Good news

• This has been a busy and productive few days. Margaret has successfully obtained permission from the Community Board to put a park bench in the rose garden of St James Park (assuming there are no objections from our community). The minutes of the meeting are not available yet, but the tone of the meeting papers (click here) was not supportive, so this was no mean feat! Well done.
• The meeting also decided after some vigorous debate that our Residents' Association is now formally recognised by the Board. This will be very helpful when we need to apply for assistance for various heritage projects that we can't do on our own, such as St Paul's churchyard cemetery preservation work. Good job.
• Jack Wormald, our new CCC project manager, seems to be rapidly getting up to speed on the project. He will be meeting with a few of us soon just to get the basic principles sorted out before starting work on plans for the avenue. I have not met him yet but I understand that he agrees that no healthy trees should be removed, which is a great start.  
• Graeme Hancox has alerted us to the approaching centennial of World War I (1914-18) which will make 2014 a special year for our ANZAC Day Parade, perhaps in a beautifully refurbished St James Ave. The History Group of the Ministry for Culture and Heritage is developing a series of projects to commemorate this centennial: a website covering NZ’s experience of the war will be hosted on the NZ History Online website together with a highly illustrated book that will include facsimiles of war diaries etc; and in development is a Guide to First World War heritage sites in New Zealand such as drill halls, embarkation points, training facilities, hospitals etc. For more information about these projects click here. 

Happy Hugging!