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On Monday 12 September, Clare Sullivan (the WCC Deputy Electoral Officer) spoke to the Club about “STV and the Local Body Elections”. This was a timely reminder to all of us, with the Local Body Elections starting on 16 September.

Clare has worked both for the Christchurch and now Wellington City Councils and has dealt with local body elections for both councils.

Local body elections take place every 3 years. Each council does its own area. Some councils handle the entire election (e.g. Kapiti), but Wellington and much of the South Island use electionz.com as their provider.

Unlike parliamentary elections, local body elections are still primarily using postal votes. Voting papers should reach voters after Friday 16 September and should arrive within a week of that date. Voting continues till 8 October. Special (booth) votes may be cast for people who will be away over the election period.

Most councils use FPP (first past the post), in this system the person with the highest number of votes is elected. FPP is quicker to give results than STV.

STV, a single transferable vote system, is used by some areas, such as Wellington, Porirua, Dunedin and Palmerston North, to calculate which candidate is finally elected. In this STV system one can select candidates in order of preference, and second and third (and lower) preferences may be added to other candidates’ votes. So the person who would have had the highest number of votes under FPP is not necessarily elected, because second and third choice votes of electors may be added to the votes received by other candidates. To decided who has in fact won under STV an “approved calculator” is used to get a final result, because this is a complex calculation.

An explanation of STV may be found at www.electionz.com

District Governor, Martin Garcia, visited us on 1 August 2016.

Martin began his talk by telling us of his family’s fascinating historic links with Rotary, and then proceeded to inspire us with the good that Rotary is doing and can do in this District and around the world. Including that Rotary’s Polio Plus campaign (assisted by the Gates Foundation) is very close to eliminating polio worldwide.

Pengbo Jiang: guest speaker; Johnsonville Rotary: 25 July 2016

Pengbo Jiang spoke to Johnsonville Rotary, on 25 July 2016, about moving from China to New Zealand and how volunteering helps migrants to settle.

He moved to New Zealand as an 11 year old boy from Fuzhou, Northern China. His parents still live in China (he has no siblings). Pengbo was an international student at Newlands Intermediate, competing his schooling at Newlands College. He attended VUW and now has a Bachelor of Commerce and Administration degree. He also gained a Master of Management from Massey University part time, while working full time. He works at Ernst & Young in Wellington as a senior consultant. He is enrolling to do a PHD at VUW and is studying Maori at present.

The move from China as an 11 year old was tough and frightening. He did not know the language or culture. It was all extremely daunting and unsettling, it was a real struggle. But what got him through was the time people volunteered to help him, and the kindness shown. His desire to volunteer and help others arose from this.

At first he could not offer much as a volunteer, but began with small things like opening the door for others, and then helping with the schools’ sausage sizzles, then being a buddy to newly arrived international students. Pengbo has volunteered continuously since he was 12 years old and still does so, but now mainly in the evenings and during his weekends. His volunteering has included being a student and business mentor: one of the people he mentored was Johnsonville Rotarian Yao Meng. Pengbo believes that this volunteering has helped him transition from international student to New Zealander.

18 July, Johnsonville Rotary: Don Casagranda guest speaker

Porirua Rotarian Don Casagranda spoke to the club on 18 July 2016 about his and his wife Eve’s business- “On Arrival”, which assists migrants to adjust to life in New Zealand.

Don and Eve and their family arrived themselves from Calgary, Canada, in the mid 1980s. Their experiences made them uniquely suited to identify the needs of new arrivees in New Zealand.

The family had come for Don to take up a job in Wellington. They had been given glowing reports of Wellington and New Zealand, including a video which only showed Wellington with blue skies and sun kissed beaches and landscapes (and no obvious signs of gales); it looked like a South Pacific paradise. They had a rude shock arriving with an icy southerly gale and lashing rain. Then finding the person due to pick them up did not arrive, and, after a taxi ride, they found the motel arranged for them was horrible. The person assigned to pick them up later arrived with a loaf of bread and a jar of vegemite for their “tea” (evening meal). A few days later they found that the skating rink they had asked about for their daughter (who was an extremely talented competitive ice skater) turned out to be a roller skating rink. Their rented house (unlike houses in Calgary) had no insulation and so was freezing in winter. In fact there were several occasions when they very seriously considered going back to Canada.

After a few years, their daughter suggested to them that they should start their own business and “On Arrival” was “born”.

“On Arrival” has a full wrap around service for the entire family to ensure that from the moment the family arrive in New Zealand all the members of the family are met and cared for until they are self-sufficient. This involves everything from accommodation, to orientation, schools, explaining local customs and terms (e.g. “tea” might well mean a meal and not a cuppa) and “bring a plate” actually means bring some food (not an empty plate, like their daughter did). Employment, networking, social life and meeting “the locals” are all in the service. Their service also helps at the “fright and flight” stage, that most arrives go through, to the time when the arrivees feel integrated and fit into NZ society. “On arrival” now has branches across New Zealand.

Greg O’Connor, the President of the NZ Police Association was guest speaker at Johnsonville Rotary.

Greg began his talk by saying he had been a Johnsonville/Ohariu resident early in his police career and it felt like coming home being back in Johnsonville and near where he worked in Porirua. He gave a fascinating talk on his career and on crimes he and others have dealt with. Finally he told the audience (who included guests from Porirua Rotary) that the key current challenge was dealing with the P (methamphetamine) problem, which is changing the dynamic of crime and making its users far more dangerous for the public and the police.

 Greg O’Connor speaking to Johnsonville Rotary on 11 July 2016

20th June 2016 guest speakers – Steve O’ Connor of Challenge 2000 and Kapa Te Aho of Life Education Trust

Steve O’ Connor spoke to us about Challenge 2000. It is a Johnsonville based organisation which started with a small group of passionate people who dared to dream large – they wanted to change the world. Challenge 2000 works throughout the Wellington Region, providing a wide range of services and programmes to young people, families and community groups.

Steve explained, with photos, Challenge 2000’s diverse range of programmes – from Gap Year students and leadership training to youth houses and a supportive bail programme which gets alongside youth offenders to keep them out of prison. Challenge 2000 aims to work with youth to develop meaningful relationships and a whanau atmosphere and give them an example of what real life and families should be all about.

Kapa Te Aho spoke to us about the Life Education Trust. It is a not for profit organisation, which, with the use of mobile classrooms, provides a specialist curriculum to schools throughout the country. They tailor their lessons to individual schools’ needs, to help children make informed choices, with topics covering social skills and respect for others, biology, their health, food/nutrition and digital awareness.

At the end of the evening Johnsonville Rotary President Michael Hodgen presented both Steve O’Connor and Kapa Te Aho with donations from the Rotary Club of Johnsonville’s Charitable Trust, to support the excellent work the two organisations do for our youth.