A fun evening last Tuesday at Alexandra Park – 3 current MPs and 3 hopefuls – all vying for the Epsom Electorate - gave us their views on why we should vote for them, and how we should cast our party vote. Yes, there were 6 – the additional one not shown above was Tanya Unkovich from NZ First.  

Lively MC for the evening – Timothy Giles.

The candidates proceeded to debate local and national issues with aplomb, giving us – as our Chair said – “time, energy and grace.”

 

The wide-ranging questions and topics covered in a mostly good humoured way included:

 

The charity auction of items donated by each of the candidates raised more than $2000 for the Kindness Collective.  Some generous bids – all in a good cause.

 

A huge vote of thanks to Holly Bennett and her Point of Order team for their  impressive planning and organisation of the evening. The audience of eighty enjoyed the presentations and were hugely entertained. One of the aims of the team is to bring Civics back into the community – the number of younger members of the audience present was most encouraging. Special thanks to John Hawke who capably supported Holly and the team.

 

In the absence of President Mike Alison, PP Dave Hawke rounded out the evening with his thanks to all involved. He called on Sharon Seeto to present Ruby’s tea towels to the current and hopeful politician participants.  As Dave succinctly summed up - the evening was one of “passion, focus, hassle, activity and skill.”  And as Hamish from Holly’s team said – “great for our grassroots Kiwi democracy.”

 

Postal voting from Monday 2 October.

 

Government funding has been curtailed, and the Salvation Army is cutting back on the size of the boxes and the items being included. They are also limiting the boxes given out – until funding issues are resolved, some needy families are inevitably missing out.

We are not going to be needed quite so much for a month or two: we are therefore limiting our foodpacking at Mt Wellington to every second week.  Until further notice, our packing mornings will be on the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month.  [With 5 Wednesdays this month, we will review whether we might also be useful on 30^th August. Watch this space.]

So next packing morning:  Wednesday 23^rd August. 9.00am. 18 Allright Place.