/1470126Lynda Betts M 021 278 3024B 09 487 [email protected] REAL ESTATE LTD, DEVONPORTLICENSED UNDER THE REA ACT 2008

Fred Van UrkM 021 600 1333B 09 487 [email protected] REAL ESTATE LTD, TAKAPUNALICENSED UNDER THE REA ACT 2008

A MODERN DAY VICTORIAN VILLA






A while ago I read something in Joel Cray-ford’s blog that resonated with me.

Joel said: “Local government amalgama-tion, centralisation and corporatisation has pretty well gutted local communities of the nucleus of local democracy. The same issues exist, but without that institutional focus,

local communities are disempowered and their ability to make a difference reduced.”

This is especially true in Devonport, now we reside in the Auckland Supercity. Whereas we once had six community board members looking after 19,000 people, we now have six local board members looking

after 60,000. Everything is now removed. Contact with our representatives, issues and most of all, local democracy – a chance to collectively voice our opinions.

It is my understanding that after two Auckland Council elections, which we have had, the opportunity to review the local board structure can be undertaken. But what I have found out is that it can only be reviewed by the Local Government Commission, and only after it has been established that there is enough community support. And that is just the start of the process.

What I would like to know is how many in Devonport would support an endeavour to disconnect with the Devonport-Takapuna Local Board and establish a separate Devon-port Local Board.

In the interest of greater democracy?Roger Brittenden

Time for Devonport breakawayLetters

There is little evidence that Auckland Transport have any idea at all what they want to achieve with Devonport Wharf. At huge expense we have the extension of the Victoria Rd footpath and its indifferent connection with the old building. This foot-path appears to have been built to support several ten-ton trucks. Several quite useful shops have been destroyed. But we now have a fully glazed east wall and new verandah which presumably is the “front” of the proposed restaurants. If these res-taurant/s take up the whole of the inside of

the building, servicing will take place on the west deck, which ferry travellers also use. Who provides the kitchens, stores, fridges, toilets and rubbish and where? It is hardly surprising that no caterers have jumped at this ‘golden opportunity’. And what has happened to the monstrous proposed bus shelter we were shown last year?

Of course everything is now so much better with these wonderful new stand-alone organisations, than in the bad old days of the city council.

Denys Oldham

Devonport Wharf: redevelopment or regression?

Your correspondent and cycling advocate, Chris Werry is bang on with his observations of heritage, cars and Lake Rd.

The piece that is priceless is how enslaved Devonport residents are to their motors with no thought to the impact on ecology and future generations. How laughable it is that self-titled greenies buy cars from Europe and ignore the excellent and reliable product from our neighbours around the Pacific rim.

I saw a comment online from a protagonist to the 159 Victoria Rd childcare proposal, complaining about air quality and soot on

her car permanently parked opposite. Pity we have the double standards of bemoaning pro-gress but staunchly using a busy main road for garaging. And yes, it’s a European car.

Perhaps the future generations will pass through that childcare centre and prove how selfish this generation has been with their handbags on four wheels.Ian Ferguson

Letters to the EditorLetters to the Editor are wel-

c o m e . T h e y s h o u l d re l a t e t o Devonport issues. Unsigned or nom-de-plume letters will not be published. Email letters to devon-p o r t f l a g s t a f f @ o rc o n . n e t . n z o r post to Devonport Flagstaff, PO Box 32-275, Devonport.

Car owners custodians of double standards

©Copyright OceanFun Publishing Ltd www.ofu.co.nz

DevonportTides

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Harcourts of Devonport Property ManagementPut the management of your rental property in safe hands.

www.harcourts.co.nz

CONTACT Larissa Williams P 446 2108 M 021 960 313 E [email protected]


In-store Naturopath and Pharmacists

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A woman representing the owners of 159 Victoria Road (proposed childcare centre), solicited my opinion on the resource consent application in a public location, without iden-tifying herself or who she was representing, and without explaining her intent.

Once the representative established that I was unlikely to make a supporting submis-sion, she refused to give me an Auckland Council submission form, which she had a pile of on her clipboard. Only after further questioning did I discover her intent and representation.

This practice of actively seeking supporting submissions and actively blocking opposing submissions is an unjust attempt to subvert the resource consent submissions process. I expect their method is also illegal.

Ironically, I was only slightly in opposition to the proposal before this event. This practice has set me decidedly against it.

In addition to these unfair practices, the lo-cation is already over-congested and difficult to navigate safely, as thoroughly discussed in 2015 issues of the Flagstaff. I live just over 100 metres south on Victoria Road, and

frequently pass through this intersection on bicycle, foot, motorcycle and motor vehicle. I have had numerous near misses with buses, turning vehicles, and parked vehicles moving back into the traffic.

Additional traffic in this location will most likely cause an accident in the near future. It will also add significantly to traffic that is already frequently blocked up by Lake Road traffic, especially at peak times, when the centre will receive most traffic.

Having said that, I do support having more childcare centres in Devonport. I have a four-year-old who commutes to Takapuna for kindergarten because there are insufficient childcare facilities in Devonport. However, 159 Victoria Road is not the correct location for a new childcare centre in Devonport.

Finally, the removal of the beautiful trees that shaded the yard of 159 Victoria Road has left it bare, exposed and sunny; this is not a good environment for toddlers, who need shade and thrive in natural surroundings.

If you wish to make a submission (for or against) the deadline is February 9.Bevan Rudge

Childcare centre’s tactics shock local resident

I would like to second what was said in the “Tax collection masquerading as speed control” letter in the Jan 29 issue. Every single person I know has gotten a ticket during the past month or so. All were for going 53-55km/h, mostly 54km/h.

I used to respect and admire the local police, but not any more.

I’m retired now, but I used to do traffic studies for the U.S. Federal Highway Administration. The data shows that whatever is the average traffic speed on any given road IS the safe driving speed.

I’d say the average speed on that section of Lake Rd is around 55-60k/h. On the other hand, the average speed on Victoria Rd through the village is probably close to 35-40k/h. Both areas have speed limits of 50k/h. So what is that telling us? The speed limits are unrealistic and should be changed. The cops know this, and that’s why their camera van is located where it is.

My recommendation: when you see it, flash your lights at the oncoming traffic. That’s not illegal.

Steve Nielsen

Speeding fines lessen respect for police

Letters

445 9533 | [email protected]

OUT & ABOUTwith MARIA TEAPE

027 245 3392 [email protected]

0800 248 521 [email protected]

Carol WetzellProudly supported by

Ian Cunliffe

Devonport 09 445 2010 | www.barfoot.co.nz

Kids Athletics series - Free

tuesdays, 4pm-6pm February 16th, 23rd & March 1st, 8th

Vauxhall sports reserve (rugby club Grounds), devonport

Children aged 5ish – 11ish can have fun giving activities like high jump, shot put and running races a go! Bring a hat and water, and register upon arrival. For more info, contact Carolyn or Maria at 445 9533 or [email protected]

deVonport coMMunity networK MeetinG

thursday 18th February, 10am-12pmdevonport yacht club, 25 King edward pde,

devonport (wheelchair accessible)A quarterly meeting to promote networking

among residents and local community groups. All welcome and morning tea provided. For

more info, contact Maria on phone: 445 9533 or email: [email protected]

FolK in the pArK sunday 21st February, 1pm-4pm

Band rotunda, windsor reserve, devonportSit back and relax while listening to free live music on Devonport’s stunning waterfront.

There will be food and drink for sale or bring a picnic to enjoy. There will also be a preschool play zone to keep the little ones entertained

(caregiver supervision is required). For more info call Hillary ph: 445 2227

or email: [email protected]

street Get-toGethers Devonport Peninsula Trust has some funding available to encourage people living in the

Devonport peninsula area (Devonport to Hauraki Corner) to get

together with their neighbours. For further info please contact

Maria on ph: 445 9533 or email [email protected]

devonport peninsula community enewsTo receive the Devonport Peninsula eNEWS,

a monthly email listing of community events, and other community notices, please email us

at [email protected]

with special thanks to the devonport-takapuna local Board for funding the devonport peninsula trust.

445 9533 | [email protected]

The DevonporT FlagsTaFF page 18 February 12, 2016Interview

Devonport has provided the ideal backdrop for Maya Nova’s path through Buddism to mindfulness.

In a society where materialism and earning a living can dominate people’s lives, Nova says it is possible to integrate mindfulness into the day.

Mindfulness is the practice of focus-ing attention on the present moment.

“Yoga is a big part of my life, especial-ly my morning routine. When I wake up, I jump on my bike and ride to Narrow Neck, swim to the buoy and back and walk up to Fort Takapuna, where I spend about 10 minutes under a tree doing yoga stretches and meditating. It sets me up for my whole day.

“When I step on my bike, I am in the magic of life. I enjoy being out in the open and in my body while I happen to get from A to B. Sometimes less is more. The simplicity that giving up the car brings is positive and nourishing,” she says

Another part of the richness of Nova’s life is parenting her teenage children Ananada (16) and Niko (14), who both go to Takapuna Grammar School.

Nova, who is Serbian born, came to mindfulness as an ordained Buddhist nun. In 2005, she opened the Compas-sion Buddhist Centre in an old villa on the corner of Calliope Rd and Summer St, with her Kiwi husband. The centre ran for two years until Nova’s marriage ended and she looked for a more main-stream life.

Nova sees that time as “quite an ex-treme path” to where she is now, but says following it was crucial to who she is.

“I rose a bit like a Phoenix from the ashes. I needed to find a more integrated way of being, and to have a more normal life with two children, but I do like to honour that path.”

Maya enjoying the present momentMaya Nova arrived in Devonport 11 years ago as an ordained Buddhist nun, complete with orange robes and a shaved head. These days, the mother of two teenagers has settled on an outward style of her own and teaches mindfulness. She spoke to Maire Vieth.

Nova grew up in Serbia when it was part of communist Yugoslavia. It was a gentler version of the kind of communist country you normally think of, she says. “I had a beautiful childhood.” Nova was one of three children. Her father was a pathology professor and her mother was “artistic and bohemian”.

The family lived in an apartment building on the edge of Belgrade where life was character-ised by social equality. “There was no poverty gap. Even though we had an apartment, it came with a big backyard and the difference between the family of a cleaner and that of a professor was that our car and our apartment were slightly bigger than theirs. And we all benefited from things like free education,” she says.

But as an art student in late 1980s Belgrade,

Nova became increasingly aware of the system’s drawbacks. “I started to see the limitations, the propaganda, the brainwashing. Belgrade was very avant-garde, a bit like Berlin is now, a place where East meets West. Tlhose were formative years for me as a young person. I became in-volved in student protests against nationalism and in 1992, after the start of the Yugoslav war, I just wanted to get away,” she says. Slobodan Milosevic, (a Serbian nationalist) was President of Serbia from 1989 until 1997. He died in jail in The Hague in 2006 during a five-year trial for war crimes.

But Nova says her passion for mindfulness was ingnited in Belgrade as well. “I was stud-ying fine arts, painting and sculpture, but I also did philosophy and psychology papers. I

[email protected]

Incorporating mindfulness into everday life…Maya Nova


remember being in our apartment’s library and coming across a book called Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis by Erich Fromm, D. T. Suzuki and Richard De Martino. It changed my life,” she says.

During the first years of an arts masters degree, Nova felt increasingly stuck in a “grey and landlocked country.” With the financial support of her grandmother, she backpacked to Greece on her own. A three-week trip to the Mediterranean island of Santorini turned into two and a half years. “I stayed in this little village and was very much welcomed and looked after. I was basically a refugee. It was almost like a movie,” she says.

On Santorini, Nova also met her future Kiwi husband. After a brief stint back in Belgrade, they decided to try their luck again in the wider world, “but with embargoes in place during the Yugoslav war, my travel options were limited. Only a few countries would offer Serbians even a tourist visa,” she says.

In 1995, Nova arrived in Auckland and loved it instantly. “On my first walk through Ponsonby I became completely enamoured with the Victo-rian culture that has evolved in the Pacific: the mixture of villas, Pohutukawa, beaches, cabbage trees. Looking at them, I lost all sense of time and missed my flight to Wellington,” she laughs.

After travelling across the country, Nova settled at Bethells Beach for the next eight years. “I had my babies in a barn in the bush. I had a horse, a garden and stayed home to raise my children. They were challenging but good times,” she says.

Meditation slowly became a growing part of Nova’s life at Bethells. “I guess it helped me with a sense of dissatisfaction I still had. I discovered New Zealand’s Buddhist community and began to practice in earnest,” she says.

Nova says it was Buddism and now mind-fulness that eventually brought her the sense of “satisfaction” she had been craving for years, both in Yugoslavia and New Zealand. “I am

hugely passionate about it because it can make a big difference in people’s lives. It did in mine,” she says.

Mindfulness is not an escape from life’s chal-lenges, says Nova. “It’s not a magic pill at all, because life doesn’t go away. The same things still happen, but our relationship to those things changes. They become more manageable, less scary and less overwhelming for us,” she says.

“It can make such a difference for those who are perpetually stressed and anxious at work and offer them a sense of ‘I can respond calmly’, rather than to fall into an unintended rehearsal for disaster.”

Mindfulness is not a cheap fix for stressed-out employees but a way of life. “It’s not like you just ‘breathe, calm down and all will be well!’ Mindfulness needs to play out in the context of your entire life. It’s about integration and helping people through the clutter at work and at home. Life shouldn’t be a chore. It should be joyful. It’s short and we shouldn’t settle for less,” Nova says.

“And you might have to use other tools to get there as well, such as a counsellor, exercise, or not drinking five cups of coffee a day,” she says.

Nova has been part of groups like Devonport Transition Town, The Devonport Community Garden and Frocks on Bikes, but recently she has stepped back from community involvement to have more time for her kids. “Sometimes less is more and being the parent of my two beautiful teenage children is hugely important for me right now. It’s all about not collapsing out of control and losing them on the way,” she says.

Nova is working on bringing mindfulness to children and teenagers as well. Last year, she spoke to an audience of 130 teenage girls at Sacred Heart College, addressing issues of bullying, self-esteem and self-harm. Over New Year, she taught a course on mindfulness games

for children and parents at Prana Festival on the Coromandel.

She has also spoken at wellness and lead-ership forums at Auckland Council, Tower Insurance and Price Waterhouse Cooper (where she also runs workshops with their staff).

Nova has seen the field of mindfulness grow since she founded Mindbalance eight years ago. “More and more research into the neurosciences shows evidence of how beneficial mindfulness practices are,” she says. Such evidence is moving the once less conventional practice of Buddhist meditation right into the mainstream business world.

Nova coaches people on how to relieve stress at work and at home. She is particularly pas-sionate about promoting “mindful leadership,” which steps back from a hierarchical, male and rational model and towards valuing intuition, flexibility and cooperation when heading a professional team.

In her private life, Nova continues her own mindful journey.“I want to live my life in a place of happiness and joy. So I try to live each moment and each day well, because in the end those moments and days add up and they are my life,” she says.

ESTABLISHED 1971

24 Hour TowingDevonport Owned

and Operated

1 Fleet Street, DevonportPhone 445 0483

email: [email protected]

Dennis Hale & Nathan HaleESTABLISHED 1971

24 Hour TowingDevonport Owned

and Operated

1 Fleet Street, DevonportPhone 445 0483


Devonport 49A Albert Rd

4 2 1 3

Auction: 10:00am 18 Sep 2014 at Bruce Mason Centre, Takapuna (unless sold prior)View: Sat/Sun 2.00 - 2.45pm.www.barfoot.co.nz/527748

Central, Sunny and Oh So Quiet!

Tucked down the driveway in a very

central location sits this solid timber

home. An exciting opportunity for those

looking to ‘step in or stay in’ the

Devonport market. Warm and

contemporary it offers four bedrooms, a

second living room or ‘work from home’

option. A must see and rare find for those

looking to live the Devonport lifestyle! Trish FitzgeraldM 021 952 452

E [email protected] 09 445 2010

Toni GregoryM 021 044 3663A/H 09 446 1023E [email protected] 09 445 2010

1

2 3

OPEN HOME

Devonport 49A Albert Rd

4 2 1 3

Auction: 10:00am 18 Sep 2014 at Bruce Mason Centre, Takapuna (unless sold prior)View: Sat/Sun 2.00 - 2.45pm.www.barfoot.co.nz/527748

Central, Sunny and Oh So Quiet!

Tucked down the driveway in a very

central location sits this solid timber

home. An exciting opportunity for those

looking to ‘step in or stay in’ the

Devonport market. Warm and

contemporary it offers four bedrooms, a

second living room or ‘work from home’

option. A must see and rare find for those

looking to live the Devonport lifestyle! Trish FitzgeraldM 021 952 452

E [email protected] 09 445 2010

Toni GregoryM 021 044 3663A/H 09 446 1023E [email protected] 09 445 2010

1

2 3

OPEN HOME

Devonport 09 445 2010

Birkenhead 55A Tui Glen Road

4/5 3 2 2

For Sale: $999,000View: Sat/Sun 12.00-12.45pmwww.barfoot.co.nz/525323

Hidden Gem in Stunning Location

This spacious four bedroom block and

cedar home is just perfect. With open

plan lounge and well-designed kitchen

flowing beautifully out to an idyllic

entertaining area. A huge lower ground

floor gives flexible living options, and on

the upper level, a master bedroom,

en-suite and extra lounge. Adjacent to a

mature bush setting, the peace and quiet

is disturbed only by the sound of Tuis. Ian CunliffeM 0800 248 521A/H 09 445 3967E [email protected] 09 445 2010

Carol WetzellM 027 245 3392A/H 09 488 7559E [email protected] 09 445 2010

OPEN HOME

Devonport 100 Victoria Rd

6 2 6 2

For Sale: $2,499,000View: By Appointmentwww.barfoot.co.nz/511578

One of Devonport’s Finest Homes

This grand historical home is the perfect

combination of charming villa and

modern lifestyle. Six bedrooms, six

bathrooms, this home has previously

been operated as a B & B. The gracious

home with fabulous views of the Harbour

and Auckland City, has so many beautiful

features, all showcased on a 961m² site.

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Letters

Road users and residents afflicted by thoughtless cyclistsI ponder why, even after the years since

their establishment, I still feel offence at the seeming arrogance of the lycra bri-gade using the almost otherwise unused Devonport cycle lanes for velo-training. And worse, forming earnest pelotons endangering both themselves and others, while residents pay a daily price of ongo-ing loss of civic amenity, especially those along cycle lanes who without consultation discovered that they and their visitors no longer have street parking or stopping. There has to be a better way.

As Anzac Day appears on the horizon, my shame is that our precious Memorial Drive is also similarly seemingly thought-lessly afflicted. Philip Thoreau

As we greet our New Year, the anticipation, hopes and plans seem to be somewhat dimin-ished when considering the weather.

Camping plans shelved; travel not so much fun; and swimming just for the hardy.

However, walks round Devonport can be rewarding. Much can be seen from our ‘steel chariots’ – the ubiquitous car – but when on foot much more unfolds. Of course, when it’s raining precautions are taken to enable us to concentrate on the surroundings as we walk.

Among the benefits you can expect in an hour or so walking in Devonport are: close-ups of newly painted villas, the beauty of well-tend-ed gardens, and a historic feature or plaque. You may even meet one of the locals. In Church St history abounds – an ancient cricket club, the museum, dozens of beautiful houses and of course, Holy Trinity Church, from which the road gets its name. A quick count revealed around 20 jacaranda trees. From the footpath outside Holy Trinity Church can be seen a

small blue plaque on a tree. It’s a historic tree, with a protection badge from the Devonport Borough Council.

We are told that it is a mature Norfolk Is-land hibiscus. Each delicate pink flower is a miniature of bigger brother hibiscus five times larger. Step into the grounds of the church and from the blue carpet underfoot, admire close-up a prime example of the many jacaranda. If that were not a feast for the eyes, between these two trees is a bright splash of red. Is it a late pohutakawa? No, not the right colour or structure. It’s a rare rata. It would never be seen from the road. Probably best viewed with your back against the church wall, with gentle rain splashing on your face. I hope you are able to share this with others on your walk.

We spare a thought for the visionary from the Anglican parish who planted these mag-nificent trees. Surely the jewels in the crown of Devonport.

Frances and John O’Ferrall

Trees the jewels in Devonport’s crown

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Q

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Corporate greed masquerading as social serviceLet’s face it, most of us are devoted to

Devonport. We love it. It’s positive to fight degradation. It was heartening to see several people opposing the Maori-Ryman proposal in the last edition. It’s our council and MP allowing, behind our backs, this degradation. We should be mad with them, not Ryman. One thing I can say is that the speculators are not trying to build a monster out of concern for our elderly or to provide well-paid salaries for working people. They are cost/profit focused.

Two hundred units, at say $500,000 a buyer, plus ongoing expenses – living with Ryman in Ngataringa Bay with expansive city and sea views – sounds right. That’s $100 million straight. When you die you lose a third of your buy-in. They resell at the new price, plus annual body corp, medical, service fees etc. Good idea, that’s a lot of money driving sensi-tive souls caring for our elderly. It warms my heart to see such social responsibility. Most people don’t realise this mob can go broke like Southland Finance and the power would go out, the nurses and cleaners gone. Don’t worry though, the ABs and our MP would ask our leader to step in I guess, like they did for BNZ, Air NZ and Southland Finance. I love six-storey houses – hundreds of happy campers living in them waiting for God.

To divert for a moment, it was positive to read Ian Ferguson mentioning that we could all learn to drive better – 55kmp/h can relieve

congestion but costs 30 bucks each time you get pinged for dangerous driving, and keeping left if you are looking at pretty girls allows others to pass. Racing off on a green light, not leaving five or 10 car lengths will relieve the hideous backlogs on Lake Rd. Most of you, I hate to say, are morons behind the wheel. Cyclists have the delusional belief it’s OK to occupy the road three abreast using your lane – self-obsessed oddballs. I reckon these bikies turn ino the bad drivers of cars later in the day or on Sundays.

Taka to Devo in five minutes is possible, I’ve seen the cops do it, fly down here at 100km/h plus, lights and sirens on. Not sure why, driver training I guess. Anyway you lousy drivers are forcing automated cars on to our roads. Electric cars and Google cars on Lake Rd. We won’t need Auckland Transport (AT) to resolve the issues once automated cars arrive. It facilitates smooth fast safe transport, so we are belly-aching over nothing .

Reality is our MP and council staff appear to be puppets to higher powers. They don’t intend to solve local problems. Rather they are conspiring against us or creating problems using outdated tech. AT has no skills in traffic management or road design, evidently. Why are we not fighting our own rate-paid and elected representatives vandalising our town?

Our paper’s editor has been to India and seen what real crowding of housing and roads

is, real poverty – nice holiday to get you to adjust to Devo’s future. It’s a warning: conned by our leaders that growth of population and ever-increasing consumption is needed, big corporate companies are good too. Soon we’ll be a supercity like Bejing, where you can see the air you’re breathing and you can’t fall over in a crowded street. We need competition, they tell us in Wellington.

Devonport people love tranquillity, open spaces, clean air, beaches, good fishing, parks, family, community. This is all threatened by your MP: effectively she is attracting mass population growth right now, no true bene-fits to you, crowding our roads, housing and amenity areas. Speculation they call good foreign investment and growth. And the fishing is nearly stuffed. Sustainable policies and moderated redevelopment can maintain a good economy and a lifestyle we all want, without mass population growth.

The editor should be warned though about storing water and growing veges – that will cause Watercare to bill us harder; supermar-kets will up the price of veges to recoup their profits caused by you greenies’ activities. Next thing you’ll want solar power and power will go up too. Mr editor, what are you doing to us?

Start by voting out those who vandalise our town and promote corporate greed. Ron Dykman

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There is a local Justice of the Peace available at Devonport Library each Monday (except Public Holidays)

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Residents say the Stanley Bay foreshore is increasingly turning into a car park.

Peter Blackwell contacted council’s call centre on three separate days over Christmas, and was put through to Auckland Transport without getting anywhere.

“Then Auckland Transport notified us that officers no longer ticket vehicles in parks and that this was an Auckland Council parks department issue – not that they can ticket either,” he says.

Auckland Council Manager By-laws and Compliance told the Flagstaff that the issue of motorists parking on parks is a breach of the Public Safety and Nuisance By-law and can lead to court action with up to $20,000 fines.

“We encourage the public to report in-stances of breaches to council on 09 301 0101. It is important witnesses take down identifying features such as licence plate numbers, date and location of offending, and the make/model of the vehicle. Staff can then follow up directly with vehicle owners,” he says.

Blackwell says that “at the very least, I would have expected an officer from Auck-land Transport or Auckland Council to attend and tell people to move on.

“Given that my wife and I have made numerous calls to Auckland Transport, it

Park littered with cars upsets residents

would be interesting to see if there has been any follow-up or action,” he says.

Auckland Transport did not respond to Flagstaff queries before this issue went to press.

Cars parked illegally on the Stanley Bay foreshore leave residents frustrated by officials’ lack of response


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Obituary

Barry Brickell, one of New Zealand’s best-known potters, , who recently died aged 80, spent his formative years in Devonport and had a lifelong connection to the suburb.

It is probably as the creator of the Driving Creek Railway near Coromandel Town that Brickell achieved his greatest notoriety, attracting tens of thousands of visitors a year.

He spent more than 30 years designing and building New Zealand’s only narrow-gauge mountain railway, which weaves and spirals through spectacular native bush.

Brickell spent his childhood growing up in Devonport and returned in his 70s for a stint as a writer in residence at the Michael King Writers’ Centre on Mt Victoria.

He launched two of his books at the Depot Artspace: Rails Towards the Sky and Plastic Memories. The Depot also hosted his sell-out exhibition, My Last Ever Pottery Sale? in July 2014.

The Brickell family lived at 1 Tui Street in Cheltenham in a kauri villa, where Barry had kiln, and made pottery there from third form onwards.

He first went to Devonport Primary and then Vauxhall School, followed by Takapuna Grammar, where his love of art and the arts was encouraged as he had no desire for sports.

Devonport artists such as Keith Patterson also encouraged the young Brickell into painting and showed him how to make coiled sculptured pots.

His parents, Shirley and Maurice Brick-ell, were heavily involved in the original Devonport Arts Festival. Shirley was also a founding member of the Devonport Library Associates.

In a rare 2009 interview with the Flagstaff Brickell said of his father: “I was a bit of a disappointment to him because being the old-est of four siblings, a male, and the firstborn of all the cousins who lived in the vicinity as well, my father had great expectations of me.

“He expected me to have a secure pro-fession in life, because he didn’t have one thanks to the War and he wanted his sons to have stability and good professional careers.

“He expected me to have a nice wife and

produce lots of nice grandchildren for him and it didn’t work out like that. It went the other way.”

Brickell was something of a rebel from the start.

“I used to go around Devonport really fast on my bike. I knew every little corner, every street.

“I crawled through all the old tunnels at Duders brickworks and pinched bricks for my own kiln; explored the gasworks – that was a fantastic place.

“The gasworks was a Dantes Inferno sort of a place. I used to love its furnaces and fires and flames. There was a steam engine going, which quenched the glowing coke with a water jet to produce a spectacular volcanic-like eruption.”

Brickell’s love of fire was what got him started as a potter.

“I was in line to get the black-stick treatment (after lighting a fire). But mum said, ‘you can’t stop him, give him a plot out in the garden to play with fire.

“That’s how I was given a garden plot where

I finished building all my kilns and having a potters’ wheel and doing all my pottery there.”

Brickell said his parents were supportive when he began making pottery, “except when I pinched coal and wood off them”.

“The very first pots that I sold were beer mugs for Rex Fairburn, who lived round the corner more or less, and wine cups for Anthony Elpers, the author who lived at Torpedo Bay.

“Keith Patterson knew all these people and my father always made copious home-brewed beer. Keith would came along to my firing sessions. I fired my kiln into the night, and would crack open a few beers. He’d tell Rex and Anthony and other artistic people that lived around us, who came over and joined in.

“The world of artists was a new one to me and I just took it all in. I started doing masses of drawings, and I started painting as well as making pots.

After university Brickell moved to Coro-mandel Town because the place suited him.

“There were three reasons I went to Coro-mandel. The wild landscape and native forest that I loved.

“There was plenty of clay suitable for a potter. I knew that from my geology lessons at university. And it had direct access by sea to Auckland markets so I could be independent of cars and roads.

“All this was made possible by the railway. If it wasn’t for the railway, which took me 32 years to build, mostly with my own hands, I’d be struggling to survive now as a potter.

“I was absolved from all of that because of the railway. Income from the railway now surpasses income from all other sources combined.”

Devonport Museum has several examples of Brickell’s work in its collection.

Devonport helped mould Brickell’s unique character

Always had a soft spot for Devonport… Barry Brickell


Being caught on a burning boat is far from an ideal start to a holiday.

But the Laking family from Devonport did not let the dramatic event spoil their plans for an idyllic road trip around the East Cape in a 1982 VW Kombi van.

Anne and George Laking, their sons Robert (20) and Julian (16) and Anne’s mother Karin Bittmann were among the 60 passengers on board the PeeJay V, which caught fire off the coast of Whakatane on January 18 and sank two hours later.

The family lost most of what they had with them, including car keys, Eftpos and credit cards, driver’s licence, phones, pre-scription glasses, backpacks and binoculars.

“It’s all at the bottom of the ocean. And without it we asked ourselves, shall we go on or just go home?” says Anne.

“But my mum said let’s keep going. So instead of dwelling on what had happened to us, we now also have lots of nice mem-ories of a great holiday together,” she says.

The trip to White Island was an early birthday present for Karin, visiting from Germany and about to turn 78.

On the return trip, George noticed smoke. “We started to evacuate the main cabin, below which quickly filled up with dark smoke. Robert grabbed his phone and cam-era on the way out,” Anne says.

“The captain dropped the anchor and we asked for a life jacket for my mother. Then the flames started coming. The captain told us we had to jump, called a mayday and three or four other boats came to help us.

“I took off my shoes, my mother jumped first and Julian and I jumped straight after on either side of her before we were all pulled into one of the inflatable rescue boats. I have to say, being able to see land was a big relief during all of this.

“For a moment we didn’t know where Robert was, but he had jumped to a differ-ent rescue boat and was helping pull other people in. When we were all back on land and reunited that was quite an emotional moment,” says Anne.

Having the old VW turned out to be a blessing. “We were the only ones able to drive again the next day because our key is so basic and could be easily recut,” says Anne.

The Lakings also received help from Whakatane locals. “George got a pair of temporary prescription glasses from a local shop, we could stay an extra night at our bach for free and we got a new Eftpos card right away. So a day later, we set off again,” she says.

Anne estimates the family’s loss at around $6,000.

An official inquiry into the cause of the fire is under way.

Devonport family survives burning White Island boat fire

Drama at sea… Robert Laking took this photo of the burning boat from a rescue craft. The captain was still on board.

Back on firm ground.… Anne Laking (right) and her mother Karin Bittmann


Bright-red lipstick, rouge and nail polish appeared overnight on Mt Victoria’s stone sculpture of former New Zealand Prime Minister Robert Muldoon .

The graffiti vandalism has drawn renewed attention to the Allan Williams sculpture, which is called Anx. The piece was moved to Mt Vic from Western Park in Ponsonby in 1987 after it was attacked with an axe. Wil-liams was living in Devonport at the time.

Roger Giles, President of the Devonport Folk Club, which is located a few steps from the sculpture, says Anx is often mistaken for a large Tiki.

“I have heard the Bush and Beach tour guides from out west tell people it is an old Maori carving and I’ve told them what it is really about,” says Giles.

The Maunga Authority, which adminis-ters Mt Vic, cleaned off the graffiti after being told about it by the Flagstaff.

History of vandalism repeats itself on

Muldoon sculpture

Seeing red… Muldoon still incites strong feelings

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On board Royal PrincessDepart Auckland 16 Aug 2016

She had to post three letters and a Flagstaff photograph to Auckland Transport, but Mar-garet Ridge has finally won her fight over the $111.50 fine issued for parking her car along Windsor Reserve a day before last year’s

Auckland Marathon.Ridge (77) parks her car on the reserve

most days while going for a walk along the waterfront. She says there was no sign nearby to warn her of the temporarily changed parking restrictions on the eve of the marathon.

She told the Flagstaff she would not pay the fine on principle.

Auckland Transport (AT) reviewed Ridge’s first two letters but proceeded with enforcing the fee. “According to the parking officer’s notes, the signs were approximately 22 metres to the left of the vehicle and approximately 22 metres to the right. It is a driver’s responsibility to ensure that their vehicle is parked legally, in accordance with any signs in the area,” was the AT response.

Ridge did not give up. She sent AT a Decem-ber 4 Flagstaff photo of her car being towed, to demonstrate how far away the signs were from her park.

On December 23, Ridge received an early Christmas gift in the form of an apology. “Upon further investigation we will cancel the ticket. You therefore do not have to pay anything. We do apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused,” the AT letter says.

Pensioner persistence puts parking police in place

Portofino26 Victoria Rd, Devonport

Phone 09 445 3777www.portofinodevonport.co.nz

PORTOFINO SPECIAL$35 THREE-COURSE MENU

February-March


Phone COLIN on 480 5864

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Devonport’sLocksmith

Red Dragon Computers

Christopher Jones Ph 445 7810

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Providing IT support to Devonport’s home users and small businesses since 2001

Get it right first time with a Microsoft Certified Professional

• Fast, reliable & cost effective• Windows computers & iPad Setup• Wi-Fi networking and ADSL broadband• New computers custom built• Repairs, Upgrades, Servicing• Virus & Spyware removal

Vision examinationsGlaucoma checks

Contact lenses and solutionsSpectacle repairs

Driver’s licence certificates

The Arcade 6 Wynyard St, Devonport

Phone 215 9178W: CGC.CO.NZ | E: [email protected] TEL: 0800 622815 | MOB: 021 622815

Clean Green is delighted to have relocated back to Devonport, servicing the local community.

Now located at The Old Post Office 1st Floor - 3/10 Victoria Road

SALES, SERVICE & SUPPORT - PC’S, APPLE, LAPTOPS, iPHONES & iPADS

WE’RE BACK IN

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back!Dr. Adrian Stocco

The Arcade, Devonport 445 8030www.villagechiropractic.co.nz

SHUTTERS CURTAINS BLINDS

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DEVONPORT

The Beauty Space provides a range of personal, professional beauty therapy and wellness treatments for those wanting to escape for a moment to a peaceful, setting in Devonport.

The Beauty SpaceBeauty Therapy

and Wellness Clinic

Melinda OldhamFully QualifiedSkin / Beauty Therapist

Ph 445 9532 | Mob 0211 908 889email: [email protected]

Stockists of: Environ, OPI, Quoi mineral make-up, St Tropez Tan, RevitalashPh Stewart

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www.depotartspace.co.nzMonday 12pm to 5pm

Tuesday – Saturday 10am to 5pmSunday and Public Holidays

11am to 3pm

28 Clarence St, DevonportPh 963 2331

Daif King: Still ThoPaintings inspired by the ‘aspirational

language’ of commodity fetishism.

6 - 24 February

“My drawings are an attempt to feel the evolved, created, miraculous

beauty of the animal.”

Anderson / Claxton / Giles / Mickell:

Hunter Dreamer Stranger ThiefThemes of space and time, the ghostly, the dreamlike and the

poetic criss-cross throughout Hunter Dreamer Stranger Thief and create

parallel lines of investigation.

Bevan Smith: Animal Portraits

TAKAPUNA GRAMMARSCHOOL

Host Families needed for Takapuna

Grammar School International Students

Applications to become a host family for International students at TGS are always welcome from families who

would like to host, either short or long term.

Please ‘spread the word’ to your friends, family and contacts who live not too

far from TGS.

For further information please contact

[email protected]

Auckland Council’s signs, warning pas-sers-by about rat-bait stations along the bottom path of Mt Victoria, were moved last week after council noticed they were in the wrong spot.

The signs were placed on the mountain on January 19, after a member of the pub-lic complained about rats in the cemetery ground abutting the maunga near the Lake Rd roundabout.

Council rat traps have also been placed alongside a Norfolk pine on Memorial Drive that has been ringbarked by the rodents.

Rat poison in cemetery not up the mountain

A long-standing ban on collecting shellfish from Cheltenham Beach remains in place despite warning signs of the ban having been temporarily removed.

Last month, two Cheltenham Beach res-idents notified the Flagstaff that the signs were missing and that they have regularly seen people collecting shellfish on the mud-flats this summer.

A Ministry of Primary Industries spokes-person told the Flagstaff the ban remains in place. What started out as a rahui (ban) in 1993 is now a regulation under the Fisheries

Shellfish ban remains on Cheltenham Beach

(Amateur Fishing) Regulations 2013.The ministry is currently applying for

resource consent to put in larger permanent signs.

Meanwhile, people seeing anyone gather-ing shellfish from Cheltenham Beach should call 0800 POACHER. The current fine for taking shellfish is up to $10,000.

A local environmental group is surveying the beach’s cockle population annually and found in December that numbers had grown from 685 to 1,352 within a year. A 2010 survey had found only 10 cockles.

The Auckland Council planning wheel keeps on spinning on Clarence St – where a planned upgrade has been on and off for years with no firm works in the pipeline.

The Devonport-Takapuna Local Board in December, voted another $10,000 “to pro-gress preliminary detail designs and to ob-tain rough cost estimates” for the upgrade.

More money but no action yet on Clarence Street

A seismic assessment of the old Devonport Borough Council building in Victoria Rd is being carried out to determine what earth-quake-strengthening works may be required.

Following that, the building will be marketed for a commercial tenant, council property officers have confirmed.

Devonport-Takapuna Local Board and the Devonport Business Association have been lobbying to keep the building in community use, with the possiblity of a visitor centre located on the ground floor.

Movement on old council building


Vestry elections 21st February 2016 at 11am

AGM 20th March 2016 at 11am

Both will be held in the Holy Trinity Parish Hall,

20 Church St, Devonport.

Holy Trinity 2016ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

Maria Sardi dealt with her young daughter Natalie’s fussy eating habits by creating a picture book.

Thirteen years later she has just published it to celebrate the love of food that Natalie, now 17, has developed.

Mandy the Little Elephant is the story of a young African elephant who runs away at dinner time and whose favourite food is chocolate. “That’s exactly what I used to do when I was little,” says Natalie Fleissner, now in her last year at Takapuna Grammar School.

Sardi wrote the book for Natalie’s fifth birthday. “She was so fussy and I didn’t know what else to do about it. Natalie loved the story but I can’t say it changed her immediately,” she says.

The book’s plot, however, pre-dicted the course of Natalie’s trans-formation.

“There is a giraffe in the story who becomes the catalyst for Mandy eat-ing healthy food. Metaphorically speaking, for us the giraffe turned out to be Ms Win-grove, Natalie’s food technology teacher at Belmont Intermediate School. She wasn’t a parent and added a new dynamic to our little mother-daughter power battle,” Sardi says.

Natalie found cooking at school was great fun. “And we ate what we made and I realised how good it all tasted. I still have the recipes for BIS cheese scones and home-made pasta,” she says. Natalie even won school cooking competitions two years in a row.

She is still mad about food. She watches Master Chef on TV and meticulously keeps a folder with her favourite recipes in it. “I cook and bake all the time. It’s one of my favourite things to do in my spare time,” she says.

Sardi, originally from Colombia, had sent off her story to New Zealand publish-ers when she first wrote it but found the response discouraging. “It was rejected in part because the elephant was not a New

Fussy eating the recipe for children’s book

Zealand animal,” she says.Last December, Sardi took matters into her

own hands and self-published the story, hir-ing a professional illustrator to enhance her own drawings. “Set against the background of the African grassland, I like how the story addresses issues of food and hunger, of those who have too little to eat and those who have

too much,” she says.Sardi, who speaks four languages and

holds degrees in industrial design and the arts as well as an MBA from Boston Uni-versity, is already working on two other books – a memoir written in Spanish and a second children’s book about Camilla, a wild white goat.

Thirteen years in the making…Natalie Fleissner can now smile about her fussy eating as a child, which her mother Maria Sardi turned into a book

The Victoria Theatre Trust is launching a fundraising campaign to buy new seats for the Vic.

The new cinema seats will cost $500 each and the trust aims to get at least 52 seats installed this year, throughout the three cinemas.

Trust Co-Chair Margot McRae said the present seats were acquired six years ago. “A Hamilton cinema was getting rid of them

and we felt very lucky to get them for free. To kick off the fundraising, the trust

is holding a special preview of the Coen brothers’ movie Hail Caesar on Thursday 3 March. Starring George Clooney, Scarlett Johansson, Ralph Fiennes and Josh Brolin, the film is a musical comedy set in 1950s Hollywood.

The new-seat initiative is part of the trust’s push for improvements in audi-ence comfort at the Vic this year. Interior acoustic work and better foyer access are also planned.

“Our audiences have been very patient and now we are in a position to reward them with improvements that will make the Vic as comfortable as modern cinemas” McRae said.

The trust is making applications to fund-raising organisations, but is also hoping local people will get behind the Vic and show that the community supports the his-toric theatre, which is now in its sixth year since reopening in 2010.

• Hail Caesar is on Thursday 3 March at 8pm. Tickets are $25 (including a drink) and can be purchased from the trust by emailing, [email protected]

Push for new seats at old theatre

Shot putter Jacko Gill achieved a personal best 20.83m throw on Monday smashing the 20.79m NZ resident record held by Tom Walsh and surpassing the Rio 2016 Olympics qualifying standard.

The Flagstaff caught up with Jacko to-wards the end of 2015. He had had a quite year of achievement by his standards but outlined all the hard work he was doing to qualify for Rio. It has now paid off.

Jacko smashes NZ record and qualifies

for Olympics


www.devonport.harcourts.co.nz

Real Estatebuying, selling, renting

CoopER & Co REal EstatE limitEd mREiNZ dEvoNpoRtlicensed agent, REaa

ClassifiedsACCOMMODATION

Cheltenham Beach Studio. Stunning studio with new fit-out only metres from the beach. Avail-able for short or long-term holiday accommodation. Self-contained with separate access and private garden. Wi-Fi included. Phone Mike 021 747 526.Cheltenham: 2 dbl br. Private Beach access daily or weekly rent. Fully furnished. ph 445 3008.Classy 3 bedroom, 2 full bath, fully furnished Devon-port house on Achilles Reserve near Narrow Neck. More in-formation go to www.devon-porttuihouse.weebly.com or www.sabbaticalhomes.com. Ph: 445 7895.Devonport short let. Large, comfortable, 4 bed fully fur-nished family home available for rent short term. Great loca-tion, close to Vauxhall shops and views down Cheltenham beach. Phone: 022 3175 401.Holiday Accommodation Chel-tenham, absolute beachfront. One double and two singles, shady setting, everything supplied. Ph 445 3008.House for rent really nice 4/5 bed multi living areas, in a nice street close to Narrow Neck beach. Call Kerry 021 159 2011 rent negotiable.Relatives visiting? Spacious garden studio with en-suite and

kitchenette; minutes to Narrow Neck beach. Reasonable rates. Ph Pauline 445 6471.Stunning Cheltenham Beach Cottage, metres from the beach. Available for short or long-term holiday accommodation. Beau-tifully refurbished, one bed-room, self-contained cottage with a private garden. Phone Rebekah 027 694 3933 or email [email protected]

FOR SALE

Business Opportunity for Teacher Devonport area. Love teaching but not paperwork and meetings? Looking for life-style and to work from home? Would like to earn 70k plus for a 20-hour week? Full training provided. $52k and some set-up costs. Contact Eve 022 341 1716/[email protected]

REST HOMES

Ascot House Retirement Home, quality care with dignity in a friendly, family atmosphere. Phone Shona, 445 2518.Komatua Care Centre – We care for older people who have memory loss and behavioural difficulties. Professional care is given in a nurturing environment. For all enquiries - phone 445 1707.

SERVICES OFFERED

10 YEARS’ experience. Home cleaning. Husband and wife. Honest, reliable, careful workers. All equipment sup-plied. References available. Ph Joyce 022 073 1550.Affordable Websites - do you need a website or does your existing website need updating? Prices for a new website start from $500 plus GST. Contact Vanessa on [email protected] for a free quotation. At Your Request Home Cleaning. Our local team is ready to deliver 5-Star ser-vices in your home for weekly cleaning, spring, moving or open-home c leaning. Call Yvonne for a free quote 415 0028.Bookkeeping/Payroll Are you a small business located in the Devonport area? Do you need someone for a few hours each week to help you keep your ac-counts in order? I can do your bookkeeping/accounts/payroll and IRD returns so that everything is ready for your accountant at the end of the financial year! Contact Vicki on 021 845543.Builder available Small job specialist, repairs and maintenance. Skilled, re-liable and local. Please phone Clive Melling. Hm 445 2485, Mob 027 29 222 84.

Cars wanted dead or alive. Top dollar paid $360 to $1700 for any small car, $800 to $15,000 for vans, utes, 4WD and trucks. Free retrieval 0800 3333 98.Cleaning Maid Easy Use own cleaning products and gear. Rel iable/ t rustworthy/ma -ture lady. References avail-able Please contact Sharon - 021 405 596.Counselling Low cost counselling offered by experienced narrative therapist (BA Psychology) com-pleting practicum hours. $30/hr. Please contact Sarah for confiden-tial, no-obligation discussion: 022 678 1880.Curtains & Roman Blinds Free measure, quote and design ad-vice. 20 years’ experience. Phone Sara 027 625 5844.Devonport upholstery. Recover specialist. Antiques and contem-porary styles. Recycling furniture for 36 years. John Hancox, phone: 446-0372.Devonport Window Repairs. Sash and casement windows, wooden doors. Rotten sills and window components repaired or replaced. General carpentry. For your local window spe-cialist. Phone Hubert Strang - 446 6174 or 021 274 4191.Diggadrain. Drain unblockers and drainage experts. CCTV drain locating. Repairs. New drains. 0800 your drain.

Dog grooming available. Full groom, bath and blow dry, puppy introduction to grooming. De-vonport-based. Call Barbara 021 141 0331.Gardener Available Quali-fied and experienced landscape designer. Enjoys getting his hands dirty. Good plant knowledge. Hardworking, reliable and crea-tive with plantings. Contact Pad-dy 022 502 2122 or 446 6188 [email protected]. Do you need regular help? No time for a tidy up? Let me help. Experienced garden-er. Ph Carolyn on 446 6517 or 027 292 8167 for a free on-site consultation.CHandyman. Mature profes-sional in Devonport, Bayswater area. Repairs, painting, those jobs you just don’t have time to do. Free quote. References. Ph. Brian 021 150 8898.Housekeeper. Home cleaning, including windows, wash-ing, ironing, furniture polish-ing. Experienced. References. $25 per hour. Ph 442 2273, 027 4926220.Housewashing, prof. service, 10 years-plus experience, reli-able and prompt. Free quotes, also decks, driveways, paths, fences, roof moss treatments etc. Phone Rod 021 390 800.Housewashing. Get your house clean for the holidays by contacting Bubble Boys house washing. We clean windows, doors, weather-boards, garages and outbuildings. Support local, hard-working and reliable high-school Devonport boys by contacting us at [email protected] or call 021 0621 750 to get a free quote. We are very reasonably priced. We protect paint by using soft brushes only. We can also provide water blasting for concrete driveways, paths and patios if needed.Ironing: Professional, reliable, fast turnaround. Call Denise or Peter 486-1614/0223-552-350.Landscaping – Format Land-scapes, 18 years’ experience, Dip. Landscape Design. Design and build. We undertake all aspects of hard and soft landscaping including decks, paving, fenc-es, retaining walls, planting etc. Small to large projects. Free quote www.formatlandscapes.co.nz. Call Matt 021 599107. Locksmith, Devonport’s own Scott Richardson. mob 021 976 607.Tagbuster, graffiti looked after Devonport to Hauraki Corner. Call the Tagbuster 0800antitag, 0800 2684 824.Window Cleaning for houses and businesses. For a free quote call Ivan 473 6631.

SITUATIONS VACANT

Gardener wanted - who is able to look after a good sized garden involving sweeping and water-blasting paths, removing or spray-ing weeds, trimming hedges & trees, watering & caring for plants, general maintenance etc etc. All tools needed and garden bin are onsite. Must be fit, have some garden knowledge, be reliable & honest and able to work 3-5 hours each week in central Devonport over summer. Prefer someone living locally. Phone or txt James on 0274 340 300.

TUITION

Acoustic and classical guitar, music theory. Fun, comprehensive, tailored to you! Devonport-based. Michelle Birch, BMus (Hons) [email protected], www.michellebirch.comART CLASSES @ D’Port Com-munity house: Wednesday night, life drawing; Friday morning, mastering art; Wednesday after school, art for teens. ph Lucy Bucknall - 446 0389.Art Classes for Children. Wednesdays 3.20 - 5.20 in artists home studio by the sea, Devon-port. Term One “Pet Apartment” Painting, Drawing Project. Contact Erica Soman MFA Dip Tchg 021 127 9671 [email protected] Learn piano/keyboard. Les-sons from $17.00. Private, Professional, Affordable, Enjoyment for all ages. Compe-titions, Practical, Theory Exams. NZ Modern School of Music 0800-696-874.Mathematics and Statistics. Individual lessons with a friendly, experienced tutor. NCEA 1 & 2, school years 3 -12. Weekdays and Saturdays, $40/hour. Phone Gillian Steele BCom 488 7059 [email protected] Tuition, Sensitive tutoring offered at all levels of the secondary school curriculum. NCEA, IB and Cambridge wel-comed. 100% pass rate in 2014. NCEA 3 calculus specialist. Ph Peter Ridge BE,Dip Tchg (sec) 445 2283.Singing lessons in Devonport. Contract Dr Sue Braatvedt 473 9113 or 027 3402884. All ages.SLSS Swim School , 11 Evan Street, Belmont (off Eversleigh Road). Special-ists in pre-schoolers. Phone 486 6728 for more info.

WANTED TO BUY

Devonport Kindergarten would like to replace its much-loved small dinghy with another wooden replacement in good condition. Can you please help us: Please call (09) 445 3504, Monday – Friday.

For more inFormation please Call one oF Usmaria Clarke (Head Tenant) 09 445 2891 / 027 549 0043

Julia lobb (Landlord Contact) 021 450 063

Architecturally designed office space available. Enjoy a modern environment right in the heart of Devonport, situated on Level 2, 31 Bartley Terrace, (beside the New World supermarket).Join a group of separate businesses working in modern open-plan offices. We have six desks all up and currently have four desks available.Suit self-employed or office-based business. Rental approx. $650 per month per desk including OPEX. Term of rental negotiable.The office comes fully furnished with modern furniture including ample storage.make an appointment to view!

OFFICE SPACE For leaseSpacious Deck | Meeting Room | Fully Air-Conditioned

Letters to the Editor

Letters to the Editor are wel-come. They shou ld re la te to Devonport issues. Unsigned or nom-de-plume letters will not be published. Email letters to devon-por t f lagsta [email protected] .nz or post to Devonport Flagstaff, PO Box 32-275, Devonport.


GrammarTakapunaFEBRUARY 12, 2016School NEwS


With four students gaining 41 and one on 44, the second cohort of IB Diploma students have done themselves proud, and the teachers and school are celebrating them.

The school’s Proxime Accessit at Senior Prize-Giving, Muyu (Naomi) Liu gained the 44. With only one 45 result in New Zealand, this places Naomi second for the whole country. A score of over 40 is highly sought after and Mera Conger, Danielle Desvaux de Marigny, Tracy Zhang and Yuxuan (Tom) Zhang all gained a total of 41.

Ha Yeon Kim has received a scholarship to the prestigious Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, where she will be studying engineering. In addition, Sol Hye Park has been unconditionally accepted into Korea’s most prestigious University, Younsei University, based on the skills she acquired in completing the IB Diploma at Takapuna. Sol attributes her success to the strength of her interview, the skills she gained in her CAS components and to the support given to her in the programme.

Nina Edgar (above) won gold at the Goju Karate World Championships at the end of November and automatically qualifies for the next Goju Karate World Championships in Romania in 2017. Nina represented New Zealand, competing in two events and winning both. She is now the world champion in the Individual Female Cadet 14/15 years Kata and the Junior Individual Female Kumate U48kg.

Top outcomes for International Baccalaureate students

Well done to our cricketers

Naomi Liu with the Principal, Mr Simon Lamb, at Senior Prize-Giving

Takapuna Grammar 1st XI wicketkeeper Jasper Edgar in actionHyunji Jo (pictured) won second place in the senior 2D drawing and painting category in the 2015 Young Designer Awards. She won the prize at the Re-creative International Arts Festival, which was organised and prepared by UNI-WORLD –(NGO), in collaboration with Globally Aware Teen Exchange.

Cricket finished off a successful 2015 with two major awards at the December Auckland Secondary Schools Cricket Association Prize-Giving, appropriately held in Eden Park’s Bert Sutcliffe Lounge.

First XI player Jasper Edgar won the award for Top Wicketkeeper in the Premier 1A competition. And the First XI was awarded the ASSCA Spirit of Cricket Award, out of all teams in all grades of Auckland Secondary Schools Cricket.

In some ways this second award is even more satisfying for the school and players. The trophy is given to the team that has the highest aggregate ‘Spirit of Cricket’ rating over the year, as judged by opposition teams and umpires, and submitted in match reports by captains and official umpires after each game.

It’s been a long time since 1940, when Takapuna Grammar won the Auckland Secondary Schools Competition with Bert Sutcliffe as Captain. But in its first season back in the Premier 1A competition for

some years, the team did the school proud. After a mixed bag of results in Term 1, players benefitted from an unprecedented three-month off-season development programme, run by 1st XI Coach, Dean Flyger, and a four-game pre-season tour to Queensland. Over this period they had first-class coaching input, including from Paul Strang (Aces, Zimbabwe), Jason Mills (Auckland), Paul Hitchcock (Black Cap), Andre Adams (Black Cap, Aces) and Pat Cole (ND, Aces).

As a result, the boys had a flying start to Term 4, and ended the year topping the Shield section of the competition, and taking first innings points in all of their two-day matches.

As a gauge of the depth of cricket talent that the school can draw from, 12 boys were capped last week to represent North Harbour at the Auckland Districts Tournaments held over the summer break.

Another eight North Harbour representatives capped last week will form

the nucleus of a Girls First XI next year, one of whom (Year 9 Samantha Petherick) was also selected to play for an Auckland Under-18 Girls team in January.

Cycling: the national development squads named

In the past our school has had up to three students named in either the U17 or U19 squads for road cycling. But the recently released list has nine of our students named for the 2016 programme. This shows the growing depth of this sport. Under 19: Aidan Nicholas and Elle Wintle. In the Un-der 17-squad: Renee Young, Fletcher Pearson-Riley, Joshua Kench, Callum Erskine, Jack McKinney, Oscar Elworthy and Harry Waine.

2015 Young Designer Awards

Karate World Champ




With four students gaining 41 and one on 44, the second cohort of IB Diploma students have done themselves proud, and the teachers and school are celebrating them.

The school’s Proxime Accessit at Senior Prize-Giving, Muyu (Naomi) Liu gained the 44. With only one 45 result in New Zealand, this places Naomi second for the whole country. A score of over 40 is highly sought after and Mera Conger, Danielle Desvaux de Marigny, Tracy Zhang and Yuxuan (Tom) Zhang all gained a total of 41.

Ha Yeon Kim has received a scholarship to the prestigious Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, where she will be studying engineering. In addition, Sol Hye Park has been unconditionally accepted into Korea’s most prestigious University, Younsei University, based on the skills she acquired in completing the IB Diploma at Takapuna. Sol attributes her success to the strength of her interview, the skills she gained in her CAS components and to the support given to her in the programme.

Nina Edgar (above) won gold at the Goju Karate World Championships at the end of November and automatically qualifies for the next Goju Karate World Championships in Romania in 2017. Nina represented New Zealand, competing in two events and winning both. She is now the world champion in the Individual Female Cadet 14/15 years Kata and the Junior Individual Female Kumate U48kg.

Top outcomes for International Baccalaureate students

Well done to our cricketers

Naomi Liu with the Principal, Mr Simon Lamb, at Senior Prize-Giving

Takapuna Grammar 1st XI wicketkeeper Jasper Edgar in actionHyunji Jo (pictured) won second place in the senior 2D drawing and painting category in the 2015 Young Designer Awards. She won the prize at the Re-creative International Arts Festival, which was organised and prepared by UNI-WORLD –(NGO), in collaboration with Globally Aware Teen Exchange.

Cricket finished off a successful 2015 with two major awards at the December Auckland Secondary Schools Cricket Association Prize-Giving, appropriately held in Eden Park’s Bert Sutcliffe Lounge.

First XI player Jasper Edgar won the award for Top Wicketkeeper in the Premier 1A competition. And the First XI was awarded the ASSCA Spirit of Cricket Award, out of all teams in all grades of Auckland Secondary Schools Cricket.

In some ways this second award is even more satisfying for the school and players. The trophy is given to the team that has the highest aggregate ‘Spirit of Cricket’ rating over the year, as judged by opposition teams and umpires, and submitted in match reports by captains and official umpires after each game.

It’s been a long time since 1940, when Takapuna Grammar won the Auckland Secondary Schools Competition with Bert Sutcliffe as Captain. But in its first season back in the Premier 1A competition for

some years, the team did the school proud. After a mixed bag of results in Term 1, players benefitted from an unprecedented three-month off-season development programme, run by 1st XI Coach, Dean Flyger, and a four-game pre-season tour to Queensland. Over this period they had first-class coaching input, including from Paul Strang (Aces, Zimbabwe), Jason Mills (Auckland), Paul Hitchcock (Black Cap), Andre Adams (Black Cap, Aces) and Pat Cole (ND, Aces).

As a result, the boys had a flying start to Term 4, and ended the year topping the Shield section of the competition, and taking first innings points in all of their two-day matches.

As a gauge of the depth of cricket talent that the school can draw from, 12 boys were capped last week to represent North Harbour at the Auckland Districts Tournaments held over the summer break.

Another eight North Harbour representatives capped last week will form

the nucleus of a Girls First XI next year, one of whom (Year 9 Samantha Petherick) was also selected to play for an Auckland Under-18 Girls team in January.

Cycling: the national development squads named

In the past our school has had up to three students named in either the U17 or U19 squads for road cycling. But the recently released list has nine of our students named for the 2016 programme. This shows the growing depth of this sport. Under 19: Aidan Nicholas and Elle Wintle. In the Un-der 17-squad: Renee Young, Fletcher Pearson-Riley, Joshua Kench, Callum Erskine, Jack McKinney, Oscar Elworthy and Harry Waine.

2015 Young Designer Awards

Karate World Champ


North Shore wins Auckland 20/20 competition

It’s been a long time coming…the North Shore Premier side celebrates its first trophy win in 25 years

Stalwarts… John Gore and Ross Parlane celebrate after North Shore’s gripping win

Into the trophy cabinet… captain Michael Olsen receives the cup from Austin Parsons, Auckland Cricket Association president


North Shore Cricket Club premiers beat Takapuna by 10 runs to take out this season’s Auckland 20/20 cricket championship.

It was the first major Auckland trophy the premier side had won in 25 years. None of the winning team were born then.

The side beat arch-rivals Takapuna in the final – all the more impressive as the match was played away at Onewa Domain.

Shore batted first and scored 161 for five (with Aakash Choudhary hitting 32). It then

The crowd goes wild…North Shore Cricket Club fans pose with the team after the 20/20 win

bowled Takapuna out for 151.Shore won four out of its six preliminary

matches to make the final.Captain Michael Olsen said it was a great

team performance and a confidence boost for the rest of the season, where the team was trying to regain promotion to the top division of Auckland cricket.

“This team knows how to win a trophy,” Olsen said.

With four two-day matches left in the

second division Tom Hellaby Trophy, North Shore is currently topping the table.

But it was in a similar situation last year where it was the front runner for the whole season, only to miss out on promotion due to results in the last session of play.

The players in the winning 20/20 team were: Jared Sun, Matt Selby, Graeme Beghin, Mike Olsen, Aakash Choudhary, Ryan Thom-son, Chamal Rajapaksha, Carl Brungar, Tim Duncraft, Matt Strain and Stephen Newey.

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12 February 2016 Devonport Flagstaff