Unmarked graves - including those of two children - have been uncovered at Clareville Cemetery after radar scans were taken after clearing of the area.
Carterton District Council community and recreation services manager Brian McWilliams said the area in which the eight graves were discovered had been earmarked as a natural burial site and there were no records of the burials.
Council staff initially found the site after spotting broken headstones in the old grave.
They then removed 12 large, old pine trees and then went to cemetery survey consultants Geotech who scanned the area using Ground Penetrating Radar.
Geotech is in the process of preparing a report.
Mr McWilliams said, because the area is quite rough, he would level it to enable easy maintenance.
A fence has also been relocated to include the separated graves as part of the layout of the entire cemetery. Mr McWilliams has also recommended to the council a small memorial stone be put in to acknowledge the graves and their unknown occupants.
Saturday, 29 August 2009
"Generation Y" Kiwis
Young New Zealanders are postponing the usual commitments of adulthood, just like their international contemporaries in what has been called the "Peter Pan generation".
A study has found that "Generation Y" Kiwis aged 20 to 24 are more likely to be still studying and living at home with their parents, and less likely to be working or living with partners, than preceding generations of young people born 10, 20 and 30 years earlier.
Legal marriage has almost disappeared in the age group and religious affiliation has almost halved.
But welfare dependence and sole parenting, which peaked when the previous "Generation X" reached adulthood amid record postwar unemployment between 1985 and 1999, have declined among today's youth as jobs again became easier to find in the first years of this century.
The study by David Rea and Paul Callister of Victoria University's Institute of Policy Studies concludes that the changing levels of unemployment have affected many key outcomes for youth, and warns that the recession may hit young people hard.
"Over the next two years, as well as higher youth unemployment we are likely to see more young people living at home, possibly increased participation in education, fewer young people employed, increased sole parenthood, increased benefit receipt, lower incomes and possibly higher rates of mortality amongst young men," the study says.
Dr Callister welcomed Government steps to minimise these effects, such as Job Ops work subsidies and this week's announcement of 30,000 places in school holiday programmes.
"I think they have reacted reasonably quickly," he said.
The study is based on Census data for young people born in New Zealand, excluding the growing numbers born overseas so as to spot underlying trends. The numbers of 15- to 19-year-olds born overseas rose from just 9 per cent in the 1976 Census to 23 per cent in 2006.
The main driver in "postponing adulthood" is staying longer in education. The proportion of 20-year-olds enrolled in education has doubled from 23 per cent in 1971 to 48 per cent in2002.
Conversely, fulltime employment dropped from 89 per cent of males aged 20 to 24 in 1976 to a low of 66 per cent in the 1990s recession, recovering only slightly to 69 per cent in 2006.
Partly as a result, 20- to 24-year-olds still living with their parents have also increased, but only from 24 per cent to 31 per cent.
In the "baby boom" generation of 1976, more than half of that age group were almost certainly living with partners. There was no separate count of "partners" in those days, but 48 per cent of the group were already legally married.
"Despite the protest and counter-culture, as young people the [baby-boomers] were more likely to be married and having children than all other generations in the 20th century," the study says.
Since then, the numbers living with partners have roughly halved to 27 per cent in 2006, while those legally married have plunged to 5 per cent. Religious affiliation has dropped from 75 per cent to 43 per cent.
Although the study does not discuss it, contraceptives and the growing acceptance of abortion and sole parenthood may also have encouraged young people to put off commitments to children and lifelong partners.
www.ips.ac.nz
A study has found that "Generation Y" Kiwis aged 20 to 24 are more likely to be still studying and living at home with their parents, and less likely to be working or living with partners, than preceding generations of young people born 10, 20 and 30 years earlier.
Legal marriage has almost disappeared in the age group and religious affiliation has almost halved.
But welfare dependence and sole parenting, which peaked when the previous "Generation X" reached adulthood amid record postwar unemployment between 1985 and 1999, have declined among today's youth as jobs again became easier to find in the first years of this century.
The study by David Rea and Paul Callister of Victoria University's Institute of Policy Studies concludes that the changing levels of unemployment have affected many key outcomes for youth, and warns that the recession may hit young people hard.
"Over the next two years, as well as higher youth unemployment we are likely to see more young people living at home, possibly increased participation in education, fewer young people employed, increased sole parenthood, increased benefit receipt, lower incomes and possibly higher rates of mortality amongst young men," the study says.
Dr Callister welcomed Government steps to minimise these effects, such as Job Ops work subsidies and this week's announcement of 30,000 places in school holiday programmes.
"I think they have reacted reasonably quickly," he said.
The study is based on Census data for young people born in New Zealand, excluding the growing numbers born overseas so as to spot underlying trends. The numbers of 15- to 19-year-olds born overseas rose from just 9 per cent in the 1976 Census to 23 per cent in 2006.
The main driver in "postponing adulthood" is staying longer in education. The proportion of 20-year-olds enrolled in education has doubled from 23 per cent in 1971 to 48 per cent in2002.
Conversely, fulltime employment dropped from 89 per cent of males aged 20 to 24 in 1976 to a low of 66 per cent in the 1990s recession, recovering only slightly to 69 per cent in 2006.
Partly as a result, 20- to 24-year-olds still living with their parents have also increased, but only from 24 per cent to 31 per cent.
In the "baby boom" generation of 1976, more than half of that age group were almost certainly living with partners. There was no separate count of "partners" in those days, but 48 per cent of the group were already legally married.
"Despite the protest and counter-culture, as young people the [baby-boomers] were more likely to be married and having children than all other generations in the 20th century," the study says.
Since then, the numbers living with partners have roughly halved to 27 per cent in 2006, while those legally married have plunged to 5 per cent. Religious affiliation has dropped from 75 per cent to 43 per cent.
Although the study does not discuss it, contraceptives and the growing acceptance of abortion and sole parenthood may also have encouraged young people to put off commitments to children and lifelong partners.
www.ips.ac.nz
Kashin was put to sleep on 24th August
As you know, our very own elephant, Kashin was put to sleep on 24th August, as a result of ongoing health problems.
This Sunday, 30th August is Kashin memorial day. The Auckland Zoo will be opening from 9.30am to 5pm so that the generations of New Zealanders who have been touched by Kashin over the past 36 years will have the opportunity to come and pay their respects to Auckland ’s gentle giant.
It involves significant cost for the Zoo to open for the day. We are delighted to advise that ASB is supporting our community by covering the cost of entrance fees to the Zoo. This means that Auckland families, including our ASB people, will be able to visit the Zoo on Sunday for free. It is also the only day that Kashin’s final resting place, close to the elephant enclosure, will be open to the public.
Celebration activities on Sunday include:
* Freelance Animation School elephant pavement drawings and colouring-in stations for children
* ASB Kashin bouncy castle and ASB inflatable Kashin
* Free elephant face painting
* Roving entertainers
* Live entertainment at the Band Rotunda
* Overflow entertainment in Western Springs park adjacent to the Zoo
Please share with your family, friends and customers this opportunity to celebrate Kashin’s life. She spent her life delighting and entertaining the millions of people who visited the Zoo from all over the world and it is fitting that we remember her contribution to our lives in this way on Sunday.
For more information on the Kashin Memorial day please visit www.aucklandzoo.co.nz/kashin
This Sunday, 30th August is Kashin memorial day. The Auckland Zoo will be opening from 9.30am to 5pm so that the generations of New Zealanders who have been touched by Kashin over the past 36 years will have the opportunity to come and pay their respects to Auckland ’s gentle giant.
It involves significant cost for the Zoo to open for the day. We are delighted to advise that ASB is supporting our community by covering the cost of entrance fees to the Zoo. This means that Auckland families, including our ASB people, will be able to visit the Zoo on Sunday for free. It is also the only day that Kashin’s final resting place, close to the elephant enclosure, will be open to the public.
Celebration activities on Sunday include:
* Freelance Animation School elephant pavement drawings and colouring-in stations for children
* ASB Kashin bouncy castle and ASB inflatable Kashin
* Free elephant face painting
* Roving entertainers
* Live entertainment at the Band Rotunda
* Overflow entertainment in Western Springs park adjacent to the Zoo
Please share with your family, friends and customers this opportunity to celebrate Kashin’s life. She spent her life delighting and entertaining the millions of people who visited the Zoo from all over the world and it is fitting that we remember her contribution to our lives in this way on Sunday.
For more information on the Kashin Memorial day please visit www.aucklandzoo.co.nz/kashin
Monday, 24 August 2009
Zoo closed as staff grieve for Kashin
7:28PM Monday Aug 24, 2009
Auckland Zoo's senior elephant keeper, Andrew Coers, with Kashin. The 40-year-old elephant passed away this afternoon. Photo / Paul Estcourt
Auckland Zoo's senior elephant keeper, Andrew Coers, with Kashin. The 40-year-old elephant passed away this afternoon. Photo / Paul Estcourt
* Photos Remembering Kashin, Auckland's famous elephant
Auckland Zoo will be closed tomorrow as staff grieve the loss of 40-year-old elephant, Kashin, who died today.
The female elephant, who has been at the zoo for 36 years, was euthanased after losing her battle with chronic health conditions.
"Zoo staff are devastated, grieving the loss of their incredibly spirited and gentle matriarch," zoo chairman Graeme Mulholland said.
"Kashin touched the lives, not just of the zoo family, but thousands of New Zealanders and international visitors who came to know and love her... she will be greatly missed by all."
He said the decision to put the elephant down followed years of chronic arthritis and foot abscesses.
More recently she had developed skin infections over her body that were not healing.
Kashin's death was expected to have an impact on the zoo's remaining elephant - 26-year-old Burma - who would be closely monitored as another elephant was sought.
In March, the Auckland City Council approved a succession plan for the zoo, quelling fears that Kashin and Burma would be the last elephants to live there.
The zoo plans to build a herd of three males and two females between 2011 and 2015.
The zoo will re-open on Wednesday.
- NZ HERALD STAFF, NZPA
Auckland Zoo's senior elephant keeper, Andrew Coers, with Kashin. The 40-year-old elephant passed away this afternoon. Photo / Paul Estcourt
Auckland Zoo's senior elephant keeper, Andrew Coers, with Kashin. The 40-year-old elephant passed away this afternoon. Photo / Paul Estcourt
* Photos Remembering Kashin, Auckland's famous elephant
Auckland Zoo will be closed tomorrow as staff grieve the loss of 40-year-old elephant, Kashin, who died today.
The female elephant, who has been at the zoo for 36 years, was euthanased after losing her battle with chronic health conditions.
"Zoo staff are devastated, grieving the loss of their incredibly spirited and gentle matriarch," zoo chairman Graeme Mulholland said.
"Kashin touched the lives, not just of the zoo family, but thousands of New Zealanders and international visitors who came to know and love her... she will be greatly missed by all."
He said the decision to put the elephant down followed years of chronic arthritis and foot abscesses.
More recently she had developed skin infections over her body that were not healing.
Kashin's death was expected to have an impact on the zoo's remaining elephant - 26-year-old Burma - who would be closely monitored as another elephant was sought.
In March, the Auckland City Council approved a succession plan for the zoo, quelling fears that Kashin and Burma would be the last elephants to live there.
The zoo plans to build a herd of three males and two females between 2011 and 2015.
The zoo will re-open on Wednesday.
- NZ HERALD STAFF, NZPA
Sunday, 16 August 2009
Boh Runga's heaven sent
She might live in Los Angeles, own a Chrysler and be immersed in the music scene, but Boh Runga couldn't be more down to earth if she tried.
Erupting into an Auckland cafe on a dreary Wednesday morning, she is like a ray of Californian sun as she animatedly chatters about everything from the nightmare of car parking to the weirdness of celebrity.
She is back home to be bridesmaid at a wedding, and has spent the last few days running around promoting her music and jewellery business and catching up with family and friends.
"I'm lucky enough to be able to breeze into everyone's lives for a week and then go again," she says, settling herself into a rickety wooden chair.
"The two places are incredibly different in LA I feel excited and energised and in Auckland I feel comfortable.
"In my ideal world I would be coming back and forth and at the moment it has been every few months because of the album."
After almost 10 years with Stellar*, who scored numerous Tui Awards and released two chart-topping albums, Runga has released her debut solo CD Right Here.
She admits that even after the band broke up, branching out on her own took some persuasion. "When I was a kid I always imagined myself to be the `doo-wop' girl in the background with two others. I didn't really think about fronting a band, let alone going solo," she says. "Although I guess I am a bit of a show-off."
Growing up in Christchurch, Runga and her younger sisters Pearl and Bic were surrounded by music. Chinese mum Sophia was a singer while Maori dad Joseph was a self-taught pianist.
Always close, the girls were rocked by the death of their father from a heart attack in 2005, something Runga still struggles to talk about.
"He was sort of the opposite of any father I know. He wanted all of us girls to be musicians, artists, that was his thing," she says reflectively.
"He'd be pleased I was doing the solo album, he'd be happy I was making music."
Helping the Rungas move on from Joseph's passing has been Bic's two-year-old son, named after his late grandfather, and Pearl's little boy, who was born four months ago.
While very much the doting aunty, happily relating tales about the boys' antics, Runga is in no hurry to start a family of her own with husband Campbell Smith, chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand. When asked if her nephews make her broody, the 39-year-old, who very much talks with her hands, replies with a resounding "No!"
"I think having children is a wonderful commitment, but a person has to be committed. There are happy accidents but I do think it should be taken seriously. I don't really know if I want to do it, I haven't really given it any thought."
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Runga has been married to Smith, who manages both his wife and Bic, since 2003 and the bulk of the time the pair live on different continents, with Runga in their Los Angeles home and Smith working from their Auckland pad.
The bubbly singer doesn't necessarily speak to her husband every day but relies on texts.
"It works really well, I like being by myself and so does he," she explains, adding that they have a romantic holiday coming up. "He's got so much going on that to have me yelping around complaining about things would drive him crazy, and the other way around. It's good for us to have that time apart."
Runga is in regular contact with Bic and laughs off suggestions of rivalry. "I write pop music which is quite different to what she does," she says. Now that she's completed her solo album, Runga has been writing tracks to pitch to other artists, with hopes of achieving her dream of writing for Celine Dion. "I was out driving with Bic and told her I was doing this pitch and sang it. She started singing it back to me and said, `No it's good'. I hold a lot of value in what she says.
"But we are quite different, I'm more gregarious, she is more reserved, perhaps a bit shyer and more reflective." Back in 2004, Bic embarked on a New Zealand church tour and her big sister helped out with the teas and coffees. Now five years on, Runga has just announced her own performances, appearing with Greg Johnson, Nathan King and Lydia Cole in the Classic Hits Acoustic Church Tour in October.
After signing a clothing design deal with Storm, her jewellery line growing and her solo career taking off, Runga is becoming one of the nation's most successful women.
Does she feel like a celebrity? "I guess perhaps in New Zealand, but it hasn't got to the stage where I can't go out without heels and make-up," she says, with the qualification that she heeds her mother's advice to always keep her eyebrows presentable.
"But to actually feel like you have to be completely dressed all the time, well, I'd have to get out of bed a lot earlier. I'm a reluctant early riser. I don't think you should get out of bed unless you're catching a plane or going fishing."
Tickets for The Classic Hits Acoustic Church Tour go on sale on August 24. For more information go to www.acousticchurchtour.co.nz
Erupting into an Auckland cafe on a dreary Wednesday morning, she is like a ray of Californian sun as she animatedly chatters about everything from the nightmare of car parking to the weirdness of celebrity.
She is back home to be bridesmaid at a wedding, and has spent the last few days running around promoting her music and jewellery business and catching up with family and friends.
"I'm lucky enough to be able to breeze into everyone's lives for a week and then go again," she says, settling herself into a rickety wooden chair.
"The two places are incredibly different in LA I feel excited and energised and in Auckland I feel comfortable.
"In my ideal world I would be coming back and forth and at the moment it has been every few months because of the album."
After almost 10 years with Stellar*, who scored numerous Tui Awards and released two chart-topping albums, Runga has released her debut solo CD Right Here.
She admits that even after the band broke up, branching out on her own took some persuasion. "When I was a kid I always imagined myself to be the `doo-wop' girl in the background with two others. I didn't really think about fronting a band, let alone going solo," she says. "Although I guess I am a bit of a show-off."
Growing up in Christchurch, Runga and her younger sisters Pearl and Bic were surrounded by music. Chinese mum Sophia was a singer while Maori dad Joseph was a self-taught pianist.
Always close, the girls were rocked by the death of their father from a heart attack in 2005, something Runga still struggles to talk about.
"He was sort of the opposite of any father I know. He wanted all of us girls to be musicians, artists, that was his thing," she says reflectively.
"He'd be pleased I was doing the solo album, he'd be happy I was making music."
Helping the Rungas move on from Joseph's passing has been Bic's two-year-old son, named after his late grandfather, and Pearl's little boy, who was born four months ago.
While very much the doting aunty, happily relating tales about the boys' antics, Runga is in no hurry to start a family of her own with husband Campbell Smith, chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand. When asked if her nephews make her broody, the 39-year-old, who very much talks with her hands, replies with a resounding "No!"
"I think having children is a wonderful commitment, but a person has to be committed. There are happy accidents but I do think it should be taken seriously. I don't really know if I want to do it, I haven't really given it any thought."
Ad Feedback
Runga has been married to Smith, who manages both his wife and Bic, since 2003 and the bulk of the time the pair live on different continents, with Runga in their Los Angeles home and Smith working from their Auckland pad.
The bubbly singer doesn't necessarily speak to her husband every day but relies on texts.
"It works really well, I like being by myself and so does he," she explains, adding that they have a romantic holiday coming up. "He's got so much going on that to have me yelping around complaining about things would drive him crazy, and the other way around. It's good for us to have that time apart."
Runga is in regular contact with Bic and laughs off suggestions of rivalry. "I write pop music which is quite different to what she does," she says. Now that she's completed her solo album, Runga has been writing tracks to pitch to other artists, with hopes of achieving her dream of writing for Celine Dion. "I was out driving with Bic and told her I was doing this pitch and sang it. She started singing it back to me and said, `No it's good'. I hold a lot of value in what she says.
"But we are quite different, I'm more gregarious, she is more reserved, perhaps a bit shyer and more reflective." Back in 2004, Bic embarked on a New Zealand church tour and her big sister helped out with the teas and coffees. Now five years on, Runga has just announced her own performances, appearing with Greg Johnson, Nathan King and Lydia Cole in the Classic Hits Acoustic Church Tour in October.
After signing a clothing design deal with Storm, her jewellery line growing and her solo career taking off, Runga is becoming one of the nation's most successful women.
Does she feel like a celebrity? "I guess perhaps in New Zealand, but it hasn't got to the stage where I can't go out without heels and make-up," she says, with the qualification that she heeds her mother's advice to always keep her eyebrows presentable.
"But to actually feel like you have to be completely dressed all the time, well, I'd have to get out of bed a lot earlier. I'm a reluctant early riser. I don't think you should get out of bed unless you're catching a plane or going fishing."
Tickets for The Classic Hits Acoustic Church Tour go on sale on August 24. For more information go to www.acousticchurchtour.co.nz
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