Living Streets Hamilton February 2008 minutes

Meeting held February 14, 2008 at CCS Disability Action, 17 Claudelands Rd, Hamilton at 5.30pm

Present: Maxine Fraser, Celia Hope, Sandra Baxendine, Margaret Southgate, Judy McDonald

Apologies: David Peart

1. Round the Bridges Walk and Cycle family fun day, scheduled for March 9th.  Things are fairly well in hand for this event. Our giveaways are all here, we have prizes for the Colouring Competition and we have an article to be done for the Hamilton Press and published on Feb 27th, the week before the event. The colouring competition will be published on the same page as the article and photo. All we need are plenty of people on the day – a few more to help out with giving stuff away would be good, and if you know of anyone with young families, please let them know and encourage them to come along, either to do the walk or the guided cycle routes. We hope (not yet confirmed but at least probable) to have the Big Muffin Serious Band to entertain over the lunchtime picnic period.
 If anyone can come and help out in a low-key manner for an hour or two on the day, it would be good to have you there, at Memorial Park, near the cenotaph, by 9.30 on the Sunday morning, March 9. Things should be all over by 1pm! Even if you can’t be there for the whole time, come and have a look for an hour or two. We should have a couple more “official” blue LSA tee-shirts available for volunteers on the day, thanks to Liz Thomas in Wellington!
We will also be giving some of our information, plus a few balloons, to Margaret Southgate for display at their Hamilton East Heritage event, taking place the same day. Once you’ve done the walk you can go over and enjoy the penny-farthing bikes and other entertainments.

2. CBD walking map development: I have attached the notes drawn up after a variety of walks were undertaken in January. It’s amazing how far you can get in thirty minutes. Our next move is to enquire whether HCC already has a detailed map of the CBD which we may be able to use to superimpose our information on. Judy will enquire with Philip King on this matter. One matter that arose from this is that there is still no progress on the pedestrian underpass access under Victoria Bridge. It would be really useful to have signs directing the public to the existing path, maybe starting as far back as the video shop on the corner of Grey St opposite the Catholic Church, to warn pedestrians not to try to cross the road to get to the Victoria Bridge footpath, but rather to take the loop underneath the bridge.

3.Submission to Transit re Te Rapa bypass: We have been approached by CAW to submit on this matter, supporting their call for pedestrian and cycle facilities to be installed on the bypass itself for maximum safety.  There are links with the proposals in the draft document on Sustainable Transport, for which submissions are also called. Both are due on February 29th. If anyone is available to do a quick (1 to 2 hours maximum) bit of brainstorming on these submissions, please email me as soon as possible!

4. There was general discussion about the City Heart plan. Informal submissions are already being called for, but formal submissions will be part of the annual plan process. If you have thoughts on the matter, do start thinking seriously about any submissions you would like to make. They will need to be done in March and April.