Meeting started at 7.00am by Sergeant Warren Banks saying Grace
President Rhonda welcomed guests, Rhys and Janine Evans, guests of Paul, Fiona Sullivan, guest of Buddy, Adrian Pohio and Sheyenne Banks and the council team, Marty Grenfell, TCC CEO, Christine Jones – GM Strategy and Growth, Barbara Dempsey – GM Regulatory and Compliance, Paul Davidson – GM Corporate Services and Susan Jamieson - GM People and Engagement
Notices:
Club Welfare update: Mary O’Sullivan let us know that David Robinson’s wife Paula is now in Wellington receiving targeted support. She welcomed back Steve Dorrington, after his shoulder surgery, updated us that Graham Cornes is recovering well from his shoulder surgery and that Andrew Knowles is also improving. Chris Rapson has also had surgery and his wife’s condition is stable.
Iron Woman and Car Rally: Les confirmed the date of the Iron Woman as November 10 and the car rally as being on in early 2021
K Valley Cycle Adventure: Rhonda reminded us that this event is coming up on October 18 and asked that we share publicity of the event every way that we can, share on Facebook, tell workmates and others.
Collections Update: Wendy read us a thank you letter for the Alzheimer’s collection on September 25 – where we took close to $600. Coming up will be the Blind plus Low Vision collection, the last for the year, October 16.
Quiz Night: Paul updated us that this event is sold out and attendees should bring some cash with them for the raffles.
Auction: Ross will conduct this next week and suggests that we all bring a friend to participate.
Guest Speaker: Greg Brownless introduced Marty Grenfell, CEO of Tauranga City
Council and his team.
Marty began by distinguishing between the politics of council and the processes of leadership in delivering what the city needs, the legacy issues that arise when projects carried out many years ago create problems for the current team (e.g. Bella Vista, Herrington Street car park) and the ongoing work of leadership.
He then described the contact he had from Internal Affairs asking the ‘Trust and Confidence’ question around current council politics and from that the establishment of an intervention and review team. That out of the way he then described the process by which he has established a team of six General Managers to work with him, all of whom he described as functioning at CEO level, and called on members of the team to introduce themselves.
Christine Jones – General Manager, Strategy and Growth, described her role as strategic, working 10, 20, 50 years out on long term outcomes for Tauranga, in particular the city vision, currently working through an 18 month consultation process, housing supply and a transport system plan – coming in mid-October is a prioritized list of needs. She also advertised the Hot Rods show coming up on Labour Weekend!
Paul Davidson – General Manager, Corporate Services, described his role, encompassing the airport and marine focuses, and gave as his biggest challenge the billion dollar funding gap for the city’s needs. Working with Christine his team is looking at developing a 30 year plan to close the gap with something other than rate payer funds.
Susan Jamieson – General Manager, People and Engagement, works with seven hundred and fifty people across council including oversight of a 24/7 call centre. She commented on the diversity of people and roles that she deals with and finished with a story of retrieving false teeth from a rubbish tin!
Barbara Dempsey – General Manager, Regulatory and Compliance, described her role as dealing with the day-to-day and immediate, maintaining overview of responsiveness of systems to community needs.
Nic Johansson – General Manager Infrastructure and Gareth Wallis – General Manager Community Services complete the team and were apologies for the morning – both off fishing!
Marty finished by saying that while the TCC “brand” may be at an all time low, that is political and the work of the council in rebuilding trust and confidence is in the very capable and dedicated hands of a top class executive and leadership team.
Questions: Is the Herrington Street car park to be finished? Short answer, no, demolished ($30 million hole in the ground).
Bill Holland thanked Marty and the team for their work and for their perspective on council.
Sergeant: Warren Banks based his fines session around the permissions we give to friends, “permission to”......
- Phil Mangos to tell a yarn last week that still has Warren’s eyes watering
- Graham Cornes to sign off aircraft services – didn’t stop Warren crashing in the Buller Gorge
- Rosalie Crawford (Graeme Skellern before her) to make stories out of our interviews
- Wendy Showan to sing like an angel, and wear that bomber jacket
- Pat Taylor to greet us so vigorously in the morning – too bad if you are not a morning person
- Steven Dorrington to give us aches in our sides from his unique humour
- Neville Whitworth to make Warren smile with the $900 raised at the movies
- Michele Beaton to force us to learn more about each other over a meal and wine
- Henry Kaiser to take up arms and defend his country
- Dave Woodhouse to fill us up with whisky and great yarns in spite of his own discomfort
- Brett Hobson to add lifesaving micro nutrients to our salt
- Bob Sutton to wear outrageous shirts and shoes – Warren says ‘never too old to be dapper’ – Bob says, ‘Watch it, Warren!'
- Chris Dever told hold all our secrets on the Police computer, back in the day (but not to suck up to Bill Holland about toast preferences
- Colin Beere to iron his T Shirt on a wok
- Dan Allen-Gordon to take out young people and turn them into fine young New Zealanders
- Ken White to talk, even thought we know there will be a sequel , Warren was very pleased to be told he had been given one body
- Greg Brownless to entertain with his dramatic ending to the national anthem
- Sally Morrison to be out club’s ambassador to Vietnam to assist lepers
- Barry Fredheim to strike Warren at karate
- Buddy Mikaere permission to bring Maori culture to our city and to our club
- Pauline Cowen to lead our effort in the “This is Us” project. One of those events where the whole cub contributed
- Finally Rhonda Wisbey to build the camaraderie of our club.
Parting thought: Jim Rickard ‘Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence
