Draft Minutes of Tamahere Community Committee Meeting at Tamahere Community Centre, 7.30pm on Tuesday 5th September 2023.
Note: Minutes are not accepted as being true and correct until the next meeting.
Present:
TCC: Charles Fletcher (Chair), Anne Cao, Lyn Harris, Jane Manson WDC: Geoff King, Cr Crystal Beavis
Community: Scott Mathias
Tamahere Mangaone
RestorationTrust: RussellGibbs
1. Apologies:
Committee: Cr Mike Keir, Buddy Annals, Bevin Coley, Janis Swan, James Yearsley
Public: Sue Fookes – Tamahere Lions Club, Scott & Tash McHardie, Regal Haulage
Moved apologies be accepted: Lyn Harris Seconded: Charles Fletcher All in Favour
Confirmation of Minutes of meeting held on 1st August 2023
Moved: Minutes are approved: Lyn Harris Seconded: Anne CaoAll in Favour
Matters arising (not on this agenda): Nil
Correspondence (Aug 2023) - circulated by email prior to meeting
Inwards:
Scott Mathias, OmniMedia: Confirmation of purchase of tamahereforum.org.
Mary Rinaldi, WDC Corporate Planner: Freedom Camping timeline update for adoption
of proposed Freedom Camping Bylaw 2023
Alison Ewing, PFT: receipt of August report
Vishal Ramduny, WDC: Reminder for Bus Trial Workshop follow-up meeting
WDC: Notification of review of Dangerous, Affected and Insanitary Buildings Policy
James Baldwin, WDC Waters Engineering Manager: Update on Tamahere Reservoir &
Pump Station
Mark Eman, Hamilton Airport Community Liaison Group: amendments to Minutes
sections 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 7.5 as circulated by email to Committee.
Councillor Beavis: Feedback on Community Response Plan.
Graham McAdam (Chair of Tamahere Community Centre): Feedback on resources
available at the Community Centre for Civil Emergency support & the limitation of
resources.
WDC: Huntly Scout Building Lease proposal
Councillor Keir: Positive feedback on last month’s PFT report
WDC: Reminder of closing date for submissions for proposed Freedom Camping Bylaw.
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Minutes of Meeting
Alison Ewing, PFT: Report for 1 August meeting (subsequently circulated to committee)
Karlene Rhind, WDC Snr Community Engagement Advisor: Feedback on Community
Engagement Strategy
Anthony Averill, WDC: Response to Charles for an update on the Southern Districts
Water reservoir and Pumping Station at Tamahere
Cr Keir: Supporting Russell’s nomination of Leo Koppens for a Mayoral Award.
Russell Gibbs, TMRT: Nomination of Leo Koppens for Mayoral Award.
Geoff King, WDC: Update on Tamahere EV Charge Station by ChargeNet – on target for
October install.
Councillor Beavis: Receipt of Councillors’ report
Lenka Brezinova, Regal Haulage: Confirmation of attendance at TCC 5 September
meeting and possible attendance at 1 August meeting.
Elizabeth Saunders, WDC: Acknowledgment that Agenda had been uploaded to the
Council website.
Geoff King, WDC: Tamahere Community Works & Issues Report for August 2023.
Russell Gibbs: TMRT Report for TCC August meeting.
Outward:
• Charles: Waikato District Council 2023 Waikato Sport & Active Recreation Award Nominations update
Charles: Mathias
Charles:
Charles:
Charles:
Charles:
Proposal for future communications with Tamahere ratepayers sent by Scott
Invite to committee to join him to meet with Scott Mathias (OmniMedia)
Brief sent to Scott Mathias regarding communications with ratepayers.
Thank you note to Mark Eman for his attendance at our meeting in August. Thank you to Graham McAdam (Chair of Tamahere Community Centre) for his
feedback on the Centre being used for Civil Defence.
James: Details of the TCC work done in 2014 for a Civil Defence Emergency Response.
Charles: TCC submission for the proposed Freedom Camping Bylaw 2023.
Charles: TCC submission for the WDC Draft Connectivity Strategy 2023.
Charles: Request to James for any historical information of the Civil Defence Response
Plan for Tamahere.
Charles: Request for update on the Southern Districts Water Reservoir & Pumping
Station in Tamahere to Anthony Averill (Deputy GM Service Delivery)
Charles: Thank you to Pippa Stevenson for her input & insight into the requirements for
effective communication with Tamahere ratepayers.
Charles: Circulation of information relating to nominations for Mayoral Awards 2023.
Charles: Circulation of Regal Haulage Open Day invitation – Saturday 19 August 10.00am
– 2.00pm.
Buddy: Circulated report for TMCS (1 August meeting)
Anne: Forwarded August TCC meeting agenda to Carolyn Eyre (Deputy Mayor WDC)
Moved: Correspondence is accepted: Lyn Harris Seconded: Anne Cao All in favour
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Minutes of Meeting
5. WDC Service Delivery – Tamahere Community Committee Issues Report Report circulated by Geoff King and accepted as read.
ChargeNet EV Charging stations for Tamahere Village: Geoff has followed up to
confirm when the EV Charging stations will be installed. Indications are late October 2023, weather dependent. Waipa Networks has not yet run the power supply underground and this must happen first
WDC Tamahere Office: Lease details in report confirmed. This is a very busy office and something that is beneficial to both the Council and the Community.
WDC staff enjoy the environment and it is popular for staff use, many of whom live in Tamahere, Matangi and Cambridge. The public make good use of the meeting facilities, it is popular.
Library: Charles enquired about library usage. Some years ago, there had been a bit of a standoff between WDC & HCC (resolved). Given the WDC general rates allocation to HCC for library use by WDC residents, does WDC consider this to be value for money and are ratepayers well served by the arrangement? Action: Geoff will make enquiries.
CCTV update: The MOU between HCC and WDC is in draft form. HCC is looking at all costs it can recover to fund its budget. Charles advised that the involvement of the HCC monitoring facility came only as a result of the NZ Police request, not WDC which will be using the Safer Cities link, because NZ Police and HCC liaise on incidents using live feed data and communications. HCC had been very enthusiastic to include the Tamahere Village so perhaps Charles could follow-up with the head of the HCC CCTV monitoring
Motion: WDC Service Delivery Report be accepted
Moved: Lyn Harris Seconded: Anne CaoAll in favour
6. Councillors’ Report
Report circulated by Crystal and accepted as read. Cr Mike Keir is in Japan and has sent information on interesting things he has seen/observed.
Blueprint Plans: These will be considered by the Wellbeing & Sustainability
Committee on 20 September. Crystal will confirm timing to Charles, once agenda
comes out.
Civil Defence: Information from James was very helpful. WDC must have this and a
request made to see if it can be located. Crystal will contact James to see if he has the imbedded data which is in several of the documents but cannot be edited. Crystal noted that local people involvement is important. She is having discussions with 2 locals and would like someone from TCC to be included.
Charles noted the TCC Blueprint included the use of the Tamahere Hall in the event of a civil defence emergency and that the School, Regal Haulage, Tamahere Country Club and St Stevens Church would all have a roll to play if coordinated in advance. Geoff noted that fiber (internet service) is glass so anything that disrupts the soil will destroy internet communications and mobile phones will lose network connection if a cell tower is knocked out of alignment or has no power (batteries only last 24 hours) so a generator is needed to keep each cell tower going.
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• Bus trial: The meeting for this has settled on a route and is to start soon with WDC picking up the cost for the two years of the trial, then WRC will fund.
Motion: Councillors’ report be received.
Moved: Charles Fletcher Seconded: Jane Manson
All in favour
Regal Haulage - Scott & Tash McHardie
Apologies, due to an operational incident this afternoon. Can come to next meeting.Tamahere Forum - TCC web-site (tamahereforum.org) and communications channel.
Charles introduced Scott Mathias from OmniMedia in Matangi, whose proposal and information has been circulated by Charles to all members prior to the meeting.
Scott is present to comment further, discuss and answer questions.
There was a comprehensive discussion addressing the reason and purpose of a TCC website and the need for targeted emails to residents/ratepayers in the old
Tamahere Ward.
Scott is offering to establish the web-site and has, in consultation with Charles,
secured www.tamahereforum.org and a hosting plan with RocketSpark in Cambridge (https://www.rocketspark.com/nz/) at $45 per month ($540 pa) incl GST.
Email will use the Mailchimp system, which Scott uses and was used by Pip Stevenson so we can utilise the current Tamahere Forum mailing list to kick things off on an opt-in, opt-out basis.
The website is to be simple and clean, providing current information or links to matters important to Tamahere. It will be used by TCC to push out information the local community needs to be aware of, to support the WDC and our Councillors as a means of promoting democracy and community engagement.
Emails are to be twice a month, once before and once after each TCC meeting.
We want a channel for people to email TCC (not for public display) with their views, which will be important as TCC prepares submissions and addresses important
issues with Waikato District Council, Waikato Regional Council, NZTA, etc.
All content will be “owned” by TCC. TCC will hold all access ownership rights and passwords. The Chair will be the front door through whom things will be managed.
Scott will assist and manage the site and emails for the first 12 months and will be paid for his service. This is because we want to present a professional image, maintain security and integrity (restrict spam and hackers) and no one on TCC has the time or expertise (we are all unpaid volunteers) to assume this roll. In time someone in the community may come forward and become involved with this
management role.
Site and email security is critical.
Scott has a journalist back ground and is offering his experience to write or polish
items for emails and the web-site.
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Jane asked if a “calendar” could be included on the web-site so people could see at a glance the events scheduled for this month/next month etc. Scott thought this a good idea.
TCC promoted the creation of the “piazza” and this area is now set up with a stage. It is not being promoted, so this now needs a “voice”. It may lead into the need for a coordinated event booking and management system for both the piazza and the sports grounds.
Currently the hall bookings are done through the School office or its website (https://www.tamaherecommunitycentre.co.nz/ and sports ground bookings are done through the Council (first up first served).
Scott was excused (with thanks and appreciation) and left the meeting so costs and funding could be discussed.
There was a consensus that this is a good initiative but there is a need for it to be ongoing. It will be a disaster if it runs successfully for 12 months then has no funding going forward.
TCC has an allocation of $4,000 pa from WDC in the LTP (unchanged for many years).
Most of this has been used, in the past, for access on the Tamahere Forum (run by
Pip Stevenson) which has now closed down (https://www.tamahereforum.co.nz/).
Some of this fund has been used to upgrade the two new rubbish bins at the Village
and we currently have available approx. $9,000.
Charles suggested that TCC should seek an increased allocation in the LTP from the
WDC. This is a win-win for Council and the Tamahere Community and WDC will appreciate that the strong rates take from Tamahere justifies some (very modest) return via the LTP.
Certainly, TCC will want to canvas the community once the trial is up and running, to see if there is support for it to continue and to be supported by WDC’s LTP allocation.
Crystal commented that other communities in the Tamahere-Woodlands ward have something they do in their region (e.g. Eureka Express a print publication, mostly funded by advertising, Matangi has one of its members running their web-site voluntarily).
None are on a scale or size of Tamahere, which is the second largest ward by population in the Waikato District
Geoff was asked to comment on the best way of organising payment if this is to proceed. After discussion it was agreed that Scott is to invoice WDC via TCC. TCC approves payment at its next meeting and the minutes of that meeting support the requisition for payment by the Council direct to Scott. Ideally, this would be done quarterly.
There was discussion regarding this commitment and the following resolution was put to a vote:
Motion: That TCC secure:
the domain name www.tamahereforum.org and all rights to that domain as a web-site,
and
MailChimp as an email service,
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Minutes of Meeting
with a view to going live when TCC has secured everything required from Philippa Stevenson (MailChip email data base and for a redirection of web-site traffic from www.tamahereforum.co.nz to www.tamaherefurum.org), and
TCC arrange with RocketSpark in Cambridge to host www.tamaherefurum.org with full
security, at a cost not exceeding $480 plus GST, and support for ongoing build and maintenance of the web-site, using the services of Scott Mathias of OmniMedia at Matangi.
TCC engages the services of Scott Mathias of OmniMedia at Matangi to build the web- site at a cost not exceeding $3,000, and
TCC engages the services of Scott Mathias of OmniMedia at Matangi to maintain and populate the web-site plus all email communications for a period of 12 months at a cost not exceeding $9,000 (by 4 quarterly payments), on the condition that there is a clear understanding of what those services will provide for the successful launch and maintenance of the web-site and mail service for the first 12 months, including an acknowledgement from Scott that this is not an arrangement based on a charge up service, the costs charged will not exceed what is authorised by TCC, the service contemplated will not degrade or be compromised during the 12 month term and that he will assist any person appointed by TCC to gain an understanding of the service he provides so that that person can assume his role and responsibility if Scott should be indisposed/unavailable or when his service comes to an end, and
Invoices from Scott Mathias of OmniMedia will be addressed to the Waikato District Council via TCC for payment by the Waikato District Council from funds allocated to the TCC, once approved by TCC in committee, on a quarterly basis, and
On the condition that the members of the TCC committee, who have not attended this meeting (apologies recorded in these minutes), receive a copy of this resolution and email their support for this motion to the Chair and Secretary within one week of tonight’s meeting.
Moved: Charles Fletcher Seconded: Anne Cao All in favour
9. WDC proposed Water Reservoir and Pumping Station for Tamahere.
Charles has circulated a map indicating the site the Council is considering for the proposed Water Reservoir and Pumping Station at Tamahere. This is part of a property purchased under the Public Works Act (from Keith & Sue Robertson) for the creation of Alfred Main Drive to provide the new connection required by the Waikato Expressway development and for the closure of the Hamilton end of Newall Road.
Geoff confirmed that Council staff are developing a proposal and he will report on progress going forward.
TCC’s position is known to Council, namely:
The cost of the proposed Water Reservoir and Pumping Station at Tamahere
($4 million plus) is an unnecessary expense to ratepayers
All users of the trickle water system (where water is provided by HCC under an
agreement with WDC) are required to have a minimum of 22,000-liter water storage, as do all properties with homes built in Tamahere in the last 15+ years
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Minutes of Meeting
• It would be desirable for WDC to negotiate a variation to the HCC agreement, on the basis that the supply guarantee, for 2 days water, is meet by the property owner’s obligation to have and maintain water storage of minimum size of 22,000l (i.e. at least 5-7 days’ supply).
Note: HCC and WDC have entered into an agreement with WaterCare so WaterCare may now be the driver for the Water Reservoir and Pumping Station at Tamahere.
10. Reports
CCTV update: Refer Geoff’s report – nothing to add
Tamahere Lions: No report. Current projects are:
o E-cargo trike.
o AED to be exterior mounted in the Village near the pharmacy.
Predator Free Tamahere (PFT): Report has been circulated. Definitely positive
progress. PFT has a new website.
Exercise Equipment: Paul Johnson is getting quotes to present so these facilities can
be constructed and installed.
Tamahere Mangaone Restoration Trust (TMRT): Russell’s written report was
circulated prior to the meeting and is taken as read.
o Really pleased with progress and that another 1,200 trees are scheduled to be
planted
o TMRT is meeting with WDC to address and agree the arrangements and
requirements for the targeted rate which is being paid as from 1 July 2023.
o No success to date with easements. Tony Whittaker has directed that only WDC can deal with landowners, not TMRT. This is a surprise to TCC as earlier discussions highlighted the high failure rate of Council securing landowner agreement to allow work to be done by TMRT and that a softer approach by TMRT or local people and local Councillor would be more likely to succeed (which has happened in. the past). o WDC has contracted The Property Group (TPGL) to deal with a property owner who was happy to allow TMRT to progress access between Bilsthorpe and the Allan Turner bridge and walkway (need consent from 3 landowners). He has advised TMRT that, as a result of his discussions with TPGL, he will not agree to what has
been request by WDC and his proposed consent is withdrawn.
o Charles was unimpressed and suggested that Mayor Jackie Church and Cr Crystal
Bevis should have a discussion to see if a different approach can be adopted.
Tamahere Model Country School (TMCS): Buddy’s written report was circulated prior
to the meeting and taken as read.
Tamahere St Stephens Church: Jane. Market is going really well. Just updated the
Traffic Management Plan for 12 months (big cost at $2,000 each Market day).
Heritage report: Jane reported signage is a slow work in progress
WDC Community Boards, Community & Hall Committees Steering Group Meeting
(Anne & Charles): The last meeting was predominantly a Hall Committee meeting but Tamahere was not represented by anyone from the Tamahere Community Centre who did not think there was any benefit in attending, according to Grahams recent discussion with Charles. Charles, Anne, Crystal and Mike attended.
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• Mayoral Community Awards: Charles had communicated his discussion with Mayor Jackie Church via email to all members. Crystal confirmed that 3 names are in the hat for the whole of the Tamahere-Woodlands Ward (nominations now closed) and that the Mayor is wanting this to be an annual event.
Motion: All of the above reports be received
Moved: Charles Fletcher
11. TCC Submissions
Seconded: Jane Manson All in favour
WDC Blueprint for Tamahere: Crystal to keep us posted.
Proposed WDC Freedom Camping Bylaw (closed 14 August): TCC submitted but does
not need to be heard.
Waikato District Community Facilities Strategy (closed 13 August) and
Waikato District Connectivity Strategy (closed 13 August) – The WDC drop-in meeting
on 9 August (2.30pm – 4.00pm at the Tamahere Community Centre) was the best
attended of all the meetings in the District. TCC has submitted.
WDC Local Alcohol Policy –Appeals pending.
12. Other Business
Anne reminded everyone that the Cherry Blossom Festival is running this month (https://www.blossfest.com): The event runs on:
23 September – Multicultural Variety Performances 24 September – Beatlemania Day
29 September – Multicultural Variety Performances 30 September – Multicultural Variety Performances 01 October – Multicultural Variety Performances 07 October – Jazz and Blues Day08 October – Bridgerton Spring Ball 2023
Geoff agreed to provide Charles with the list of recipients of emails sent to CommunityCommitteeTamahere@waidc.govt.nz so that it can be updated for all ongoing communications to TCC members.
Actions: See marked through the Minutes above.
13. Date of next meeting: 7.30pm on Tuesday, 3rd October 2023 Meeting closed at 9.44pm
Minutes of Meeting
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