News & Events
Tuesday 28th, September 2010
Guest Speaker John Dayish a director of UNICEF New Zealand, visited the Solomons earlier this year year where UNICEF is rebuilding 100 schools and improving the education system as part of the UNICEF's 'Cild Friendly Schools' programme which has now been accepted as the new national standard.
John is a very interesting speaker and the subject he has chosen will be of interest to us all.
Doors open from 11.00am - Lunch is served at 11-45 am - A reservation is essential - Phone Margaret at 352-4950 not later than 6pm on Thursday 23nd of September if you want to attend the luncheon. Notices and menu's are sent to all Canterbury members prior to each monthly social.
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Our venue is the Stadium Bar and Grill (formerly Seventy 7 Restaurant & Bar) on the corner of Wilson's Road & Steven's Street (Opposite Jade Stadium).
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Tuesday 24th, August 2010
Guest Speaker Professor Simon Pollard - is Curator of Invertebrate Zoology at the Canterbury Museum and Adjunct Professor in Science Communication in the College of Science at the University of Canterbury. He is an award-winning natural history writer and photographer who specialises in spiders, but is easily distracted by cemeteries. Simon travels widely and has lectured on memorial art around the world. He i also the editor of 'Dear Alison', which includes a diary his great uncle wrote to his four year old niece while he was a prisoner of war in Germany during WW2.
From coffins lashed to the side of a cliff to million dollar mausoleums, to a coffin carved as an effigy of a leek, the dead are remembered in countless ways. His talk was a look at memorial art from around the world, as well as Simon's great uncle's legacy, his wartime diary recently published in 'Dear Alison".
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Tuesday 27th, July 2010
Guest Speaker was Mark Lander - He is a painter, ceramicist and paper maker from Oxford, North Canterbury. He works with materials harvested from his immediate environment, including flax which is handmade into paper on a large scale for installation work in galleries, and natural volcanic clays which are ground and formulated as tempera paint or glazes. Mark and his wife Yvette run a private gallery in the front part of their home, which is in an old hotel.
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Tuesday 22nd, June 2010
Guest Speaker was Ben Harris - a Microbiologist and Registered Medical Laboratory Scientist who is also General Manager of Southern Community Laboratories gave a most interesting address called "Fascinating Microbes" love them or loathe them, we need them for our very survival. They recycle waste, manufacture food and yes, cause illness but also protect us from illness. Small, but not stupid - they regularly communicate amongst themselves. What can we learn from them.
A Service Merit Award for long service & expertise to our society was awarded to
Margaret Harvey (A Foundation Member) for outstanding service as Treasurer and reservation clerk
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May's Luncheon & AGM
Our Annual General Meeting - Barbara Blowes give a full report of the past year's events and activities. She stated membership had now reach a record 450 members. Officers for 2010-11 are as follows
Patron - Murray Wood (Re-elected)
President - Barbara Blowes (Re-elected)
Vice President - Allan Rutherford (Re-elected)
Treasurer - Margaret Harvey (Re-elected)
Secretary - Shona Pettengill
Five Committee Members
Graeme Bee (Re-elected)
Brian Henderson (Re-elected)
Robin Harrington
Rod Lewis (Re-elected)
Eugene McNeill (Re-elected)
Service Merit Awards for long service & expertise to our society were awarded to
Dick Mapp for support to the committee and Betty (his devoted partner) for services rendered as door keeper and driver over the last eight years
Barbara Blowes for services as President since 2002 which are appreciated by all members
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Tuesday 27th, April 2010
Guest Speaker was Craig Saunders, Owner and Managing Director of Digital Fusion Ltd. Craig is world famous in the FileMaker community for applying some classic Kiwi ingenuity to invent a way to significantly enhance the user face tools available within FileMaker. (Incidently, SeniorNet Mac's data base was created with a FileMaker application.
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Tuesday 22nd, March 2010
Guest Speaker was Lydia Hemingway the Fundraising Manager for the Ronald MacDonald house Trust. Lydia outlined what her trust did in the community
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Tuesday 23rd, February 2010
Guest Speaker was Fiona Brooker who spoke on Digital Scrapbooking. Much interest was generated from Fiona's talk that a further wookshop may be created to catered for members to continue on this subject
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Tutors & Helpers BBQ November 2009
Each year a free BBQ is put on by the committee for all the Tutors and helpers who have contribute their free time and effort to the running of SeniorNet Mac during the year.
Tucker time
Some of our helpers and tutors relaxing after a good feed
Below is our current committee
Back Row - Eugene McNeill, Rod Lewis, Brian Henderson, Allan Rutherford
Front Row - Mara McCormick, Lorelie Kennedy, Barbara Blowes, Margaret Harvey
Insert - Graeme Bee
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Christmas Luncheon & Social November 2009
This year's Guest Speaker was Ken Ellis who has recently retired from working in New Zealand Radio and Television. He spoke of his life in the industry and he entertain those present with the many hilarious marketing and advertising ploys used on Radio
Ken Ellis delivering his talk to some of the eighty plus attendees
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October's Luncheon & Social
Guest Speaker was Joe Brizzell - He has been involved in all aspects of voluntary work with Orana Wildlife Park over a period of 10 years, including shuttle guiding, walking group guiding, training, tour buses, cruise groups, talks to various organisations and at present is specialising in NZ fauna.
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September's Luncheon & Social
Guest Speakers were Brent Selwyn and Fleur McDonald from Papanui firm of Harman's Lawyers. They dealt with the issues surrounding the ownership of assets and how this can affect the eligibility for a residential care subsidy. They also talked about the Enduring Powers of Attorneys and Wills
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August's Luncheon & Social
Guest Speaker was Wendy-Anne Gee, an opera singer who performed in Dunedin, Wellington and London. She had also performed in New Zealand, London, Africa and Bahrain.
She spoke on topics of music appreciation and healing power of music and laughter. Discussion with her, included music for health and well-being: Physical, Mental, Spiritual and Emotional, with choices ranging from Nat King Cole to Mozart. She spoke on choosing music for one's own funeral.....
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July's Luncheon & Social
Guest Speaker was Gilbert Wealleans a well know local photographer for local papers. He is also versed in fashion, fine art, modeling, classical figure and wedding photography.
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June's Luncheon & Social
SeniorNet Committee member Rod Lewis talk to us about his visit to India
last year. He, his wife Carole and daughter Nereid spent three weeks touring the very colourful state of Rajasthan, staying in fabulous old palaces and forts, then two weeks in the Himalayan foothills trekking with a team of porters and a guide.
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May's Luncheon & AGM
Our Annual General Meeting - A record 60 members were in attendance to hear Barbara Blowes give a full report of the past year's events and activities. Membership rose again this year by 9% to a record 419 members. Officers for 2009-10 are as follows
Patron - Murray Wood (Re-elected)
President - Barbara Blowes (Re-elected)
Vice President - Allan Rutherford (Re-elected)
Treasurer - Margaret Harvey (Re-elected)
Secretary - Mara McCormick (Re-elected)
Five Committee Members
Graeme Bee (Re-elected)
Brian Henderson (Re-elected)
Lorelie Kennedy
Rod Lewis (Re-elected)
Eugene McNeill
The following received Service Merit Awards (for long service & expertise to our society. They are
Joe Adams - For designing and production of advertisements and for producing promotional articles for newspapers at a moments notice when required.
David Eddy - For managing our Workshops since our societies's conception and for the many hours given to tutoring workshops. One area David has been prominent, in is scanning.
Ian Hoskin - For management of our Tutors since our societies's conception. Arranging, finding, locating people to undertake tutoring courses and workshops is an important position and we are indebted to Ian the the work he is doing in this position.
Betty Mapp - For arranging each month's Guest speaker for our monthly socials. Also for the packaging and posting of our two monthly Info letter. Betty and Dick her husband can always be found near the door at our social functions meeting & greeting members and their guests as well selling our raffle tickets.
Shirley Schmidli - Shirley is our Editor and has been for the last 5-6 years. Shirley not only researched and wrote the articles but also helps Austin Hadler print off the necessary copies on our laser computer. Earlier this year we decided to have our Info Letters printed commercially
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April's Luncheon & Social
Guest Speaker was Grant Sidaway from Wellington.
Grant is the Federation Senior Net’s General Organizer and
is a dynamic speaker. Grant has been the prime motivator behind the establishment of every Senior Net Society in New Zealand, starting in Wellington in 1992 with Telecom’s support.
Grant's subject was “Its a Mobile World”
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March's Luncheon & Social
Guest Speaker was Leah Matena from the Sensible Sentencing Trust.
Leah gave an informative presentation on the problems their trust encounters and explained their policy for victims and justice reform.
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The Seventy 7 Restaurant & Bar on the corner of Wilson's Road & Steven's Street (Opposite Jade Stadium)
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February's Luncheon & Social
Guest Speaker was our own member Thérèse Marsh who was in Arras, northern France recently, and visited "the Wellington Quarry dug by New Zealand tunnellers during WW1. This underground network, an unparalleled structure in the entire history of the British army, stretched over 12 miles. Twenty-four thousand soldiers lived
there,preparing for the most surprising and successful attack on the German army in April 1917, The Battle of Arras. Rediscovered in 1996, some of these tunnels were opened to the public in 2007.With hundred of artifacts, memorabilia and personal 
notes found there, we are able to retrace the amazing daily life of thousands of Commonwealth soldiers and realize the magnificent work performed by the New Zealand sappers expert in the art of digging large tunnels.
Left is a view of some of the 55 members who enjoy our social meeting