Parnell Rotary in action with Garden to Table Trust

The Rotary Club of Parnell decided to support the new Garden to Table project at Wynyard Quarter this year and have been on stand-by to get underway with the first of many planned working bees.

The Garden to Table Trust currently works in schools teaching children to grow, harvest, prepare and share healthy seasonal food in a curriculum integrated programme. In this programme extensive fruit and vegetable gardens  are established in which 7 to 10 year old children help to establish design and maintain the garden and growing of food. A wide range of vegetables fruits and herbs are harvested, prepared and shared in a home-style sustainable kitchen classroom.

Waterfront Auckland has allocated land in the Wynyard Quarter where such a programme will be centrally located and utilised by 4 or 5 schools who will come to the site weekly.
Garden to Table Chairperson, Catherine Bell is a well-known foodie who is passionate about quality food, eating healthy local fresh food and teaching our young people these necessary skills.

The first working bee held by Parnell Rotary took place on a  glorious sunny Saturday 12 May when a dozen or more Rotarians turned up with Trustees of the Garden to Table Trust with wheelbarrows, shovels, rakes and strong backs to move and spread five large piles of gravel 40mm thick over a 400+square metre area. Rotarians produced delicious scones and savouries plus a little wine as well as Catherine providing coffees for the workers.

Everyone is keen to return to help with the next stage which could be fencing, planting, erecting pots or any task asked of our members. This is a great project that will be of significant interest as it develops in this central location.

For more information go to www.gardentotable.org.nz
Submitted by:

Phillippa Pitcher
President
Rotary Club of Parnell

Rotary Club of Parnell achieves $1 million of cumulative donations to Alzheimer’s Auckland

Three hundred golfers helped the Rotary Club of Parnell and Countdown achieve their goal of raising $150 000 for Alzheimers Auckland at the annual Countdown Charity Golf tournament at Titirangi Golf Club.  The achievement brings the total raised for Alzheimers Auckland to $1.1 million .

Parnell Club’s 38 members turned up at 5.45am on the day to start preparing the course and then run the tournament. Most worked until early evening and some did not leave until 10.30pm. Behind the scenes, and for months leading up to the tournament, a small committee of the club had worked closely with Countdown and Alzheimers to make the event so successful.

 

Countdown management and its suppliers sponsor holes, donate food and prizes, set up food and beverage stations around the course and enter corporate teams to play on the day. The first round tees off at 7.15am and the second tees off early afternoon. The 300 players are provided with branded player shirts, caps and goodie bags and following their round of golf they return to the club house for lunch (or dinner) and to participate in an auction. Every player receives a prize but the winners get the biggest ones

Alzheimer’s Auckland supports dementia sufferers and their families across the wider Auckland region.  There are already approximately 48 000 people living in New Zealand with dementia, and the number is expected to double over the next twenty years.  The $150 000 from the tournament goes towards the society’s operating costs

 

 

BABIES + BOOZE – A Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder Youth Social Media Awareness Campaign

The risk to unborn babies from alcohol has been making headlines for decades but Kiwis don’t seem to be heeding the warnings.  At least 50 percent of women think that drinking some alcohol during pregnancy is safe and 80 percent of teen pregnancies are alcohol exposed, according to New Zealand surveys. 

Determined to do something about this, the Rotary Club of Parnell teamed up with two community organisations, Well Women’s & Family Trust and Alcohol Healthwatch Trust to turn this situation around. 

“Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) is a hidden and very misunderstood disability and it can be difficult for young women to make the link between social drinking and future harm to their child”, says Christine Rogan from Alcohol Healthwatch’s Fetal Alcohol Network, who worked on the project.  Not to drink during pregnancy is an important message that needs to spread far and wide,” she says.

After consulting with communities and young people, the BABIES + BOOZE Youth Social Media Awareness Campaign was born.  Youth were involved in the design and production of a social media resource, filming and performing in the videos.  Their video material is accompanied on You-tube by discussion of the risk of drinking alcohol during pregnancy by Auckland Neonatologist Dr Simon Rowley as wells as poignant recollections of two birth mothers, whose drinking during pregnancy had an adverse effect on their children. 

“There is still a long way to go to reduce the risk of FASD, but our hope is that this campaign will start to get the message across to the future parents of this country”, says Ms Rogan.

Wallet-sized cards with key prevention messages and links to the You-Tube videos can be accessed from www.fan.org.nz   

 The Campaign was launched at Ruapotaka Marae in Glen Innes on Thursday 18th October.

For further information contact:

Ms Ruth Davy, Rotary Club of Parnell Representative, Mob: 027 273 7033
Ms Christine Rogan, Fetal Alcohol Network NZ Coordinator www.fan.org.nz   0274467371

--------------------------  Project and Project PR Synopsis ------------------------

This project received the December 2012 District 9920 PR Award
 

The purpose of the project was to:

•   to seek to educate potential parents of the risk of the mother drinking while pregnant
•   target teenage girls, initially in low socio economic groups since
    o    research has shown a high incidence of ‘binge drinking’ in this group and
    o    80% of all teenage pregnancies are unplanned. 

Since this group has little exposure to traditional mass media channels but is an intensive user of social media, we decided that the primary channel for communicating our education message would be social media and use relevant community groups and services to reinforce the message.

Outcome: 

The education programme was launched on October 18 at Ruapotaka Marae and its uptake to date has been very satisfactory.

Social Media Coverage:

•   You tube “Babies and Booze” with 1,178 hits on 3 December 2012.
•   http://www.youtube.com/user/FASDNetworkNZ or www.fan.org.nz

Public Image Coverage:

•   Launch of the campaign at Ruapotaka Marae, Glen Innes, with significant media coverage including TVNZ Breakfast Show, radio interviews, Maori TV and promotion in public health media across New Zealand.
•   Medical and public health publications and websites have either profiled the campaign or created a link to the FASD website.

Other coverage:

•   A DVD resource to compliment the social media.
•   Business card promotion with key messages matching the graphics of the above.
•   Filming included to birth mothers’ experiences, two female actors (Pacific and Maori) relating a short version of birth mothers’ experiences, paediatrician Dr Simon Rowley discussing FASD, three plays performed by Maori and Pacific youth based on supporting your peers who are pregnant and how to get help.
•   The DVDs are being circulated throughout the community to education providers and service providers working with young pregnant women.