It is hard to imagine getting up for a huge working bee the day after the election on 9 October. Hopefully I will have a big hangover from celebrating the election of Mayor Len Brown, Councillor Mike Lee and the whole City Vision team.  But global action has to happen on climate change with communities not waiting for elected representatives to take the lead in looking for solutions.

That’s why I’m part of the team organising the 350 Big Bike Fix Up for 10/10/10.   We would love to fix up all the thousands of broken bikes in Auckland and get them on the road so that we can look forward to a future that is healthy, sustainable and fun.

It is going to be a huge day!

350 Big Bike Fix-up
Let’s get Auckland’s bikes out of storage, fixed up and on the road ready for a summer of cycling.

Between 10am and 4pm on Sunday 10th October get your bike going at Shed 1, 101 Halsey Street on Auckland’s stunning Viaduct Harbour.

Pro-mechanics, Tumeke Cycle Space (Auckland’s community run bike workshop) and a team of volunteers will be there to fix-up every kind of bike. Once your bike is fixed up, give it a polish at the clean-up station, deck it out (for the kids) and join a leisurely bike ride to Queen’s Wharf.

Unwanted bikes will be fixed up and donated to Refugee Services Auckland. Bring parts to swap too.

In fact doesn’t matter what state your wheels are in – just come down to the Shed to enjoy all day entertainment and a full programme of workshops in bike skills and cycling training.

Vege sausage sizzle and refreshments available at the venue in support of the Grey Lynn School cycle trail project.

Have you got bike fix-up skills to offer? (from basic to pro) please contact Alex at tumekecyclespace@gmail.com.  The Tumeke Cycle Space team are coordinating the fix-up stations at the shed.

Big Bike Fix-Up Workshop programme

Biking from A to B in the city is easy and quick, not to mention fun. But you might have questions, like: what kind of bike should I ride? where should I ride on the road? what if I get a puncture? do I need a basket, pannier bag or backpack? The 350 Big Bike Fix Up day includes a series of workshops to give you some basic information and skills to make your biking comfortable, safe and trouble-free.

And if you can’t make a workshop, volunteers will be there throughout the day to answer your questions, and offer practical advice and help.

Riding tips and skills workshops (*times subject to change on the day)
10am   Getting comfortable on your bike
11am   Puncture! How to change a tyre (and avoid more flats)
12pm   Keep on riding: basic bike maintenance
1pm     Lil’ riders: cycling skills for kids and their parents
2pm     Which bike is the right one for me?
3pm     City slickers: skills and tips for urban riding

Take a city bike for a test ride!
Get a feel for riding a city bike with Nextbikes

Get your bike feeling right
Does your bike give you sore knees or wrists? Or irritate more tender parts?
One-on-one consultations throughout the day with bike-fit expert to make sure you’re comfortable on your bike (from 11am)

Would you like to help with a workshop or share your advice and skills? Please contact Susan Potter spotter@orcon.net.nz if you’d like to help for part or all of the day.

Big Bike Fix-up Bike Rides
Leisurely bike rides for fixed up (and decked out) bicycles departing 11am, 1pm and 3pm from Shed 1 to Queen’s Wharf return via the Viaduct cyclepath

Bike Fix -ups are also happening in Christchurch and Wellington details are here http://can.org.nz/big-bike-fix-up

Make a day of 10/10/10 by bike
Also at Shed 1 Get Growing Auckland - showing Aucklanders how easy and enjoyable urban gardening can be
Devonport – HANDS On sustainable living skills fair
Mt Eden  – Community Garden Working Bee

Across New Zealand and around the globe, on 10/10/10 communities will be taking climate action. From bike fix-ups to community gardens, home insulation to tree planting ….By getting to work we’ll show our leaders the world is ready for climate solutions.  Find out more about the Global Working Bee here

My preferred mode of transport is on 2 wheels. My Victoria Classic sits by the front door ready for any trip I need to make – especially around Auckland’s “Zone 1″.  I’m fortunate that I don’t have the expense of a car and love the convenience cycling.

But please don’t call me a cyclist. I would no more put “cyclist” on my CV than a person who commutes by car would put “motorist”.  I ride my bike every day just for transport and I’m involved with Cycle Action Auckland to improve cycling conditions in Auckland but I rarely go on purely recreational rides.

However over the last weekend there were a couple of special reasons to be out on my bike just for the sake of cycling. On Saturday I joined the  BIG Auckland Ride,  a lesiurely pedal around central Auckland in warm spring weather organised to profile the benefits of cycling in the inner city. Here is an account of the ride by Antoine (and more photos) on the wonderful cycling blog Cycling in Auckland.

One of the reasons I am motivated to stand for the Waitemata Local Board is a desire for better cycling infrastructure in Auckland. I’m on the City Vision team committed to prioritising  public transport and the provision of better bus and train services together with integrated ticketing and timetabling, cycleways and safer walking routes. Read more about City Vision’s policy here.

On Sunday it was necessary to dodge the rain showers to experience the only opportunity to cycle across the new Newmarket Viaduct before the switch next weekend.  As fellow Waitemata Local Board candidate, Chritopher Dempsey commented ” what a fantastic cycleway! Wide,  broad, smooth concrete – I asked if NZTA was planning to continue this  cycleway through to Orewa and south to Hamilton. Wry smile. There’s hope yet!”

Cycle Action’s chair Mark Bracey puts the ride in the context of Auckland’s burgeoning cycling culture on his Cycling in Auckland blog here.

Strong local boards are going to be crucial to the effective governance of the Auckland Super City. If the boards across the Auckland Region don’t work well with each other, the CCOs and the Auckland Council we are going to end up in a complete mess of parochial decision making.

The structure is intended to give the local boards and Auckland Council complimentary and non-hierarchical decision making functions. However much of the decision making will be delegated or allocated from the Council as the governing body. Through the select committee process, my community group Grey Lynn 2030, like many others, argued that the local boards should have powers and responsibilities prescribed in legislation so they could act as a counter balance to the powers of Auckland Council.

The lack of prescription could in fact end up being a good thing if the first mayor sets the framework for local boards that provides for real local decision making functions. Len Brown’s policy document on local democracy &  local boards gives a clear commitment on the extensive role he would like for the local boards.

Local boards should be involved in planning and policy related to their communities. They should develop long term community plans and annual plans, as well as contributing to regional policy-making and giving effect to regional plans. They should then develop local policy within the regional framework in areas like, for example, dog control, gambling and gaming machines, licensing of cafes, bars and liquor outlets, brothels, and the development of town centres.

Local boards should be responsible for local decisions on local roads, footpaths, pedestrian zones and bus stops, speed limits for local roads, public transport, crime prevention (where CCTV cameras should be sited, for example), community engagement, beautification schemes, building consents, local economic development, animal control, environmental protection, local parks, recreation and sports facilities, libraries and pools, community houses and advisory services, town centre promotion, galleries and museums, beaches, camping grounds, liquor licensing, and more. I also want local boards to be involved in resource management hearings for their areas. Read the full document here.

It is a big list of responsibilities, which are potentially far wider that we could have hoped for from the Super City legislation. We just have to make sure Len Brown is elected so that strong Local boards become a reality.

Candidate seminars for the Auckland Council elections

The seminars are designed for potential candidates for Auckland Council roles to provide information about:

• The new local government structure in Auckland
• Roles and responsibilities of elected representatives
• legislative processes relating to elected representatives
• Decision-making – meetings, agendas etc
• Remuneration
• Expectations – time commitment, personal and family impact, impact on work
• Conflict of interest
• The electoral process and timetable.

The seminar I attended last night (after Jan Gehl’s brilliant presentation at the Aotea Centre) was really informative and highlighted just how much there is to get to grips with under teh new Auckland Council governance arrangements.

More information here on the new Auckland Council website.

I feel very fortunate and privileged to have been selected yesterday to be one of the 7 City Vision Candidates standing for the Waitemata Local Board.

Here is my full speech prepared for the Selection Meeting at the Grey Lynn Community Centre on Saturday 19 June 2010.

I’m Pippa Coom
I’m seeking selection as a community independent with the City Vision team for the Waitemata Local Board.

If I have to give myself a job title it is variously –  a change agent, Community Organiser, a cycling advocate, and a free agent, but what I do is work towards  creating a sustainable community.

Integral to what I can bring to the City Vision Campaign and the role of Local Board Member are the people and places that support me and without whom I am not able to achieve anything.

I would like to acknowledge the Steering Committee of Grey Lynn 2030 and the supporters here today – my sustainability colleagues who share the same vision and are working hard to make it happen.

I acknowledge my friends – my urban whanau whose children motivate me to make my generation accountable so that we don’t compromise their future needs at a time of huge environment, social and economic challenges.

I acknowledge my family – my partner Paul who has given up hoping to live with a domestic goddess, and my mum Barbara who I can thank for my social conscious and social responsibility developed from political action starting in the 70’s and a healthy interest in reading the Guardian newspaper from a young age.

I acknowledge this place the Grey Lynn Community Centre – the heart of so much that goes on in our community and my unofficial office at the Grey Lynn Farmers Market each Sunday.

As far as an immigrant can say they have a turangawaewae in NZ that place for me is the central suburbs of Auckland. The first place I landed in when we came  to NZ from the UK in 1982 was Castle Street across the road. My mum recognised the value of living in older heritage suburbs and before we had even set foot in NZ had decided that our home would be in this area.  I also looked at the map of Auckland and from Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire decided instinctively that Auckland Girls’ Grammar was the school for me .

For 25 years the family home was in Ponsonby (an area now known as the Avenues of Herne Bay) and now all of my NZ family lives in Grey Lynn (yes that is my entire family in NZ of 2).  I must acknowledge my belated dad Mel for having the foresight to buy a house in Grey Lynn 25 years ago where we live now.

I moved away from Auckland for many years – for uni at Otago, travel, career jobs as a lawyer in Wellington, an OE in London – and would often say that I could never live in this city again. A heartless, crass, cowboy town, destroyed by the corporate vandalism of the 80’s. I was convinced that I’d rather freeze through Wellington summers than live in a place without decent public transport, a closed off waterfront, uninspiring urban design, a paucity of leadership with no civic pride.

But what eventually bought me back 4 years ago was the search for a sense of community, the place I could call my own turf and feel passionate enough about to want to make a difference (not to mention the love of good Auckland man and an opportunity to live close to my mum). With perfect synchronicity, when I was looking to get  back into voluntary work after a hedonistic time overseas, I discovered our local transition town group Grey Lynn 2030.

A group with a positive vision of creating a sustainable, vibrant, self resilient community. At its most simple it is about creating the place we want to live.  We don’t just talk about ideas but take action to make them a reality– waste minimisation, community gardens, water way restoration. I am grateful for the freedom Grey Lynn 2030 has given me to pursue a range of projects – traffic calming initiatives, organising a street party, connecting to the local community through a monthly newsletter, bringing the community together at monthly meetings and encouraging sustainable business practices.

I am fortunate that my job is what I am passionate about- thanks to Vector for making me redundant last year and with the support of my partner – I have been able to work full time for Grey Lynn 2030, on climate change awareness campaigns and for Cycle Action Auckland and Frocks on Bikes  – other fabulous groups that have supported me to get on and make things happen –  and more recently on the City Vision campaign committee.

It really is true that if your job is what you are passionate about you never work another day again. As part of the transition town movement we are encouraged to step up into positions of leadership.  To serve on the Local Board, will to some extent be a continuation of what I am doing now as my job. I say this with respect to the elected officials here who know the reality of local government but I feel am ideally placed to represent my local community. It will be my full -time and only  job using many of my current community focused skills not to mention what I consider normal now  - regular meetings, taking every opportunity to network and playing an active role in the community.

I am also hugely excited about the election, the new era of local democracy and the opportunities provided by the new Auckland Council. I feel positive for what will be achieved and full of hope for an Auckland with a progressive Council and new leadership.  I am committed to campaigning for a City Vision Local Board,  Mike Lee getting elected for the Waitemata- Gulf Ward and Len Brown as Mayor.

It is essential that we have strong local boards and people on those boards who are able to take on a huge range of new responsibilities. I am more than ready for that challenge.  I am not looking for this opportunity to spring board to any other position – my focus and aspirations sit with the central suburbs of Auckland that make up the Waitemata Ward and I acknowledge all the communities that make up the ward and aren’t represented here today.

I come to City Vision as a community independent supported by Grey Lynn 2030 – the philosophy and policy of City Vision fits neatly with our vision for our local community.  I would consider it a huge privilege to stand as a candidate with City Vision and if elected to serve my local community on the Waitemata Local Board. I thank you all for your support.