Nelson Community and Whanau Minutes of meeting: Thursday 11 April 2013 Salvation Army Rooms, Nelson, 12 noon

Present:

Katy Steele, Jacqui Irwin, Volunteer Nelson Sue Heydon, Multi-cultural Council Marama Bevan, NMIT Rochelle Nicholls, Family Start Donna Smith, Victim Support Kathryn Slater, Community Education, Nayland Deanne Kilpatrick, NTYWC Di Fleming, Restorative Justice Jettie Zeestraten, Red Cross Refugee Services Marina Goswell, Budget Service Pip Berkett, Cath Kerridge, T/NN Youth Services David Reid, Gateway Housing Trust Margaret King, Bronwyn Jones, Inland Revenue G Blanforth (sp?) BUWT Kath Allen, DSS Nelson Marlborough DHB Megan Riddell, NZ Red Cross Babbie Joyce, Rejoyce Trust Jill Knight, Salvation Army. Pip Bowman, Attendance Service Nayland College

Apologies: Kindra Douglas, Nicola Mercer, Rach Large, Mal Drummond

Facilitators / notetaker: Katy Steele and Babbie Joyce / Jacqui Irwin

Given the smaller number of attendees at this meeting, it was noted that many have depended on receiving a reminder email about the Community and Whanau meeting, rather than having the dates in their calendar and being reminded through reading Community News and Views.

It was agreed that Volunteer Nelson would send round a reminder a week before the next meeting on 9 May and it is recommended that everyone gets the dates in their calendar, as it is always the second Thursday of the month, i.e. 9 May, 13 June, 11 July, 8 August, 12 September, 10 October, 14 November and 12 December.

Action: Volunteer Nelson / everyone

Notices:

If you would like your full notice in the minutes, please send it to jacqui @volunteernelson.org.nz

 Margaret King, IRD explained two forms to recommend to clients: a basic factsheet for salary and wage earners explaining personal tax summaries and another for appointing an executive officer for tax. Both available from Inland Revenue.

 Donna Smith, Victim Support said they are recruiting now for volunteers and will be interviewing in May with training in June. She explained that the training and the duties weren’t that onerous and were after the event, rather than being in highly stressful crime scenes. She is happy to discuss duties with anyone who’s interested, and particularly asked for men to volunteer, as they are very much needed.

 Megan from the Red Cross said their Appeal is 6-12 May, with street collections on 8 and 10 May. They need help with the collecting and warmly invite volunteers to assist with that.

 Jill Knight, Salvation Army, said their new suite and services are open for longer hours on Monday, Wednesday and Friday until 2pm and they have an open door on Tuesday and Thursday. They can take referrals if someone is available to assist. Their budgeting service is also running. The Red Shield Appeal is the last week in April to early May, and they put all the money received back into Nelson.

 Deanne from the Women’s Centre: Film fundraiser, Saturday 20 April, a gorgeous French film with sub-titles at the Suter from 7pm. Tickets $17 from the Women’s Centre.

Community and Whanau meeting 11 April, 2013 - page 1  Deanne said Youth Week runs from 4-12 May and there will be a brochure out in a couple of weeks with lots of events. One is a *free* course for 16-24 year olds on how to run events over the weekend of 25/26 May at the YMCA in Victory Square.

 Jettie said the Red Cross Refugee Service needs volunteers to support families arriving in Nelson. The next training is min mid-July and there is a six month placement with arriving families. Jettie invited anyone interested in this sort of work to get in touch with their service.

 Katy from Volunteer Nelson announced the launch of the new website at www.volunteernelson.org.nz and asked that everyone wanting to contribute items for Community News and Views to use the website as the preferred method. She is happy to assist those not able to use the website initially, but soon wants to encourage everyone to use the website. The Youth Volunteer Awards nominations are now open, with a closing date of 17 May – also through the VN website. Please think of nominating a group or individual between 12 and 25 who has been an outstanding young volunteer over the last year. The Trustpower Community Awards nominations are also open for organisations, also closing on 17 May.

 Jacqui from Volunteer Nelson explained the community workshop programme, also available through www.volunteernelson.org.nz Soon all the individual course venues will be confirmed and all the detailed information will be up on the website. The next is on Avoid Legal Fish Hooks – issues for community groups on 8 May in the ACC training room from 10-12 noon. You can register through the website or email [email protected]

Topics for 2013 Meetings - update  Aim to organise a Hot Topic every second meeting, and CWTAS offered to continue to organise these, but appears not to have happened for the next meeting in May. Action: Katy and Jacqui from VN will follow up with CWTAS

 Aim to re-organise the cancelled Nov meeting with Councillors re changes to the Local Government Act, and community led development. Action: CWTAS to organise

 Volunteer Nelson will organise a meet-the-candidates meeting prior to the election in October this year, so late August/early September Action: VN to organise

 Jill Harris agreed to ask Minister Bennett to a meeting to talk about welfare reforms – Jill sent an attendance list to Volunteer Nelson, who emailed the Minister’s office. Awaiting response, will follow up Action: VN to organise

 Agreed that it would be good to ask Nick Smith to talk about housing (affordability) – yet to follow up Action: VN to organise

 Agreed it would be useful to talk about community resources every third meeting, for example the Found directory, to ensure that everyone knows of valuable resources Action: VN to organise

 Discussed that it would be good to have 1 or 2 groups doing a 10 minute presentation providing more detail about their organisation, again so that everyone becomes more familiar with who is doing what in the community Action: VN to organise

 From previous meeting: agreed to invite Jenny Hawes, NCC contact person, to speak to a future C & W meeting about Local Alcohol Policies Action: VN to organise

Networking chat over cuppa followed

Community and Whanau meeting 11 April, 2013 - page 2 Hot Topic:

1. Youth Support Services in the region

Pip Berkett, Manager at Tasman Nelson Youth Support Services, noted that NZ has the highest proportion of children who are not in work or education. The Youth Service is funded through the Ministry of Social Development, focusing on 15-17 year olds (other parts of the contract are carried out by Presbyterian Support services). Youth Services target youth at risk. They have six staff, based out of Richmond and Victory Square. It is estimated there are over 20,000 nationwide, and about 250 in Nelson Tasman. They currently have 164 on their books. Pip said they want to promote the service widely, and also work closely with the colleges. Cath Kerridge explained that the service is voluntary for each youth to participate, with coaches linking to other service providers as needed. There is an issue in that very few courses are available. And while youth would rather work and earn money than study, they also get into gaming and don’t stick with work experience. Their service works with other groups to get referrals. Some youth go on to do correspondence or work experience, based on a needs assessment to give an action plan and goals. There is a low pull-out rate and they maintain a lot of txt based contact. The main aim is to keep them in school as long as possible.

Action: VN and Youth Services to discuss youth volunteering opportunities

2. Promote C&W more widely

 Agreed to place ads in The Leader etc. to let other community organisations know about meetings and send reminder emails. Action: VN to organise

Meeting closed at 1.10pm

Next Nelson meeting:

Please put the 2013 series in your calendar – always the second Thursday of the month, same venue and time.

Action: everyone

Next Community and Whanau meeting is THURSDAY, 9 May

Facilitator: Jill Harris

Following meetings for your diaries: 13 June, 11 July, 8 August, 12 September, 10 October, 14 November and 12 December

Venue: Salvation Army meeting room (upstairs), Montgomery Square, Nelson from noon to 1.30pm

Community and Whanau meeting 11 April, 2013 - page 3