Ali's Blog

Posted on November 13th, 2009 under Aotearoa, High days and holidays, Travel, UK. Tags: All Blacks. Comments: 2

Due to the time difference Christchurch today led one of the first public tributes this year to the victims of the 9/11 tragedy.
The American Club of Christchurch organised the event which took place at the Firefighters Reserve in central Christchurch at 11am today. The central city fire brigade whose station is next door to [...]

Posted on September 11th, 2009 under Aotearoa, High days and holidays. Tags: 9/11, World Trade Centre, WTC. Comments: 1

21 degrees, daffodils appearing everywhere, blossom on the trees, a nor’wester blowing and whitebaiters in the River Avon (very different from British whitebait)- Spring looks like it has arrived!

Posted on August 28th, 2009 under Aotearoa, City Life. Comments: None

Back in the office this week after a great 3 days with our CORE whanau at Mt Vernon Lodge.
Reminded me once again what awesome staff that we have and what a very special company I work for.

Posted on August 4th, 2009 under Aotearoa, CORE life. Tags: CORE. Comments: None

Interesting to see this in one of the RSS feeds I get from British newsletters.
Just weeks after NZ was named as the best place for British expats to make a fresh start, people are realising that in fact NZ is also suffering from the global recession and that jobs are not as plentiful as expected.
What [...]

Posted on July 6th, 2009 under Aotearoa, Odds & Ends. Tags: NZ. Comments: None

Air New Zealand have made the British news, with the major newspapers all carrying stories about the new safety video recently released by AirNZ.
For those not in the know, Air NZ has made a safety video for its domestic routes which shows a pilot and cabin crew dressed only in body paint made to resemble [...]

Posted on July 4th, 2009 under Aotearoa, Travel. Tags: Air NZ. Comments: None

The area which is adjacent to our subdivision (housing estate) has won an environment award. Nine individuals, businesses and organisations ­from Kaitaia to Otago have been honoured for making an outstanding contribution to protecting the environment at the annual Green Ribbon Awards announced recently.
The Green Ribbon Awards are presented by the Minister for the Environment to [...]

Posted on June 9th, 2009 under Aotearoa, Family stuff. Comments: None

(Ex) colleague Greg alerted me to the latest ranking of New Zealand blogs compiled by Ken Perrott (aka Open Parachute). It places CORE’s Director of eLearning Derek Wenmoth at 29th, and ex ICTPD Facilitator Greg Carroll at 63rd. It also has other NZ educators and friends of CORE in the top 100 including [...]

Posted on June 2nd, 2009 under Aotearoa, CORE life, Family stuff, The internet and techie toys. Comments: 1

Thursday/Friday this week saw the staging of the latest KidsCongress conference. This is the 9th event to be held in Christchurch, and was one of the best I think.

KidsCongress is a unique award-winning technology and learning conference for 9-12 year olds, which is run by the company I work for (CORE Education).

The two-day conference challenges [...]

Posted on May 30th, 2009 under Aotearoa, CORE life, Educational bits and bobs, The internet and techie toys. Tags: CORE, KidsCongress. Comments: None

I have often walked past the building where the Dyslexia Discovery Exhibit is located, but sightseeing with visiting friends made me stop and look at these sculptures.
The Dyslexia Discovery Exhibit is an outdoor gallery experience open to the public located at 21 Worcester Boulevard (near the Arts Centre).
It has a number of exhibits created in [...]

Posted on April 11th, 2009 under Aotearoa, City Life. Tags: Dyslexia. Comments: 1

Thomas has been playing basketball for the school this summer and this has sparked an interest with him and his friends for all things “basketball”. As an end of term treat we decided to take a group to see the Christchurch Cougars team play at the local Cowles Stadium. Their basketball coach, who is a [...]

Posted on April 11th, 2009 under Aotearoa, City Life. Tags: Cougars. Comments: 1

New Zealand’s power use dropped 3.5 per cent during last night’s Earth Hour.
Thanks to our position in the world, New Zealand was the first country to “power down” for an hour as part of the global initiative to highlight the threat of climate change.
The Chatham Islands kicked off the event by switching off its diesel [...]

Posted on March 29th, 2009 under Aotearoa, City Life. Tags: Earth Hour. Comments: None

Fisher & Paykel Appliances is holding its second annual Recycling Day, givinge veryone the chance to dispose of your old, worn-out or broken kitchen and laundry appliances in an environmentally friendly way.
By diverting appliances from landfills to recycling plants, valuable resources can be re-used, waste is minimised and the environment is spared.
This year Fisher & [...]

Posted on February 24th, 2009 under Aotearoa, City Life. Tags: Recycling. Comments: None

The weather has certainly cooled down (23 degrees today), down from 30+ which has been the regular this summer, however it is hard to think that winter is heading this way in the near future.
Two signs this week however have made me realise that the inevitable turning of the seasons is happening. First the newspaper [...]

Posted on February 15th, 2009 under Aotearoa, Family stuff. Tags: Crusaders. Comments: None