Portobello School Keep the Peninsula Beautiful

Nineteen year 7&8 pupils from Portobello School put their gumboots on and cleaned up the beach areas around Latham Bay in Portobello on Tuesday 24th September. Supervised by teacher Candace Christensen and Portobello Community Inc. Chairman, Paul Pope the group collected a full array of harbour rubbish that included plenty of glass and plastic. Some of the more interesting finds was a new shoe, boat hatch cover and five fluorescent road cones. Helped by the low tide the busy group covered a 1.25 kilometre stretch of Latham Bay and made their mark on two of the popular pocket beaches in the area. Once again it was great to see our young people give up their time to keep the Peninsula beautiful. Well done, tino pai!

Keeping the Peninsula Beautiful

SONY DSC

With Keep New Zealand Beautiful Week in full swing a few hard-working people turned out to make their mark on the local landscape on Saturday 21st September. Thomas Pope (9) along with big sister Georgia (12) and their father Paul decided to tackle Harington Point Road. In a 2.5 kilometre section from the golf course to Harwood they picked up 8 bags of rubbish, 2 televisions, a truck tyre and some assorted car parts. A special thanks to Cathy Barron and her children Fergus and Ivy who cleaned up Portobello Park. While Melissa Bulger-Patrick and her children Brooke and Elly tackled Portobello Domain, the cemetery and adjacent streets. It was great to see local kids working at keeping their town in tip-top shape. Pupils from Portobello School will be tackling the area around Latham  Bay on Tuesday 24th. It’s little things like this that make a difference to our area and the community and don’t just have to be part of a bigger event. Let’s try to make a difference everyday.

October Hawk and Hurl

H&H

Its time for that important spring clean around your place so bring your rubbish, recycling and saleable stuff to the Portobello Hawk and Hurl. Run in conjunction with the Dunedin City Council’s Community Clean Up Day this is a great way to turn your

  • old toys
  • clothes
  • kitchen ware
  • tools
  • crafts
  • garden plants and anything else you can imagine into cash.

Stalls are just $10.00 with proceeds going to Portobello School. So if you’d like have a great spring clean up while recycling some of those things you can’t bear to throw away contact Paul Pope, Wayne Cameron or Dave Fenwick

Portobello Hawk & Hurl at the Portobello Domain, starts at 10:00am

Creating a Garden Township

SONY DSCThe Portobello Community Incorporated lad’s team have competed a second landscaping project in the main street of the township. After pruning and removing a trailer load of rubbish and weeds a few weeks ago the edging and planting has now been completed. The newly completed planted area adjacent to the public toilets has allowed more light and less litter in the area. Using the timbers from the old Portobello jetty and mulch donated from local contractor John Clearwater the new border is a welcome complement to the other planting undertaken besides the hotel. There are many other areas around the township that planting could improve for the benefit of the community. If you have any thoughts about these sorts of projects you can drop Chairman, Paul Pope a line through the website contact form. A special thanks to Jenny and Levi for delivering the fresh baking and a welcome hot drink while the work was being finished.

SONY DSC

Keep New Zealand Beautiful Week

Keep Dunedin Beautiful and the Dunedin City Council are asking residents to beautify their favourite part of our city by ridding it of litter. So Portobello Community Incorporated are going to play their part by undertaking a clean up around our area on Saturday 21st September. If you’d like to take part in the clean up then meet at the Portobello Store at 10:00 am, grab a bag, hi-viz, some gloves and make a difference in your community. Get your family, friends or neighbours involved. Rubbish bags will be collected and disposed of appropriately

The amount of time you spend on it is entirely up to you as every little bit counts. See you there.

Rolling Up Your Sleeves

SONY DSC

SONY DSCMembers of Portobello Community Incorporated put in another solid morning’s work on Sunday preparing the area adjacent to the public toilets for a new planted border. This area has always been a dark damp corner that attracts rubbish and receives little sun. The removal of a willow, rubbish and invasive vines along with the lifting of trees has improved the area significantly. Using more timber from the old jetty and further planting in the next fortnight will create a very attractive space that enhances the area for the benefit of the community. Special thanks to Geoff, Paul, Peter and Thomas (9) for their efforts on Sunday morning in making a start on another important main street landscaping project.

New Trees at the Portobello Domain

It was a pleasant surprise to see that the Dunedin City council had planted new beech trees on the bank above the Domain last week. The new plantings have really added to the landscaping of the area and in the future they will provide shade, bird roosting and a strong visual impact on the reserve. The bank above the sports-ground has always been a wet area and hopefully the trees will help to soak up some of that moisture. Great to see the City Council proactively planting new trees on its reserve areas, they will really add to our local recreation area. Well done.

Magic Day at the Portobello Market

Magician Jonathan Usher with money burning a hole in his pocketIt was a magic day at the Portobello Market held in conjunction with Cadbury’s Chocolate Carnival on the Otago Peninsula. A beautifully warm day brought nearly 1000 visitors from around the region and overseas. With a good number of stalls, food, entertainment and plenty of free Cadbury’s chocolate Portobello put on a great day for everyone. Highlights for young and old was an entertaining  performance by magician Jonathan Usher, who wowed the crowd with his patter and his magic. Balloon performer Jay also had an enthusiastic and lengthy queue of children wanting balloon hats, animals and cartoon characters.

It was also great to see local music teacher Mary Jennings and some of her local Peninsula students give a performance on the Coronation Hall stage. Local groups  contributed to the event by putting on stalls and used the event as an important fundraiser for their organisations in our community. The Cadbury’s Carnival is a popular event for the Peninsula and the Dunedin region and the generosity of the company for its sponsorship is greatly appreciated. Hope to see everyone in Portobello next year. Click on pictures to see in full size viewer.

Camping Ground for the Peninsula

 CampThe Dunedin City Council have announced plans to develop a “DoC style” campsite on the Peninsula. In a report in The Star on the 2oth of June a Council spokeswoman announced that  the City Council was investigating sites on the Peninsula, but would not name the sites. In an unusual statement the City Council spokeswoman was quoted as saying “It is not something we are going to do secretly and decide…” Now the question here is if its not a secret and the City Council wanted the process to be “fair and let people know they were considering it” why would the Council not provide the community with all of the relevant information now? Clearly it is a secret and it begs the question of how this proposal might affect community use and recreation on public reserve land for the Peninsula community in the future.

The pressures on the business community to actively ensure that their enterprises are viable in the present economic climate are immense. It’s difficult to fathom why the City Council would explore such an enterprise when it will no doubt unduly affect local accommodation  businesses like that of Sherryl and Kevin Charles in Portobello. What’s even more difficult to understand is why the City Council wish to compete in the accommodation marketplace? Surely if the demand for an additional campsite was required then those with the funding, land and enterprise in the private sector would undertake to develop such a project. To date private sector investment of that type has not been realised. The City Council will be creating a subsidised accommodation business without having to pay a mortgage, rates or development costs. That’s a distinct financial advantage and one that competes directly with the private sector.

Domain

Read the full Star story here….