HI there,
Local elections are drawing closer, and it will be in our community's interest to ensure that some environmentally and socially aware candidates are successful in getting on our councils.
So just a couple of notices and dates for your diaries:
1. The Waikato Enviornment Centre will be running a candidates' evening on environmental issues on Monday 9th September, at 7pm
at Hamilton Gardens Chartwell Room.
2. And a message from Sustainable Waikato:
Dear Citizens of Hamilton and the Waikato
We would like to invite you to contribute to the election of the best local body candidates to lead us into a sustainable future!
The local body elections for 2013 will be held in October, culminating on October 12. Our group, Sustainable Waikato (SW) has reconvened in preparation for the upcoming elections. SW conducted an assessment of all candidates standing at the last local body elections for their views and track record on a range of sustainability dimensions. We then endorsed candidates who we felt met rigorously-considered criteria for sustainability and publicised this endorsement through newspapers, flyer mail drops and our website. We believe it made some difference in helping voters be more informed about who they were voting for.
If you care about a sustainable future for our city or region, we would like to invite you to a meeting on Sunday 11 August, 3pm - 5pm in Kopuroa at the University of Waikato (enter Gate 8 on Hillcrest Rd and park – Kopuroa is a single storey building just past the Motorbike Park).
This will be our critical launch meeting at which we will outline the strategy and set the work tasks. These tasks will include assessing the candidates’ responses to a questionnaire that will be emailed to them, researching their track record in council and/or in sustainability and communicating our findings to the public. I would encourage you to look at the questionnaires we used last time and come to the meeting with any ideas for improvement (see http://www.sustainablewaikato.org.nz/answers2010.html).
We need your help. You could be involved in any or all of these tasks at a level you feel comfortable with. If you cannot attend the meeting, please indicate how you might be able to help out by emailing Chris at c.eames@waikato.ac.nz.
We hope to see you on Sunday the 11th.
For more information visit: http://sustainablewaikato.org.nz
Dr Chris Eames
On behalf of the SW Steering committee 2013
