Newsletter - July 2024
- Helen Vear
- Jul 13, 2024
- 4 min read
Updated: Sep 1
Greetings from the President:
A big thank you to Pam Butler and Pam Craig for putting together the last series i.e. Media. Even though we lost one session through illness, most would agree that those we heard were excellent and very relevant to today. Our new series is ‘Hot Spots’. David Morrell & Chris Connor who set up last year’s very successful ‘Hot Spots’ have applied the same formula this year and it is looking equally as good. There certainly is a line-up of well-respected experts in their fields for us to learn from and enjoy (see below).
It is pleasing to see so many members coming along and enjoying the sessions. Thank you to our network of volunteers who help every week to make our U3A one of the best! Enjoy the break, keep warm and catch up soon.
Series Four Hot Spots:
July 22
| Professor Robert Patman: Professor of International Relations, Department of Politics, University of Otago https://www.otago.ac.nz/profiles/robert-patman
| Israel/Gaza |
July 29 | The US Presidential Election | |
August 5 | NATO and EU Expansion and Russia’s reactions. | |
August 12 | Dr Nick Smith: | Security and the Indo/Pacific region
|
August 19 | Dr Malcolm McKinnon: Malcolm McKinnon is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the School of History, Philosophy, Political Science and International Relations at Victoria University of Wellington https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/hppi/psir/staff/malcolm-mckinnon
| A Foreign Policy for New Zealand. |
Invitation from the Canterbury History Foundation:
You are invited to attend the Jim Gardner Memorial Lecture for 2024 which will be held on Sunday 28 July at 2pm in Central Lecture Theatre C1, University of Canterbury. Dame Anne Salmond will speak about Democracy and Te Tiriti. All welcome. Free afternoon tea (though donations are also welcome!)
Gillian Bryant
We are sad to report that Gillian Bryant died on 11 July. During her many years with U3A Godley she served as a committee member, course planner and website-builder. Her contributions at question time always enriched the lectures. Gillian participated in the music group, the recorder group and she started the movie group outings, but her enduring legacy was our website. She started this from the GoDaddy domain, and then guided the building of the Wix site that was updated last month. She was a calm, intelligent and supportive friend to many of us. She will be missed.
Places of Interest Report - Visit to Scott Automation: we were hosted by Alan Prince, General Manager, who showed us a couple of videos illustrating the type of automated production equipment that Scott develops for international companies. There are several branches overseas as well as three in New Zealand, namely Christchurch, Dunedin and Auckland. These focus on domestic and industrial hardware, meat processing, and mining, respectively. The company in Christchurch develops kit for automating mass production of consumer goods and specialised machinery. For example, a company might contact Scott to design and produce an automated production line for manufacturing washing machines. This could take about a year or longer to devise, test and export the finished product to the production site for use in their factory. We were shown around the Scott site and given a live demonstration of a fully automated refuelling system for large Caterpillar vehicles. We thank Alan for a most impressive visit and for giving us an insight into the ‘behind-the-scenes’ operation.
Places of Interest Report - Visit to the Christchurch Engine Centre: we were shown around the site by Mike O’Halloran, who started by giving us a brief background to the centre. It is a joint venture between Pratt & Whitney and Air New Zealand, but it handles Pratt & Whitney engines from many different airlines and has a staff of around 600. When we visited there were 32 engines being serviced, mainly the V2500 commonly found on current aircraft. This is done regularly after a certain number of take-offs and landings rather than actual distance travelled. However, airlines can request maintenance prior to that recommended if, for example, the aircraft has travelled through more polluted atmosphere. When an engine arrives, it is cleaned before components are rigorously checked and overhauled or replaced as necessary. Each engine is tested by running on a stationary mounting and any faults are logged by computer so that these can be rectified. When operational any minor faults on a flight are downloaded onto a computer and can be assessed after landing. The pilot may not be aware of these unless a fault needs urgent attention during the flight. We thank Mike and Dorina Bochow-Palmer for arranging a fascinating insight into flight safety and how aircraft engines are maintained and serviced.
And the next one…….
Thursday 22 August from 1 – 2:30pm at Holmes Solutions (holmessolutions.com)
This is a company that solves problems for businesses engaged in engineering projects. Their HQ is in Christchurch and they have a laboratory and test site in Christchurch (Hornby and Templeton, respectively).
The visit will include a tour of their workshop (prototyping and test space), rides on their short zipline corner, rides on their prototype transport system and members may be shown their latest vehicle design.
If you’d like to go please email Richard directly as numbers are limited - pickeringx2@yahoo.com
Something that might be of interest…….
The URL address below takes you to a Christchurch Library heritage site that lets you explore the origins of many local streets using the Christchurch streets map.
For example, if you look up ‘Moorhouse’ you get the following information:
Moorhouse Avenue
Current Suburbs: Addington, Sydenham, Waltham
Former name: South Belt, Junction Road
Origin of name: Named after William Sefton Moorhouse (1825?-1881).
Additional information: Formerly South Belt or South Town Belt re-named Moorhouse Avenue on 11 January 1904 after the merging of several boroughs into the City of Christchurch in 1903.
Moorhouse was the second superintendent of Canterbury 1857-1863 and 1866-1868. It was thought appropriate that the street was named after him because of his connection with the Christchurch-Lyttelton Railway and the Lyttelton tunnel.
Junction Road/Junction Street was incorporated into Moorhouse Avenue in 1909.
Why don’t you give it a try?
Godley members at The Christchurch Engine Centre |
