As you may already know Tai Tokerau Timebank got a grant from the Cyclone Gabrielle Appeal Trust last year. The purpose of the funding was two fold, to enable our Coordination team stay connected to assist members no matter what happens to power and cellphone coverage, and to help members learn skills they need, or to know who has those skills to help them out and be better prepared, or able to recover more easily from future extreme weather events, wildfires or, for those more coastal members, in the event of tsunami.
We also have to recognise that even though we might not be directly affected ourselves by an extreme weather event, we may still get cut off or have limited access to the rest of the country further south, or have interrupted supply chains.
We have a new page on this website about Emergency Preparedness (under the Members tab) which includes resource links. Given the current drought conditions and fire risk you may find the section on preparing to evacuate particularly useful. Advice such as doing a quick round of your house videoing it on your phone to assist with insurance claims etc later is really useful but not necessarily things we'd all think of.
Workshops so far have included chainsawing safety and emergency composting toilets. Future composting toilet workshops are in the pipeline for Whangārei and Dargaville later on. A TTT membership discount is available for urine separators - contact us for the code.
Our coordination team is also updating our members database to include information on likely needs, and skills/resources that can speed up our ability to respond to whatever happens.
We now have equipment to keep our Local Coordinators in touch with Paula at 'Mission Control', and better contact with/on behalf of members even when the power and cellphone networks are down albeit texts only. This is also handy when they are travelling around their rohe to and through the numerous cellphone blackspots that are a familiar part of life in te Tai Tokerau.
In December we combined an end of year social event with a visit to local retired farmers just south of Kaitāia who have been working towards self-sufficiency for some years. Gaye's food forest and vege garden is inspiring. Conversations covered lots of ideas for building up your own resilience
Coming up in April is a Sustainability workshop with Jen Gay out at Ahipara who is pretty close to being self sufficient. This will include visiting her underground cellar for food storage - a great way to keep food cool/chilled without using power. Going the whole way in terms of self sufficiency isn't practical for all of us, but there are lots of tips and tricks that we can learn to improve our own resilience and reduce our reliance on vulnerable infrastructure and services, and of course we can collaborate with those close to us to cover more bases.
In the 'Aftermath' section of our Resources you'll find a link to a Psychological First Aid document from Wellington via Wellington Timebank, this is especially helpful for those with children who need explanations and reassurance.
We're very grateful for shared resources from Wellington and Lyttleton Timebanks, and a contact in California, it's much easier to adapt information than start from scratch, and after all supporting each other is what Timebanking is all about!
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