June 2, 2021
It looks like Local Food is the flavour of the month! Read on to see what is happening, and what you can be doing in the next little while.
Koha Coffee This Saturday
Koha Coffee is on this Saturday, 5 June. Come along to Houghton Valley Community Hall from 10:30 until 12:30. Jimmy, who is a school student at Rongotai College, will be hosting this community event for the last time as part of his Duke of Edinburgh bronze award. Please bring a plate to share and we will see you there. All welcome!
A Houghton Valley Compost Hub
Discussions are continuing around a local Kaicycle composting hub, and the group is starting to establish a few parameters. The field just South of the school looks like it will be a good site, with access to deliver mulch and receive the food waste. We hope to create an earth berm shelter around the area, that can be planted with natives and perhaps even some fruit trees, as well as a wet weather path to the school gate. The waste will be collected in key pad locked bins so that only those subscribed to the scheme have access. A compost manager will use the waste and other organic matter deliveries to make compost to be used by the subscribers and various community projects, and will be happy to demonstrate the process. Keeping the site vermin free will be a priority.
Houghton Valley School Food Box
Kia Ora Haewai Whanau! My name is Tom Stewart-Edwards, a former Houghton Valley School student. With the help of some incredible young people, we have been able to set up a community food box just outside the Houghton Valley School gate. Feel free to swing by and pick up or give food, or even simply draw on the box. All canned goods are accepted as well as warm clothes for our whanau who need them coming into winter.
Applications for Fruit Trees Open
Thanks to Wellington City Council and the Nikau Foundation, the Sustainability Trust have fruit trees available again this year in the Fruit Tree Guardian programme. These trees can be planted at schools, marae, community centres, and any other approved locations where the community will be able to enjoy the fruit.
Apply by the end of June and get your fruit trees planted in July/August.
Houghton Valley already has several trees growing from this programme, as well as some great wild apple trees. They are mostly near the school and along the walkway down from Buckley Road. If you know of a sunny sheltered spot and are prepared to care for the trees during their first tender years, please consider making an application. The best trees for the area seem to be apples, feijoas and plums.
Houghton Valley Progressive Association Upcoming Event
On Sunday July 11 is the Houghton Valley Progressive Association Annual General Meeting. It is over a month away but we would like to give you advance notice as we wish to make it a community occasion, where prior to the actual meeting we can give some presentations and discuss important issues around a 100 year vision for our community, including environmental and local food projects.
The AGM is where we appoint people in various roles to administer the Association, the hall and other community initiatives. Are you interested in a small community role and getting to know other locals, or do you know someone you can encourage to volunteer as President, Secretary, Privacy Officer, Treasurer or Hall Manager? Another less traditional approach that has been suggested for the AGM is to focus roles around projects for the year, of which there are several current ones to choose from and maybe some of your own making. However we organise things though, the traditional wisdom comes to mind: “He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata.”
Keep your eating out local this weekend
All six lanes of Jervois Quay will be closed for a four-day period over Queens Birthday weekend to allow multiple crews to work around the clock to replace a 100 year old pipe that has failed. Work will start at about 7pm on Thursday 3 June and the road will reopen before 6am on Tuesday 8 June.
(153 recipients, 88 opens)