Hi Everyone

Our Halo hats go off to Megan Salole and her wonderful neighbours, who all live on the same Paekakariki street. The fun they are having is infectious and I know there must be other groups of neighbours in Wellington that inspire all of us too.  Why not get together and let us know where your street is and we will enhance the halo together!

Here is a blog from Megan that gives you an idea of their commitment and passion.

Ames Street is going Green
Today after a week of tyrannical weather, the sun came out and our community had our third planning meeting to prepare for the Greenest Neighbourhood competition. There was some delicious fresh bread and olive tapenade, some beautiful home baked shortbread and an almond and honey tart was served warm from the oven – a lovely afternoon was had by all!

Gathering our intel – how are we doing? We will be doing a Landfill Waste Audit – 3rd weekend of July – to see what is filling up our rubbish bags. Once we know where our weaknesses are, we can work out how to increase our sustainability in those areas.
We are also going to get intimate with our new water meters, learning how to read them, learning how to identify leaks and working out how we can reduce our consumption.
Each household will do a personal audit of their emissions.
Anyone who is on Powershop already has live information about their consumption and great access to carbon neutral power. We will incentivise the community to swap – to get the discounts for signing up a friend

Reducing our Impact

Big Steps towards Little Footprints
Once we know how much we are using – we can make a plan to reduce it and apply to the Kapiti council for a grant to help us with our waste reduction – for example – we might want to build a biodigester so that we can process our weeds.
There are many things that we are planning to do as a community to help bring our footprint down; Compost Club, Food Co-Op, Local milk purchasing and cheese making, having a maintenance day to fix our bikes so that we use them for local travel instead of our cars.
To encourage more local food production, we are going to celebrate the seasons, do a seed swap and share recipes from the Local Table – so that we can eat more from our own backyards.
And then there are the fun things – the wine and beer making, the recipes, seeds, and clothes swap (with our home made wine!) We are going to plant Fruit Trees along the curbs and plant bee- and butterfly-friendly gardens the berms.

Kotare
A Thriving, biodiverse Community
We have a natural advantage, sitting along the coast of Kapiti Island Sanctuary – we see some wonderful birdlife along Ames St and in our backyards. The birds have a very social time in the bamboo every night and morning.
By making a few special efforts, we can ensure that our street is as welcoming to birdlife as possible. We are very lucky to have little blue penguins nesting on Ames Street, and this could be a real source of pride – a local icon – if we can create a safe friendly environment for them to nest. We are taking steps to get rid of predators and to make the community aware of their presence. Their mating season is in August, so we are all going to be on the lookout for tracks at dawn and dusk.
We are going to plant Kowhai and other trees that birds love, and start keeping track of unusual sightings – like Kotare, Kereru and Kakariki.
If you are a resident of Ames Street, and want to get involved – email us! megan@actionstation.org.nz