News from the Valley

Do you want to do your bit to cut down on plastic bags AND support our great little playcentre community? Opoho Playcentre is selling these handy-dandy string bags. Contact us on 473 0819 or at opoho@playcentre.org.nz with the details of which bags you would like, or fill out this handy online order form – bit.ly/opohostringbag – and we’ll get back to you with payment details. You can choose your colours or get a whole happy rainbow set. Bags are available in cream, blue, pink, green and black. String bags are $8 each or three bags for $20. Opoho Playcentre …

Since the Dundas St bridge closure, many valley residents will have done a few more trips up Lovelock Avenue recently. The road curves – with a few hairpins – up through native bush, before levelling off over speed bumps near the stylish propagation building and offering glimpses of daffodils, dog walkers, rugby games and maybe some lawn bowlers. These views would have been different if a 2008 proposal to realign Lovelock Ave to have it run parallel to the cemetery had eventuated. The bowls green was scheduled to be a carpark. This stirred the Opoho community into action, and …

Open VUE is hosting a free movie night and will be screening two 25-minute films from local film-makers, including one that has a special connection to North East Valley. What does Charlie the cat get up to when his owner is away? Paw and Claw: Finding the balance between pets and wildlife, by Tegan Good, explores how cats have impacted New Zealand’s native wildlife and looks for a future where the two can live in harmony. The second film, The Silent Invader – Can it be stopped? by Berenice Matthieu, takes the viewer to the coast to discover if …

The Valley Project is teaming up with the Sustainability Project to run a two-week Dunedin Summer School offering community education for everyone at the start of next year. A similar event has been running in Oamaru for the past nine years and now the idea is coming to Dunedin. Summer School facilitator Melissa Pronk expects there will up to 60 different classes on offer. Previously these have ranged from skills such as sewing, knitting and making bread; hobbies and interests such as keeping bees and chickens; health and nutrition such as how to grow food and make fermented food; …

An English conversation group has started up at the Valley Project community rooms The group is an informal gathering where those who are learning to speak English can come along and talk with native English speakers. Group facilitator Carolyn Rogers says it is not a group to provide lessons or tutoring. “It is going to be a relaxed way to practise English and make some new friends.” Carolyn recently returned from teaching in Abudabi, and after trying to learn another language herself she understands how challenging it can be: “I tried to learn Arabic in six years, but it …

The largest and liveliest Dunedin City Council candidates meetings are on again at Opoho Church. This is the chance to hear from the candidates to help decide whom to rank highly or, perhaps more importantly, whom to place low on the list. The meetings will again be chaired by Philip Somerville, silly hats and all, and the stag roarer will be on hand to cut off any who dare to try to go over time. It’s, mostly, those with surnames M to Z on Sunday 15 September, and A to L on Monday 16 September. The meetings are 7–9pm …

Broken things, discarded and free objects on the side of the road and buildings in various states of disrepair have all been the focus of local resident Hayley Walmsley’s lens. She has snapped over 4000 images, mostly on walks to and from school or while out doing errands. The project, titled Suzie No Friends, was undertaken for her master’s of visual arts at Otago Polytechnic, and her work will be on public display until Friday 6 September. North East Valley and north Dunedin feature heavily among the images, but Hayley also visited places as far away as Waimate, Oamaru …

The annual great Valley Spring Clean is coming up on Saturday 21 September from 11am-3pm. If you’re in the mood for a clear out but want to ensure you’re being responsible with what you no longer need, then the Spring Clean is for you. This year, with support from Dunedin City Council, we are going bigger and better, especially in avoiding sending items to landfill. We’ll have a team of dedicated volunteers assessing and diverting as much as possible away from the skip. The Te Rōopū Mānaaki class from North East Valley Normal School will be running a clothes …

The owners of North East Valley’s newest café, Adjo, have combined their two passions to create a new space where art, coffee and food meet. Caitlin Holloway says she has known for a while that her interest lay in hospitality; her partner Jonas Jessen Hansen is an artist who has developed an interest in curating and what happens behind the scenes of art exhibitions. The couple are focusing first on getting the café up and running, then plan to feature new exhibiting artists every 3–4 weeks. The café serves Danish food and features Danish-style porridge and smørrebrød , …

The Dunedin group of the Kung Fu School holds classes twice a week in North East Valley and new members from ages seven through to adults are always welcome. Instructor Kenneth Mitchell says the classes cover fitness, discipline and self defence. Kung fu covers a large array of topics including joint manipulation, takedowns, weapon styles, animal styles and more. Children’s classes are for ages 7–12 years and are a lot of fun, says Kenneth. The children are always very enthusiastic and enjoy learning the animal-related styles such as tiger, crane, snake and dragon. The classes for 13 years and …

A ‘dark den’ which gives children a space to chill out in a busy world has been a popular new addition to the Dunedin City Toy Library’s toy stock. Thanks to a Foodstuffs Community Grant the toy library has added a range of new toys which are good for children with different physical, social, emotional or developmental needs. Toy library chairwoman Jennifer Lawn says during an annual stocktake they realized they didn’t have many options for children with different developmental needs, such as children with autistic spectrum disorders. The new toys help stimulate cognitive, sensory and social-emotional development …

As August rolls around with only the merest sprinkling of snow gracing our peaks this winter, we will have to make do with a story about snow, instead of the real thing. We’re going back 80 years to the worst snow storm of the 20th century – the Big Snow of July 1939 – when a series of freezing southerlies swept snow over the entire country. Even a very surprised lighthouse keeper at Cape Maria van Diemen at the top of the North Island reported snowflakes flying past his window! But the worst hit was coastal Otago. Flakes …