Paenga-whāwhā / April 2, 2025
Koha Coffee
Saturday, 5 April, 10.30 am – 12.30 pm
Come along to the Community Hall at 80 Houghton Bay Road this Saturday for another catch up with locals. Bring along some kai or a koha. Andrew is hosting.
We might be getting a visit from a candidate for this year’s Wellington City Council election in the Motukairangi / Eastern Ward: Jonny Osborne. He wants to learn more about what is going down in our corner of the world and what we need as a community. He says he likes to talk trees, so he should fit right in, we have a few round here and quite a few of us like to talk trees too!
A Local Climate Adaptation Programme Pilot
Wellington City Council is planning to run a pilot project in the Houghton Bay and Island Bay catchments to look at how we can adapt to climate change: looking at what is at risk now and in the future, and what could be done about it.
They would love your feedback on their approach to the project before it begins. This includes how they can reach out to members of the community, how the community can participate, or general comments about the pilot and its process. Feedback indicates that as a community we are interested in being part of this pilot so please take a few minutes to answer their survey.
The pilot is outlined on the WCC Let’s Talk site. Feedback is open until 14 April.
Another great dinner!
Once again we had a warm and friendly meal at the community hall for our Seeds-to-Feeds Haewai Harvest dinner, with a mixture of locals and others from elsewhere. The hall looked really festive and the food once again was delicious. The adults had a good time chatting and connecting, and the children were happy too. This time there were two photographers, so we will put together another slideshow once the photos are all in.
Our resident guitarist Jacob De Ruiter couldn’t make it this time, but he has kindly let us put one of his musical composition and video pieces on our Houghton Valley Community Youtube Channel. Great music and footage of our coastal environment!
Fun at the Community Gardens Open Days
Our local community gardens both had a successful open day.
Houghton Valley Gardens had a productive day with regular members doing some gardening in between hosting visitors, including a Pedal Ready cycling group. A young Iranian couple helped plant up some seedlings and WCC Community Gardens Network co-ordinator Stacey Gasson popped in for a look and a chat. The photo below and the newsletter banner are hers – we were too busy to remember to take any!
And Miranda writes about our other community garden in Hornsey Road:
Te Kawakawa Commons hosted about 30 visitors to the garden. It was great to catch up with neighbours, meet new people and watch the kids marvelling at the monarch butterflies. A few strawberries magically disappeared but it must have been the birds! The free flower seeds and Geranium cuttings also proved very popular. Having the new stairs up to the garden made a huge difference to its accessibility, especially to one neighbour whose baby is due very soon.
Events calendar
A reminder of upcoming events:
- May 4: Koha Coffee at the community hall (Sunday).
- May 25: Haewai Houghton Valley Community Association AGM at the community hall, starting 3 pm. We have a speaker as well, save the date.
- June 7: Another Ceilidh at the community hall, save the date! Get your tickets
(169 recipients, 116 opens)