SAM'S TOP PICKS
1. The Dunedin Swing Festival staged its 11th edition during King’s Birthday weekend, offering big band energy, syncopated beats and buoyant revelry.
Festival director Sibby Dillon said the event’s core styles traced back to innovators of the 1920s-1940s swing era.
Swing was freer than more structured forms of dance.
"There’s so much more personality, your own personality that you bring to the dance and that makes it incredibly fulfilling.
"It means that when you are dancing with someone else, you are actually bringing your personality to that dance and they are bringing their personality to the dance."
A survey gained broad support for the idea and Mr Turner worked with the Saddle Hill Community Board and the Greater Green Island Community Network to help gain support from the Dunedin City Council.
It has endorsed the plan and signed a memorandum of understanding.
Mr Turner said the challenge now was to reach the funding target of just over $121,000 to install the track.
"It is going to provide a lot of joy for a lot of kids."
"I thought I would just ask if anyone is interested in building some rockets and I had about 50 people say ‘yes, we’d love to’."
The models use compressed blackpowder engines and fin stabilisation.
"When the igniter sets fire to the powder, it expands very, very quickly.
"It sends out a hot stream of gas through the nozzle, which pushes the rocket upwards."
The rockets can rapidly ascend to heights of up to 100m, although larger motors can push similar airframes close to 300m.
BRENDA'S TOP PICKS
1. Last February Tomahawk-Smaills Beachcare Trust nursery manager Dr Nicole Bezemer said sea lion mum Tektite had given birth in a stand of vegetation right behind the nursery shed and she had been privileged to glimpse the male pup when he was just minutes old.
"It was wonderful to have them there, and when Tektite started going to sea, she left her pup at the nursery," she said.
"We had erected some sea lion barriers, but they didn’t really work, and so we had a sea lion pup playing with the nursery plants and blowing bubbles in my dog’s water bowl."
Established more than 25 years ago, the trust has in recent years expanded its work to include providing forest habitat for sea lion mothers.
Built in 1880, the chimney was the oldest structure on the Dunedin Gasworks Museum site and was fundamental to the gasworks’ operations, running the boiler and other machines, he said.
The bricks were of historic interest themselves, having most likely been made by local brickyards, such as C&W Gore.
"It’s good that the bricks that were removed from the chimney have been carefully labelled and will be stored for possible future reconstruction — they are an important part of the history of the gasworks site," Mr Cweorth said.
First Church of Otago minister the Rev Ed Masters said 15 copper downpipes, which took the rainwater from the 152-year-old church’s roof, had been stolen in "several instalments" over the previous couple of months.
"It’s disappointing and frustrating that thieves would target a city treasure like this, our parishioners are quite upset about it."
While the process of replacing the downpipes got under way, temporary PVC piping had to be used to keep rain water from damaging the church walls.
Knox Presbyterian Church minister the Very Rev Dr Graham Redding told The Star the church had also suffered the loss of a "significant number" of its copper downpipes.
Describing the thefts as "a sign of the times", Dr Redding said it was difficult and frustrating that the churches had been targeted.
"These are heritage churches and the copper piping is a part of that."
