An entry from Ruth Gardner's Blog for 23 June 2014 entitled, "Parting with the Pool".
Professor Andrew Barrie discusses an exhibition that comes up with ways to keep Christchurch communities together after the loss of so many earthquake damaged parish churches.
In Canterbury, those carrying out sentences of community service are being put to good use - with teams of workers out helping with the post-earthquake clean-up.
An entry from Ruth Gardner's Blog for 15 February 2014 entitled, "FoodBag Feast".
A photograph of the playground in Walnut Tree Park on Bangor Street.
An entry from Ruth Gardner's Blog for 23 January 2014 entitled, "Alhambra Attractions".
An entry from Ruth Gardner's blog for 5 September 2010 entitled, "Doleful Damage".
An entry from Ruth Gardner's blog for 6 September 2010 entitled, "Riverside Ravages".
An entry from Ruth Gardner's blog for 27 February 2011 entitled, "Airborne Invasion".
An entry from Ruth Gardner's blog for 30 July 2011 entitled, "Lost Landmarks".
A photograph of the houses at 5, 7, and 9 Rees Street.
An entry from Ruth Gardner's Blog for 23 March 2014 entitled, "Easter Eggs".
An entry from Ruth Gardner's Blog for 02 May 2014 entitled, "Widespread Weariness".
An entry from Ruth Gardner's Blog for 26 May 2014 entitled, "Shapely Shadows".
An entry from Ruth Gardner's Blog for 12 March 2014 entitled, "Love on Liverpool".
An entry from Ruth Gardner's Blog for 10 July 2014 entitled, "Convention Concept".
An entry from Roz Johnson's blog for 23 February 2013 entitled, "Flower Cones".
An entry from Roz Johnson's blog for 09 June 2013 entitled, "Outer Spaces".
An entry from Roz Johnson's blog for 18 June 2012 entitled, "Cunningham Terrace".
The National Science Challenge ‘Building Better Homes, Towns and Cities’ is currently undertaking work that, in part, identifies and analyses the Waimakariri District Council’s (WMK/Council) organisational practices and process tools. The focus is on determining the processes that made the Residential Red Zone Recovery Plan, 2016 (RRZRP) collaboration process so effective and compares it to the processes used to inform the current Kaiapoi Town Centre Plan - 2028 and Beyond (KTC Plan). This research aims to explore ‘what travelled’ in terms of values, principles, methods, processes and personnel from the RRZRP to the KTC planning process. My research will add depth to this research by examining more closely the KTC Plan’s hearings process, reviewing submissions made, analysing background documents and by conducting five semi-structured interviews with a selection of people who made submissions on the KTC Plan. The link between community involvement and best recovery outcomes has been acknowledged in literature as well as by humanitarian agencies (Lawther, 2009; Sullivan, 2003). My research has documented WMK’s post-quake community engagement strategy by focusing on their initial response to the earthquake of 2010 and the two-formal plan (RRZRP and KTC Plan) making procedures that succeeded this response. My research has led me to conclude that WMK was committed to collaborating with their constituents right through the extended post-quake sequence. Iterative face to face or ‘think communications’ combined with the accessibility of all levels of Council staff – including senior management and elected members - gave interested community members the opportunity to discuss and deliberate the proposed plans with the people tasked with preparing them. WMK’s commitment to collaborate is illustrated by the methods they employed to inform their post-quake efforts and plans and by the logic behind the selected methods. Combined the Council’s logic and methods best describe the ‘Waimakariri Way’. My research suggests that collaborative planning is iterative in nature. It is therefore difficult to establish a specific starting point where collaboration begins as the relationships needed for the collaborative process constantly (re)emerge out of pre-existing relationships. Collaboration seems to be based on an attitude, which means there is no starting ‘point’ as such, rather an amplification for a time of a basic attitude towards the public.
Disaster recovery involves the restoration, repair and rejuvenation of both hard and soft infrastructure. In this report we present observationsfrom seven case studies of collaborative planning from post-earthquake Canterbury, each of which was selected as a means of better understanding ‘soft infrastructure for hard times’. Though our investigation is located within a disaster recovery context, we argue that the lessons learned are widely applicable. Our seven case studies highlighted that the nature of the planning process or journey is as important as the planning objective or destination. A focus on the journey can promote positive outcomes in and of itself through building enduring relationships, fostering diverse leaders, developing new skills and capabilities, and supporting translation and navigation. Collaborative planning depends as much upon emotional intelligence as it does technical competence, and we argue that having a collaborative attitude is more important than following prescriptive collaborative planning formulae. Being present and allowing plenty of time are also key. Although deliberation is often seen as an improvement on technocratic and expertdominated decision-making models, we suggest that the focus in the academic literature on communicative rationality and discursive democracy has led us to overlook other more active forms of planning that occur in various sites and settings. Instead, we offer an expanded understanding of what planning is, where it happens and who is involved. We also suggest more attention be given to values, particularly in terms of their role as a compass for navigating the terrain of decision-making in the collaborative planning process. We conclude with a revised model of a (collaborative) decision-making cycle that we suggest may be more appropriate when (re)building better homes, towns and cities.
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Workers pull down the two chimneys at Community House in Timaru after they were damaged in the earthquake".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Workers pull down the two chimneys at Community House in Timaru after they were damaged in the earthquake".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Workers pull down the two chimneys at Community House in Timaru after they were damaged in the earthquake".
The Jewish Community is outraged at the allegation Israeli citizens in Christchurch at the time of the February earthquake had links to Israeli intelligence.
An Ashburton couple who cooked barbecues for earthquake-weary Christchurch residents for nine months following the February quake have been named the joint winners of the Trustpower Community Awards.
An entry from Ruth Gardner's blog for 30 September 2013 entitled, "Scape 'n' Streets".
An entry from Ruth Gardner's Blog for 21 November 2013 entitled, "Play Park".
An entry from Ruth Gardner's blog for 3 April 2011 entitled, "Day 41 - Fraction Liquefaction".
An entry from Ruth Gardner's blog for 25 September 2011 entitled, "Faraway Friends".