Southern View: February 19, 2019

6
Tuesday February 19 2019
Latest Christchurch news at www.star.kiwi
SOUTHERN VIEW
News
Longer hours
for Halswell pool
• By Georgia O’Connor-Harding
HALSWELL residents calling
for the suburb’s summer pools
hours to be boosted will have
their wish granted.
The city council will trial
extending its opening hours at
the Te Hapua: Halswell Centre
Summer Pool.
It will be trialled on the basis
the Halswell-Hornby-Riccarton
Community Board will allocate
funding from its 2019-20 Discretionary
Response Fund towards
operating costs.
Last week a petition of 431
signatures was presented by city
councillor Anne Galloway calling
for the pool hours to be open
for longer.
Cr Galloway said while the
hours have not been finalised
yet, the pool could potentially be
open from 7am-7pm.
Currently, the pool hours are
11.30am-7pm.
Cr Galloway said the board
will look at funding up to 50 per
cent of the operating costs.
“The total amount city council
have talked about in terms of
opening the extra hours is about
$35,000,” she said.
She said these details will be
discussed with the board and
city council staff before the next
season.
“We do not want this to have
an impact on the rates, that is
the crux of the matter,” Cr
Galloway said.
Principal swaps Middleton for Hong Kong
• By Georgia O’Connor-Harding
WHEN RICHARD Vanderpyl
was first offered the opportunity
to become the head of a school in
Hong Kong, he turned the role
down.
Having spent 17 years at
Middleton Grange School, the
chance to lead Christian Alliance
International School in Butterfly
Valley “came out of the blue.”
The Middleton Grange
principal initially said the Upper
Riccarton school “had his
heart” and he had no reason or
incentive to leave.
But when he was approached
again a couple of weeks later by
the same recruitment company
asking him to reconsider, Mr
Vanderpyl decided to investigate
the role.
“I think for me as a Christian,
I felt this was the Lord’s calling
on my behalf. I felt the Lord was
really calling me to take up this
position,” he said.
Mr Vanderpyl, 55, will head to
Hong Kong on March 4 to start a
new life with his wife Linda.
“It was always going to be a
big change for me to do that and
I think as a Christian I just felt
really at peace,” he said.
The timing was right for a
range of reasons, he said. All four
of his children have grown up
and no longer depend on him.
“I have always thought about
it over the years – I would do
some sort of work at some stage
overseas,” he said.
EDUCATOR: Middleton Grange School principal Richard Vanderpyl speaking at the senior prizegiving
last year.
While Mr Vanderpyl has been
to Hong Kong about five times
to market Middleton Grange, his
understanding of Cantonese is
“extremely limited.”
But he said while it is
compulsory for students to learn
Mandarin, every other subject is
taught in English.
“(Christian Alliance
International School) is aimed at
the ex-pat and overseas market
. . . the teachers at the school are
predominantly from overseas,”
he said.
His role will involve overseeing
the implementation of the
newly-introduced education
programme, International
Baccalaureate, which allows
students entry to most
universities around the world.
Mr Vanderpyl has spent 33
years in the education sector
– starting out as a teacher at
Hornby High School in 1984.
He moved to Hamilton Boys’
High School in 1986 and taught
there for five years before he
became the assistant principal at
Cambridge High School.
Mr Vanderpyl has since
been an assistant principal
at Cashmere High, deputy
principal at Hillmorton High
and arrived at Middleton Grange
as a teacher in about 2001.
He has been the principal
for nine years and has a very
“strong connection” to
Middleton Grange which his
wife and four children all
previously attended.
Middleton Grange is New
Zealand’s largest evangelical
Christian school. It hopes to have
a new principal by the start of
term three.
Bromley midge problem: ‘Nothing is working’
•From page 1
Mrs Profit said the traps had
been relatively successful over
Christmas, but the midges had
returned to her property in huge
numbers.
“It’s absolutely atrocious
. . . it may have worked over
Christmas, but it is definitely not
working now.”
City council general manager
of city services David Adamson
said the 30 per cent reduction
in midge numbers has occurred
around the ponds themselves,
but “no monitoring of the midge
numbers is undertaken in the
surrounding areas or properties.”
Mrs Profit said the city
council’s current strategy is
costing too much considering the
results.
“They breed in the ponds but
they don’t stay there . . . they
may have 30 per cent less in the
ponds, but we haven’t got 30 per
cent less in the houses.”
She said placing salt around
the edge of the
ponds or reinserting
some sewage back
into them would
be better and
more cost-effective
options. However,
Mr Adamson said
the salt option had
been proven to be
“uneconomic” and
adding sewage had
the potential to cause an odour
and “a significant impact on the
Janet Profit
water quality of the final
effluent being discharged
out into Pegasus Bay.”
He said the current
range of the trapping
and monitoring
techniques being
used would “have a
cumulative influence
as they take effect in
coming years.”
The reduction in the
midge population achieved by
the techniques means they are
currently the best options, he
said. But Mrs Profit said she
was willing to “make midge
sandwiches and take them to the
council” to give it a taste of just
how bad the problem was on her
property.
She doesn’t hold out hope that
it will get better, in spite of years
of trying.
“I’m not just fighting a
losing battle, it’s been a losing
battle of 11 years. It’s longer than
a war.”
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