Auckland Region Activities & Services
World Ranger Day
On the 29th July 2011 the NZRA supported world ranger day. Trudy McNie the organiser provided the following report on the event...
Thanks to the 39 people for coming along and participating and supporting World Ranger Day in Auckland which we celebrated on the 29th July. It was great to have Auckland Council staff from North, West, Central and South represented, from both local and regional parks, plus contractors, Friends of Maungawhau and guest speakers from the education sector.
The planting of the 300 native trees was completed much quicker than I had anticipated!! I hope you enjoyed your stroll back through Totara Park - amongst the cattle, through the bush and past the adventure playgrounds. The mountain bikers came back with mud, smiles and good feedback. Thanks to Manukau on the Move for providing that activity. After morning tea, the presentations were held. Ian Maxwell, Manager Parks, Sports & Recreation, gave an update on Auckland Council Parks Sports and Recreation and spoke of supporting training for staff. One option for qualification is the National Certificate in Parks and Reserve (Park Ranger) - Level 3 which we had two presentations about. Dave Bradshaw from Manukau Institute of Technology (MIT) spoke of MITs plans to provide this qualification from next year, in a classroom environment. And Skills Active had their hot-off-the -press brochure to share with everyone. Skills Active provide their qualification as on-job training. Kit Howden is keen to have some Ranger company at next year's World Ranger Congress. Please talk to your manager about support for attending this event in Tanzania in November 2012. Thanks for your generous donations for The Thin Green Line Foundation which came to $200 and this has been matched with another $200 by the Local and Sports Parks South Manager - thank you Malcolm Page! It's a fantastic cause. We attempted (in the wind) to have candles burning in memory of the Rangers who have lost their lives while carrying out their essential work.
Hopefully, if my email is not too late, we will feature in an Oceania Regional report for the next edition of the Thin Green Line. Also, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) posted a story on World Ranger Day on their website. I would encourage you all to visit the IUCN website to see what they said.
Next year will be the 20th Anniversary of the International Ranger Federation. The International Ranger Federation are hoping to organise some big things around this anniversary to promote the IRF, to further raise the profile of rangers, the work that they do and the risks that they face and to work towards some solutions to our issues. I encourage you all to start thinking now about what you and your association could do for World Ranger Day next year.
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Getting Ahead Workshops
Christchurch members are "getting ahead" after the quakes with help from our friends.
In response to Christchurch's devastating earthquakes in February this year Steve Gibling put the call out to all NZRA members nationwide to support the members in Christchurch by establishing a fund. It was at the discretion of the Regional Committee to decide how the funds would be utilised to support the members of Christchurch.
The recreation sector has been hit hard by the earthquakes with significant damage to buildings causing job losses. The Committee's focus was to support our members who have been affected and seek assistance from Robyn Cockburn to run two "getting ahead" careers workshops at a heavily discounted rate. The fund also supported financially by NZRA covered Robyn's travel costs, and Robyn generously donated her time to lead two fantastic workshops. There was a good attendance at each workshop with a variety of members and non-members attending including some Lincoln University students.
Feedback was overwhelmingly supportive from the participants of the workshop who felt that they needed time to "stop and think" about their future in recreation even more so since the earthquake. The Committee would like to run these workshops again and encourage other regions to also run these sessions with Robyn.
Thanks once again to all NZRA members who donated funds, to NZRA Headquarters for their support and to Robyn for her time and energy to lead these extremely beneficial workshops.
