Tuesday 28 April 2009 - Issue 68

Letter To Manukau

ANZAC Day

Saturday saw another memorable ANZAC Day where we again, had an amazing tournout for the dawn parades, particularly in Manurewa and Howick.

 I attended the Papatoetoe dawn parade, and the numbers were similar to last year.  I suspect that given the weather was not at its best, the old diggers are finding it increasingly difficult to get out on a cold early autumn morning. Their numbers have been balanced by continuing increases in young people turning out with their mums, dads and grandparents.  I love the dawn parades. It's a poignant, quiet and reflective time and an appropriate start to the day's commemorations.

As usual I attended Otara parade prior to Manurewa and the young people were to the fore in being the primary providers of the guest speaking roles. Our young school leaders in this generation are gifted in their public speaking capabilities but what is most evident is the content of their speeches. It is evident that they have put a lot of time into preparing it to give maximum effect to the spirit and historical context of the occasion.

I also attended, for the first time as Mayor, the Manurewa parade and it was huge.

There was a large turnout of veterans at this parade, which is increasingly dominated by those with more recent service in Vietnam, Malaya and Borneo and East Timor and Afghanistan and peacekeeping forces. 
I finished off my ANZAC day visits spending a couple of hours being entertained by the men and women of the Howick RSA.  By the time I arrived, the subject matter of the day had changed from reflection of morning commemoration to the spirited and passionate expressions of views around the Super City.

Overall, it was a wonderful day of commemoration on this special New Zealand day.

Find Your Field of Dreams

The John Walker Find Your Field of Dreams Foundation celebrated its first anniversary with a small luncheon hosting the Prime Minister, John Key on Friday.

John has recently featured in the New Zealand Herald and been quoted and praised for his work for the foundation.

Its work so far and vision for the future of our young people, in keeping good health and being actively involved, was taken to  task by one of the region's community commentators for not wanting to extend the FYFOD vision to the whole of the region. 
 
John took up the challenge on by reflecting on the important mission of his foundation - that it continues to focus on the young people of our community here in Manukau in the foreseeable future on the basis we need to get it right in this community.

The mission is challenging enough as it is – that every child in our community should be active and involved in sport and recreation - not 99 per cent, but 100 per cent.
We want to ensure our children do not feature in health statistics like obesity, due to lack of active involvement in sport and recreation. We want them to be active and using our parks, recreation centres and pools.  We want to deliver more champions of the future, wearing the silver fern as our country's sporting ambassadors.

There is plenty of time to roll out this vision in the years ahead.

The task in front of us now - for our children and communities - is immediate and does not require debate. As John said, "I'm a Manurewa boy, born and raised and I'm proud of being a Manukau resident. This is where I want to focus my energy."

Have a good week.

Len Brown

Mayor of Manukau
ends

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