Christchurch

News - Upcoming and Recent Events - Past Events

We are a group of Christians from a variety of churches around Christchurch who are keen to connect our faith with our enthusiasm to care for God’s creation. We typically meet on the last Sunday of the month at Whare Ora (8 Athleston St) for discussion/speakers/action on particular issues. We also are involved in helping the City Council with reforestation and pest control at Kennedy’s Bush. Every second Sunday of the month, we do a circuit walking around the fairly rugged bush, checking bait levels, and occasionally help with tree planting and maintenance.

News

The possum line bait has been relocated to Victoria Park. One of the lines (KL) no longer has anyone doing it, so we need to find a replacement one or two people who can share the responsibility is ideal. Please get in touch if you'd like to give it a go - I (Steve) find it a very enjoyable walk and sometimes take my 7 & 9 year old kids. Phil the park ranger can give you a guided tour and fill you in on lots of interesting info. You need a reasonable degree of fitness to do it.

Upcoming and Recent Events

For more information about upcoming events, please email us at new.zealand@arocha.org

Sun 25th March 2012 - Pot luck tea. We started with a garden tour at 4.30pm. There were magic tricks by Dick and lots to talk about.

Sun 6 November 2011 (7.30pm) - Book launch. A Rocha Christchurch was pleased to be part of launching Dick Tripp's new book "The Biblical Mandate for Caring for Creation", and copies of the book was available for sale. As David Moxon says in the foreword…

“Dick Tripp, in this very comprehensive expression of the biblical mandate of caring for God’s creation has provided Christians with a detailed biblical approach to the growing crisis in our environment, its causes, the role of the Christian church and the challenge that lies before us all. What is needed today is the energy and morale for people at the flax roots to act decisively and together. Dick’s work provides the biblical and spiritual motivation we need to move forward at this critical time. The moral leadership the church can offer is very significant, not only because, as the environmental groups say, our very planet is at stake, but also because it is God’s earth, our home. We are accountable to the Creator of the heavens and the earth for our stewardship in this garden for which we have been called to care.”

Past Events

September 2011 - Catch up! The A Rocha National Hui at Craigeburn is coming up too so we had a long overdue catchup about our earthquake woes and other things that have been happening around the place, and had a think about who can do what in terms of planning for the hui...

September 2011 - Bike Maintenance workshop. We're about to turn over our 200th bike fix and 100th donated bike! For more information, please click here.

April 2011 - Pot luck dinner. Ani showed us how to cook some yummy Indonesian food, and we had a good catch up and talked about our view of nature being 'good' when bad things happens.

February 2011 - Kick-start to the year! We started the new years program with a pot luck tea. and discussion about some of the ideas in the WWF ‘simple and painless’ report. "Simple & painless? The limitations of ‘spillover’ in environmental campaigning". Download the report from:
http://www.wwf.org.uk/wwf_articles.cfm?unewsid=2728. It talks about 'spillover', the idea that if you do one small environmentally friendly action, you will be more likely to do further actions. Is this enough to save the planet or do we end up with a small bunch of completely inadequate small actions? It’s a very interesting report so we encourage you to read it and bring ideas, particularly if you can think of personal examples of actions that have spurred you to further action. Also there’s negative spillover – people think they’re doing their bit by, say, recycling, so they can then drive & fly as much as they wish – can you think of any personal examples of that happening?

February 2011 - Bike Maintenance.

December 2010 - The final A Rocha get together for this year! We shared afternoon tea, had an explore around a native backyard, experienced some of one of our member's new magic tricks and enjoyed a catchup. If you have any ideas for interesting projects/discussion topics for next year, please let us know. And if anyone has some spare energy and time to do some promoting of the A Rocha group in Christchurch, there is plenty of opportunity for someone to give it a go.

November 2010 - Meeting. At this month's meeting, some of the Arocha team from up North were in town and came along to fill us in on what's happening around the country, as well as catching up on our own news. Sally Tripp brought along her newly published book on ferns on Banks Peninsula and it was a good opportunity to celebrate her achievement.

October 2010 - Weeding. Instead of our usual monthly discussion, this month we joined Di Carter from Christchurch City Coucil for some weed clearing and mulching of new trees at Greenwood Gulley. Servants to Asia's Urban Poor were having a retreat at Governors Bay and some of them joined us for the weeding and deep theological discussion about ecology and mission.

October 2010 - Bike Maintenance. A group of enthusiastic volunteers, including several people in the A Rocha group, ran its fourth free bike maintenance workshop from 1-4pm on Sunday 10th October 2010 at the Linwood Community Art Centre (cnr Stanmore rd and Worchester st, Christchurch). This went very well with lots of bikes getting fixed up and given away. We are now collecting old bikes for the next one on Feb 19th. Pictures attached of the workshop and five Nepali students with their new bikes and helmets. If anyone would like to reduce their carbon emissions and use a bike trailer for doing shopping and carrying all manner of loads then have a go with a free loan of a bike trailer. Potential world record for heaviest load ever towed by a bike could be coming up when Steve's brick wall gets removed due to damage from the Christchurch earthquake!

September 2010 - Meeting. This month we had John Peet leading a discussion based around the recent Lincoln Efford Memorial Lecture he presented on "Is a peaceful, just and sustainable future possible?" John Peet is a chemical engineer with background experience in the petroleum industry, whose main focus in recent years has been sustainable development. Since retirement, he has worked with a number of local, national and international non-government organisations including Sustainable Otautahi Christchurch who organised the talk we visited in July by Landcare research. John has a broad knowledge of sustainability issues so there were lots of stimulating questions to throw around.

August 2010 - Meeting. We discussed the psychology of sustainable behaviour change from a number of angles, including the term "eco-pharisee" which (unfairly to Jewish traditions) implies a bunch of eco-rules that we should all keep or feel guilty about not keeping. At a recent seminar by an expert in psychology of sustainable behaviour change, there was enthusiasm about using cognitive dissonance (with similarities to a 'guilt trip'!) to induce changes in behaviour. So - are you inspired about the power of the guilt trip???!! On one hand it doesn't feel right at all, but then if we don't encourage some behaviour change somehow in our unsustainable lifestyles, nothing will change. There was lots of good discussion to be had....

July 2010 - Meeting. This month, we joined in with Sustainable Otautahi Christchurch (SOC) who hosted a public meeting. "Hatched" is an e-book of Landcare Research's thought-provoking research on sustainability issues and is downloadable free at www.hatched.net.nz. Bob Frame, co-editor of Hatched with Richard Gordon and Claire Mortimer, and Principal Scientist at Landcare Research, talked about the book and what could happen now that it is... Hatched.
* How can NZ become a future maker not a future taker?
* How can businesses improve their sustainability performance?
* How could individuals live as citizens of a sustainable society
* What are the next steps for sustainable development practice?
* How can we create solutions to Wicked Problems?

June 2010 - Bike Maintenance. A few members of the A Rocha group are helping at a free bike maintenance workshop coming up at the Linwood community art centre. If you need your bike tuned, want to help out, or want to donate an old bike let me know. Water proof bike trailers are also available for free hire for a month if you want to try one to keep your stuff dry during winter bike commutes.

June 2010 - Meeting. Discussion topic: Economy Up, Environment down? The way money is created and managed in our economy, the consequences of this for the environment and sustainability, and how complementary currencies can help. Ian Burn is the Project Coordinator for Pegasus Exchange, a new local complementary currency being established in Christchurch. He led a discussion on the above topic at the next meeting, looking at issues around:

- how money is 'created' and managed,
- how it's become more than just a medium of exchange,
- the relationship between an economy focused on paying off interest, 'economic growth', and the environment and sustainability.
- the relationship between this economy, inequality and measures of health, education and social wellbeing
- How the use of complementary currencies can facilitate a more environmentally and socially sustainable society.

Ian has previously had experience as a Community Development Advisor with the Christchurch City Council, has been an active member of Sustainable Otautahi Christchurch and has managed multimillion dollar contracts in the health sector. He is also a long standing member of the A Rocha Christchurch organizing group.

May 2010 - Meeting. Professor Peter Wenz led some discussion on "How Much Should I Do to Heal the World?" In other words, how can we who live in industrialised countries make ethical consumer decisions without impairing our own flourishing? Prof. Wenz is from the University of Illinois at Springfield & is teaching philosophy at UC this semester and is a veteran writer and spokesperson on environmental justice issues.

April 2010 - Meeting. Philip Pattemore led a discussion that he did yesterday at Laidlaw college on Genesis and how we can understand it. It often comes up when talking about how we have been given the mandate to care for the Earth based on the authority of the early chapters of Genesis, but other bits like the 6 days are harder to take as authoritatively - a good discussion.

March 2010 - Meeting. We'll be starting a series going through various resources available for doing Bible studies/discussions on the theme of faith & ecology. Hopefully it will encourage people to use such resources in their own church/community settings to stimulate some further talk & action.

February 2010 - Meeting. Bring along an object that symbolises an important part of your ecologically friendly faith. It could be some of your compost, prototype wind generator, possum - anything that you find important in connecting your faith with caring for God's creation and that might be of interest to others and can fit through the front door.

February 2010 - Meeting. Planning for 2010.

Click here to see Christchurch events in 2009

Click here to see Christchurch events in 2008