What happened to the Tuesday Club??

Rosemary writes….

You may have wondered where Garry and Rosemary have been buried and why Tuesday Club is presently on hold.   Well the not so closely guarded secret is out.  We have been part of the team supporting David Meates campaign for mayor.

Much is being made on social and mainstream media about our involvement as being ‘Party based’ people, because of past or present links to Labour or the Greens or their campaigns.

This is a cheap hit by those who do not support David Meates as mayor, implying that David is ‘owned’ by these political parties.  Of course David’s supporters are too nice to go trolling others who are standing and pointing out their own political affiliations and support base.

David is standing as an independent, which means he is not beholden to, or using the resources of any political party. He is standing on his values, his experience, his record of leadership.  Yes his supporters include labour people and green people and national party people and people who do not belong to any political party. 

Like the Tuesday Club, they are concerned about the future of Christchurch – how we can work together to build a future together that unites our communities, builds on our strengths, creates new opportunities and embraces a future that takes Climate Change as a given. 

I am supporting David’s campaign because he is standing for some of the things I believe in:

• Collaboration and working together as a city to develop and promote Christchurch as New Zealand’s second largest city into a bold and sustainable future.
• A focus on empowering neighbourhoods to have more of a say about priorities and the way money is spent. 
• Ideas like participatory budgeting and citizens forums is part of the conversation.
• Climate change as front and centre to our thinking – preparing our communities, and future focused innovation and planning
• Christchurch as a Green City – making progress on our glorious Green Zone corridor linking the city to the sea and linking our city to Banks Peninsula, and regreening our streets.
• Commitment to community housing and an opportunity for all to have warm dry homes as a basic human right.
• Working in relationship and partnership with Mana Whenua

David spoke to the Tuesday Club some time ago about his work at the CDHB.  At that time I was struck by how he was moving that huge disparate and sometimes fractured organisation in a more collaborative direction.  How the focus was not on just on the hospital, but on keeping people out of hospital where possible by supporting GPs.

I was there the day David finished up with the DHB where hundreds of people lined Oxford Terrace as a guard of honour to thank him for his work.  I remember his blue mask, the huge bunch of yellow flowers, the people in wheelchairs, the muslim community, workers from the hospital in their scrubs, the clapping…

This is why I am part of David Meates for Mayor campaign, I hope you will too

How you can help

• Like the Facebook page and invite your friends to like it too
• Join our email list
• Donations to the campaign – contact wardstella007@gmail.com
• Prominent sites for billboards on fences  – contact Rosemary@spiritednz.com with address and mobile number
• Be active on the Facebook page – commenting, liking and sharing to your own page is great