INLET CLEANUP COMPLETED DESPITE THE WEATHER
The appointed day for the Pauatahanui Inlet clean up dawned exceeding wet and windy for a second successive year. At 10 am on Sunday 29 October John Wells and Janet Ryan of the Guardians of Pauatahanui Inlet took up their windswept post at Brown's Bay to assign stretches of shoreline to the volunteers they hoped would attend.
Attendance exceeded expectations, more than fifty willing volunteers turning out to do their civic duty despite the conditions. In fact by the appointed start time of 10.30 workers had already been despatched to Duck Creek, to Ration Point and to the Camborne Walkway - and by 11 am all fifteen sites were covered, each collection point marked by a yellow flag.
Members of Plimmerton Rotary were prominent among the volunteers and with sponsorship support from Mana New World they rewarded the rather damp workers at noon with a barbecue back at Browns Bay. Dennis Ormsby, Chair of Keep Porirua Beautiful, presented a $50 voucher from Mana New World to the winner of the raffle, volunteer Margaret Giddens of Whitby.
John Wells, Chair of the Guardians, paid tribute to the Rotary Club members, and to John Poppleton of Keep Porirua Beautiful for providing logistical support, shelter at the Browns Bay site, and council transport so that sixty bags of rubbish were taken away later in the day.
The most unusual rubbish items reported were a carton of used firecrackers, a Nissan hub cap and two cell phones. Standard roadside refuse of milk shake containers, pump water bottles, and beer and wine bottles was supplemented once again by notable quantities of discarded plastic.
'Clean up Day comes once a year,' says GOPI Chair John Wells, ' but care for the Inlet is a year round responsibility for all of us. We are grateful for the outstanding support on 29 October. And next year we will give serious thought to a shift to a season of more certain weather.'
Ken Rae
Secretary and Publicity Officer, GOPI
4a Paua Place
Camborne
2339614
ken.rae@xtra.co.nz
