Founded by Max Farndale 1947 - 2018
On the win of the prestigious ‘Best National Event of the Year’, TAFT Chief Executive, Suzanne Porter, says “This is an award that recognises Taranaki, our partnerships and our loyal WOMAD audience as much as the festival. We thank our WOMADers and partners for their support and look forward to celebrating with them at the 2018 festival” .
TAFT Board of Trustees chair, Charles Wilkinson added "This award brings together a culmination of years of expertise, dedication and professionalism that's been given to this festival by our most wonderful staff. I congratulate Suzanne Porter our CEO and her dedicated crew for what they have so deservedly achieved at these national awards. I am so proud of them, as is my board, and I am so excited that we now have a line that we can exceed to take our Festival to an even greater level."
WOMAD NZ were finalists for three national awards in this year’s 2017 New Zealand Event Awards presented last night at a gala ceremony at Sky City in Auckland. They received nominations for ‘Best National Event of the Year’ and the the public voted ‘Eventfinda / New Zealand’s Favourite Event of the Year’. And WOMAD NZ’s Marketing and Communications Manager, Cleopatra Wood, was named as a finalist in the ‘Emerging Event Professional’ category. Suzanne Porter says of this nomination “We are incredibly proud of our marketing manager, Cleopatra Wood, for her nomination. The calibre of finalists is a true testament to her great achievements working on WOMAD”.
The 2018 EventThe full WOMAD NZ 2018 festival line up is being announced in Wellington on the night of Wednesday October 18th. Previously announced artists for the 2018 festival include Los Angeles saxophonist, composer and jazz superstar KAMASI WASHINGTON, the Indian classical and progressive sitar virtuoso ANOUSHKA SHANKAR and classic Kiwi band DRAGON who will be joined by many more exciting and eclectic artists from across the globe.
The internationally established three day festival brings together international artists to celebrate the world’s many forms of music, arts and dance. Set in the stunning 55-acre Brooklands Park and TSB Bowl of Brooklands, New Plymouth, WOMAD NZ has rightfully gained a reputation as one of the most beautiful outdoor festivals in the world.
The main stage is set at the base of a natural amphitheatre and not only provides a stunning setting, but an acoustic experience second to none. The other three stages are located throughout Brooklands Park, with every square inch oozing the vibrancy of the family friendly WOMAD.
Since the first festival in the UK in 1982, founded by Peter Gabriel and Thomas Brooman, WOMAD has held more than 160 festivals worldwide with 2018 seeing the festival celebrate its 14th anniversary in New Plymouth. In its tenure, WOMAD has had 150,000 visitors through its gates and generated over 100 million dollars for the local Taranaki economy.
As an organisation, WOMAD now works in many different ways, but their aims are always the same - at festivals, performance events, through recorded releases and through educational projects, they aim to excite, inform and create awareness of the worth and potential of a multicultural society.
WOMAD New Zealand 2018 is on at Brooklands Park, New Plymouth, from March 16 to 18. Tickets on sale from womad.co.nz
| A Womad release || October 12, 2017 |||
SEATTLE, Oct. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- NutriBullet, the world's original nutrient extractor, today unveiled the newest addition to its collection of products designed to achieve ultimate wellness – NutriBullet Balance – at the Smart Kitchen Summit. The NutriBullet Balance represents the evolution of blending by providing consistent taste, and detailed transparency of nutritional statistics such as calories, protein, carbohydrates, fat and sugar intake, among others with every smoothie.
In partnership with Perfect Company, NutriBullet has taken the art of smoothie making to the next level with NutriBullet Balance making its mark as the world's first fully integrated nutrition extraction system. Featuring a revolutionary integrated, Bluetooth-enabled Smart Nutrition Sensor™ that connects to a devoted NutriBullet Balance app on your smart device, NutriBullet Balance is designed to act as a Virtual Nutritionist™ assisting consumers in achieving health and wellness goals.
The NutriBullet Balance iOS and Android compatible app allows users to track real-time nutritional data as they build recipes, customize recipes to their desired taste, set and track their nutritional goals, create plans for optimum wellness, build shopping lists, and track items in their pantry. NutriBullet's team of registered dieticians, nutritionists and food scientists collaborated with Perfect Company to curate hundreds of recipes – tailored to various health conditions, nutritional goals and flavor profiles.
NutriBullet Balance is available for pre-order now and will be rolling out to select retailers nationwide this holiday season. For more information or to pre-order the NutriBullet Balance, please visit NutriBulletBalance.com.
#3 - This scare was the harbinger of all the other panics on ingestibles that continues today. The background was that New Zealanders short, but fast flowing waterways failed to collect the minerals required for healthy teeth. The result was that New Zealand teeth were among the worst in the developed world requiring among other things mass adult extractions and huge purpose built dental clinics for children
The position nowThe unselfish insistence by the dental profession that fluoride had to be introduced to the public water supply brought this situation under control. Unselfish because it did the dentists out of much of their business. The anti-fluoride campaign is now associated with the extremes of the Greens.
| MSC Newswire Big Frights of Our Times Series #3 || Thursday 12 October 2017 |||
Water utility Watercare is seeking expressions of interest (EOI) for construction of the new Central Interceptor wastewater project in Auckland, New Zealand.
Bids will be invited for the construction of the Central Interceptor in two stages:
EOI – open from 20 October 2017, and will pre-qualify up to four contractor consortia. Request for Proposal – held during 2018, to award a contract for construction of the works.
The EOI will be released via Watercare’s e-procurement portal, TenderLink.
Once completed, the Central Interceptor will increase the capacity of Auckland’s wastewater network.
An earth pressure balance (EPB) tunnel boring machine (TBM) will be used during construction, linking the 4.5 m diameter pipe to 4.4 km of sewers, ranging in size from 2.1 to 2.4 m in diameter.
The tunnel will be constructed between 15 and 110 m underground and will run for approximately 13 km between the suburbs of Western Springs and Mangere.
The TBM will be driven through weak sandstone and may encounter mixed face materials in Auckland’s geology, which is overlain with volcanic soils and rock.
The southern end of the tunnel will extend through marine and alluvial sediments, and then under the Manukau Harbour.
The main tunnel will terminate at a lift pump station that will be constructed at the Mangere Wastewater Treatment Plant.
Shafts for the station will be constructed using a D-Wall method and feature a dual cell configuration approximately 40 m deep; the cells will be 12 m and 26 m in diameter.
The pumps will deliver up to 6 m3/sec through two 1.4 m diameter high density polyethylene rising mains into the treatment plant.
Connections into the existing network built under urban central Auckland will be made via 16 cascade drop shafts that are between 25 and 70 m deep, ranging in diameter from 3 to 12 m.
Land for the shafts – which has already been designated to parks – is owned by Watercare, or its parent organisation Auckland Council.
An option exists to dispose of tunnel spoil at a landfill operation managed by Watercare.
Construction is anticipated to begin in 2019 and to be completed by 2025.
For more information visit the Watercare website.
| A Trenchless release || October 11, 2017 |||
Vector is looking to drive new innovation in the rapidly expanding electric vehicle sector by not only providing charging solutions but also turning them into power sources.
"We see potential for EVs to become mobile energy sources and a key part in making our network smarter and more resilient," chief networks officer Andre Botha said in an emailed response to questions.
The latest data from the Ministry of Transport shows there are now about 4,900 light EVs on the road up from almost 2,000 a year ago. While the numbers are pushing higher, Botha said the cars aren’t putting pressure on the grid as their contribution to demand is small but "we are developing smart solutions" to ensure that doesn't happen. The government is aiming to double the number of electric vehicles in New Zealand every year to reach approximately 64,000 by 2021.
Among other things, Vector is closely monitoring existing public charging stations to get data on usage patterns and wants to "build flexible customer-focused networks that are accommodative to this disruptive technology," he said.
Vector has been on expanding its reach outside its dominant regulated electricity and gas distribution which faces smaller returns, branching out into telecommunications, smart meters, battery storage, solar and home ventilation.
Botha said Vector now has 18 rapid charging stations, plus another nine standard chargers. EV users do not currently have to pay to use them. A car takes an average 15-to-25 minutes at a rapid charger and six-to-eight hours at a standard charger.
"Between July 2016 and June 2017, these chargers have seen over 22,700 rapid electric vehicle charging sessions, delivering 180.6MWh (megawatt hours) of electricity to EV users. That’s more than 195,641 kilograms of CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) emissions saved compared with using a petrol-powered vehicle," he said.
While different electricity retailers are offering night rate specials to avoid congestion in peak hours, Vector is going one step further and implementing so-called Vehicle-to-Grid technology, or V2G "which realises the potential of an EV to be a mobile power source," Botha said. It is currently pioneering the technology, using its EV fleet - which will soon by 100 percent of its corporate pool. Similar trials are underway in Denmark, Italy, the UK and the Netherlands, he said.
The vehicle charges overnight and then its stored power can be used as a cheaper power source during peak hour consumption and as a way to power homes during outages. A second-generation Nissan Leaf with a 20 kWh (kilowatt hour) battery could power the average household for 10 hours on a full charge, he said.
Given most cars are parked for the majority of the time "people could charge up their car batteries overnight with cheaper energy and then use them as power boosts when needed, or in the morning and evenings when energy costs more," he said.
According to Botha, Vector will be offering V2G to customers in the near future.
Also on the innovation front, Vector is looking at how EVs could improve the resilience of the network as the impact of climate change makes extreme weather like storms or droughts more common.
"As EVs become a key component of the transport network, the need for resilient energy supply is going to become more and more important," he said.
Vector is also investigating end-of-life uses for EVs when batteries are no longer effective at powering the vehicle. Botha said one idea is to group ex-EV batteries into mobile power supply units which could replace generators as temporary power sources - for example when network maintenance is going on.
| A Sharechat release || October 11, 2017 |||
Tracking aircraft maintenance just got easier through Spidertracks' cloud partnership with Aeronet writes Rob O'Neill in Reseller News.
Two New Zealand aviation technology developers have teamed to tackle one of the most complex and time-consuming problems in aviation: tracking and automating aircraft maintenance and flight logging.
Spidertracks, based in Auckland's Karangahape Road, already manufactures and sells on-board satellite tracking devices, dubbed "Spiders", though a global network of resellers.
Now it has teamed with Cambridge-based cloud fleet management software company Aeronet to automate the tracking process and eliminate reams of paper, ad hoc spreadsheets and manual data entry.
The new service, prosaically called Maintenance Tracking, uses data from the Spiders integrated with Aeronet’s API.
"It takes all of the admin out of what was once tedious and time-consuming and puts that time and effort back into the hands of operators, allowing them to focus on maximising productivity and growing their businesses," Spidertracks says in a blog post.
Fixed-wing aircraft equipped with Spiders just need to be signed up sign up for Maintenance Tracking while helicopters need a new Spider 8 device.
Spidertracks and Aeronet launched Maintenance Tracker at the National Business Aviation Association conference in Las Vegas this week.
Spidertracks’ chief marketing officer Todd O’Hara said allowing Spider Events and Maintenance Tracking to automate this area of customers’ operations means they have one less moving part to keep tabs on.
“For most operators, the data is already there. It was just a case of finding what else we were able to do with it that would provide more value to our customers," he said.
An early user, Canada-based flight training, aircraft charter, aircraft maintenance, and pipeline surveillance operation Synergy Aviation, said the system allowed maintenance to be performed "live".
“This is the only software I’ve found that works for helicopter operations where maintenance is regularly performed in the field," said Synergy director of maintenance Marc Hanatschek.
Spidertracks’ CEO Dave Blackwell said Maintenance Tracker was a milestone towards providing a broader range of services for customers.There’s been an increasing desire from customers to use Spider data to provide more value for their businesses, he said.
“We see a lot of examples where aircraft operators are having to work in disparate systems and duplicate data entry in an effort to get the job done. What we’re doing here is automating these work flows and integrating systems to provide greater efficiency and more reliable data, which will ultimately deliver significant cost savings.”
Spidertracks was founded by James McCarthy and other family members and associates after it took two weeks to find the pilot following a 2005 helicopter crash.
Those interests still own most of the company supported by a 16.5 per cent investment from The Warehouse founder Stephen Tindall's venture investment company K One W One alongside other smaller shareholdings.
Aeronet is deveolped by Module Limited, which also privately owned
| A REsellerNews release || October 11, 2017 |||
Palace of the Alhambra, Spain
By: Charles Nathaniel Worsley (1862-1923)
From the collection of Sir Heaton Rhodes
Oil on canvas - 118cm x 162cm
Valued $12,000 - $18,000
Offers invited over $9,000
Contact: Henry Newrick – (+64 ) 27 471 2242
Mount Egmont with Lake
By: John Philemon Backhouse (1845-1908)
Oil on Sea Shell - 13cm x 14cm
Valued $2,000-$3,000
Offers invited over $1,500
Contact: Henry Newrick – (+64 ) 27 471 2242
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