AGE CONCERN'S ANNA BONES

George Stewart’s Studio Guest this week was Anna Bones, who is the Chairperson of Age Concern, Tauranga. Anna told our listeners that Age Concern offers a wide range of community services that are available to retired residents, that are designed to keep them active and safe in their homes.These include : A Home Visitor Service for the lonely or socially isolated : Staying Safe Refresher Driver courses : Steady as you Go exercise classes: Walking groups in different suburbs: And for those without cars or driving licences there are subsidised Taxi fares, if you are assessed as needing these.Anna said they were presently looking for more people who could drive their 12 seater van to take the men on their Mini Bus Adventure outings. 

TAURANGA MAYOR INTERVIEWED

George Stewart’s Studio Guest this week was the Mayor of Tauranga, Mahe Drysdale.  In an extended recorded interview the mayor revealed that almost 100 council staff and consultants would be losing their jobs, as a result of cost savings of $38 million dollars, to bring down rating increases to around 10%   He agreed that heavy traffic was clogging many streets, especially around the port on Hewletts Road and Totara Street....and was still hopeful that funding could be found to get work started on strengthening the Hairini bridge, for the planned dual lanes Tidal Flow.   The interview also covered a planned 5 to 10 thousand section subdivision at the far end of Papamoa; joining with the Western Bay of Plenty District Council for the new Waters Done Well legislation, and how he hopes Te Manawataki- O - Te Papa.. the all timber construction under way in the Civic Precinct, that includes the library and Museum, will bring people back to the Central Business District and shops.

A FEW TEMPORARY CHANGES COMING UP

Tauranga City Council (TCC) are undertaking an earthquake strengthening and fire egress progamme for the building we occupy in The Historic Village (17th Avenue, Tauranga). This work will commence in August 2025 and will likely take 4-6 months to complete.   TCC are making arrangements so Village Radio can continue to occupy this building for the duration of the building works. We will not need to temporarily relocate to another building in The Historic Village as previously planned.   The works will not impact the sound of the music we broadcast. However, our listeners will likely hear some construction noise when our announcers are talking on air.   We may need to make a few minor changes to our broadcast during this time. We may play longer sequences of music without talking, and/or we may need to shorten the shifts our announcers are filling. We will advise our regular listeners of what is changing in advance through updates on-air.   During the period of construction, visitors will not be able to access the studios. TCC are providing temporary scaffold stairs for volunteers to access the studios which are not suitable for visitors. We look forward to welcoming visitors to our studios when the works are complete.   We have closed our museum so that we can safely store items that may be impacted by the odd vibration. This will re-open when the building work is finished.   If you have any questions please email info@villageradio.co.nz.

OUR WONDERFUL VOLUNTEERS PAST AND PRESENT

The 15th to 21st June is NZ National Volunteer Week. Approx 53% of New Zealanders Volunteer. Volunteers do 231 millions hours, value 6.4 billion dollars in value. This is according to Stats NZ.   At Tauranga Village Radio we have 30 great Volunteers. Also the past Volunteers that have helped us stay on air for 41 years.  We broadcast approx 64 hours per week. An average week we need 21 announcers and 4-5 panel operators.  Each announcer does a 3 to 5 hour broadcast but add to that the program preparation time of 2-3 hours.   The hours being 7 days per week, the only day we do not do a live broadcast is Christmas Day, but a Volunteer does go into the studio so that a pre-recorded playlist can be aired.    Our broadcast hours :- 8-00am to 10-00am, 10-00am to 1-00pm 1-00pm to 5-00pm   We also have a librarian, web support, technicians, a Committee of 9, who are made up of the Volunteers, they all work as Volunteers behind the scences.   The satisfaction of all our Volunteers is knowing that they can bring enjoyable, varied, musical programmes and a friendly voice into the homes of our listeners.

VILLAGE RADIO WELCOMES CHINESE VISITORS

Saturday 7th June we had the pleasure of giving a tour of Village Radio to a group of about 30 from the Auckland Eastern Chinese Society. The group was organised by Mimi Hung who does a regular broadcast every month on Village Radio.The photo is of Grace whose birthday it was and our announcer, Penny Vaughan played a "Happy Birthday" record for her. For further photos check out our website www.villageradio.co.nz under Photo Gallery.

BACK LIVE STREAMING

     Thanks to our wonderful Tech Volunteers we are back to "Live" Streaming.     We had some great feedback that our Streaming had been missed. which we are pleased to say was for a short time only.