Grey Lynn 2030 Chair’s Report 2016

Grey Lynn 2030 Transition Community Trust

Chair’s Report 2016

Welcome to the Grey Lynn 2030 AGM for 2016.

I would like to start with a thank you to our Trustees and active Waste Away members who have contributed and ensured that 2016 was another year full of activity for the group.

We have had some changes to our group of Trustees this year, we were sad to see Pippa Coom resign from her role of Trustee, however  we have welcomed Brigitte Sistig to GL2030 as a new Trustee in the second half of the year.  Chris Olson is in the role of Treasurer, Charlotte Gordon as Secretary and Suzanne Kendrick continues with the running of the Car Boot market, a successful social enterprise for several years now.

The Waste Away group is as active as ever and has a continued presence at the Grey Lynn Farmers Market – having a stall at the market gives us a great touch point to engage with the local community, and provides some income to fund our activities.  A big thank you to Lynn Green for always being there to set up the stall and to take care of stock ordering and banking – it is much appreciated.

Waste Away celebrated Plastic Bag free July for the third year running in 2016.  We had a plastic bag free day on July 3^rd and with some funding from Waitemata Local Board were able to print some marketing materials and run three stands on the day with volunteers at the local supermarkets encouraging shoppers to refrain from using single use plastic bags.  We were supported by Farro and Countdown and our team had a few sewing bees and made a number of trendy reusable bags to hand out to shoppers.  The response on the day from shoppers was very positive and we gained some great insights into why people use single use bags and converted a few who had previously never considered the negative aspects of plastic in our marine environment to deciding to use reusable bags in future!

We put up our plastic bag installation again at the corner of Williamson Ave and Great North Rd which is a very visible way to highlight the number of single use plastic bag used each year by each New Zealander – 250! – and the damage these do, in particular to our marine environment.  This is the second year we have had the installation and it always attracts a lot of attention and comments.

Much of our focus this year has been working to get a Trial Resource Recovery Centre going together with Earth Action Trust, a non profit group in Mt Roskill that works with migrants on sustainable projects and with the support of Matthew Luxon from Envision.  The two groups were awarded funding through the Waste Minimisation & Innovation Fund at the end of 2015 and although 2016 has seen some challenges in finding a site and figuring out exactly what we want to do, we now have a brand – RePurpose – and we are shortly to take possession of 500m2 of land in Onehunga on which we will set up a small Resource Recovery centre which will accept items that people are discarding but that we can sell and hopefully do some upcycling of furniture as well.

We will also be running a Repair Café on Saturday 18^th February at the St Columba Hall on Surrey Crescent.  The Repair Café concept came out of the Netherlands in 2009 and is now a worldwide phenomenon which focuses on repairing rather than discarding items and also creates a sense of community, people coming together to repair and to learn how to repair.  There is no charge for the repairs, repairers and other workers are all volunteers.  Put this one in your calendars and come along with any small appliances, clothing, furniture that requires repair!

Our trial resource recovery centre  and repair café will be the main focus of the year ahead as well as keeping up with the plans for the Central Resource Recovery Centre which is being planned by Auckland Council  currently and will likely be tendered out to community groups during the second half of 2017.

These activities continue to support the principles of our Trust, in particular around minimizing the waste within our community, maintaining a positive vision and encouraging practical action as well as promoting and engaging in building neighbourhood spirit and cooperation.

Also, as always, my thanks to my fellow trustees and the Waste Away group who work hard to keep Grey Lynn 2030 moving forward .

Colinda Rowe

Chair GL2030