Bus tour
A Waipā District Council bus tour to Huntly to visit Opportunity Shops there and get a free cup of coffee is funded by the Ministry for the Environment’s Waste Disposal Levy which must be spent exclusively on projects that promote or achieve waste minimisation. The tour is in partnership with Waikato District Council which holds the same event and brings busloads of shoppers to Cambridge.
Review in
An independent review into the delivery of the Cambridge Connections project has found that while the process followed was largely correct, there were opportunities for improvement – including more time being allowed to ‘take the community on the journey’.
The Cambridge Connections project focuses on the development of a business case to attract funding from the New Zealand Transport Agency for transport improvements.
See: Making connections
Tower repair
One of the four kauri pillars from 1881 holding up the St Andrew’s Church Bell Tower is rotten silencing the bells within. Photo: Mary Anne Gill.
St Andrews parishioners voted to invest in repairing the Cambridge church’s bell tower at a meeting held in the Parish Centre on Sunday. One of the four kauri pillars from 1881 holding up the tower is rotten, and the tower is now off limits to campanologists – the formal word for bell ringers.
Building awards
A Leamington home was named supreme house at the Waikato Registered Master Builders House of the Year awards last weekend. The Grayling Builders house also won the $2-4 million build category, craftsmanship, outdoor living, bathroom, kitchen and lifestyle awards and a gold award. Another house, built by G.D. Pringle Building in Cambridge took out the Waikato Supreme Renovation of the Year Award.
Crime lines
Chook Henwood
A Cambridge based retired policeman has released his memoirs. Chook Henwood, a police officer for 37 years, was part of the team which sought to catch serial rapists Joseph Thompson and Malcolm Rewa. Unmasking Monsters details what policing in Auckland used to be like and what police had to do to catch criminals using the resources they had at the time.
Author signing
Novelist Charity Norman will be guest author at the Paper Plus Te Awamutu book club on August 28. She will talk about her new book Home Truths. Norman’s Remember Me was the Ngaio Marsh Awards novel of the year.
Mānuka planting
Forty hectares of manuka will be planted on Waipā District Council land in the Sainsbury Road Forest at Pirongia as a long-term investment. The council says a lease agreement with a Manuka honey company for the land has the potential to turn an investment of $485,000 to $2.4 million over a 25-year period.
Chanwai to perform
Musician Matthew Chanwai will perform in Te Awamutu.
Te Awamutu Concerts Alive will stage a Sunday concert to raise funds for performer organist and cellist Matthew Chanwai.
The St Paul’s Collegiate graduate was placed second at two American Protégé International Piano and Strings competitions, which led to a performance at New York’s Carnegie Hall when he was just 13. He has been cello associate principal of the national secondary schools’ orchestra and is also part of the New Zealand Youth Orchestra.
Chanwai goes to the United Kingdom in October this year, where he will begin a Bachelor of Arts (Music Tripos) with Honours at Cambridge University. He will also be the Organ Scholar at the university’s Downing College.
Sunday’s concert will be at St John’s Anglican Church in Te Awamutu.
Musician Matthew Chanwai will perform in Te Awamutu.
