Draft Minutes of the TDCC meeting – 19th May 2026

Matters Arising:

1/ Protocol re recording meeting:

We ask that anyone recording the meeting to please advise at this point. The purpose of such recordings must be made clear. Approval will be at the discretion of the Chair.
Comment from the floor: These are committee meetings, to which the community is invited, as opposed to being a public meeting. The recording or not is a trust issue.

2/ Auditors report:

As circulated, and was agreed/filed in time. We have engaged the auditor to complete an audit for the current year, and thus provide a solid base going forward.

3/ Charities Commission and Incorporated Societies:

We have finally been able to change the personnel listings, after many hoops, and are now completely up-to-date.

4/ Returning Officer:

Kieri has given the card and gift to Susan, who expressed appreciation and indicated she would be happy to do it again in future once the appropriate changes to the constitution have been made. We are intending to clarify roles and provide clear guidelines in the up-coming revised constitution.

5/ Re the two In-committee items from 28th April minutes:

In the matter of ‘Membership issues re elections,’ progress is being made. We are unable to say more than this due to the risk of inadvertently breaking confidentiality.
Re outstanding debtor: The debtor has been offered a payment plan, which has since been put in place.

6/ Hub steering committee meeting/proposed Hub:

Roy attended an on-line meeting on the 6th May. The DIA gave a presentation regarding shifting two new existing buildings, fully funded by DIA, to be used for the proposed hub. Two submitters alluded to this idea in the Annual Plan submissions, so we feel comfortable talking about it. We are aware it is still confidential in detail. TDC won’t have to fund the project, but would need to provide a site, project manager, and would own the buildings and be responsible for on-going management. Excepting TDC responsibilities, this could be funded entirely within the $500k DIA funding.

John Gully commented that he was excited by the proposal, but that it would be up to the community to decide about this proposal.

DIA are exploring the idea, but we need to consider the underlying questions which caused us to ask for a pause on the current proposal i.e. where a hub should be sited, why do we need a new hub, how much community support is there. The time frame will be tight, but we need time to get it right, and for the right reasons. Our first step will be to meet with the folk running the existing Tapawera community buildings custodians to talk about the pros/cons. Roy discussed the two-building proposal with the DIA representative on May 18th. They confirmed that there are other funding streams for existing buildings, which is contra information to what the community had been led to believe previously.

Trish said she is very uncomfortable with the secrecy around this new proposal. She understands it’s for legal reasons, but this committee has promised the community that we would be open and transparent, yet here we are being requested by the DIA to talk behind closed doors and block the community from the discussion. She is also unhappy that a decision needs to be made by the end of June, leaving no time for proper consultation with the community. TDC staff are already supporting the new proposal, with no mandate to do so, and thus the worm of support is making it’s way through council, threatening to bulldoze Tapawera residents with a decision. The Tapawera Connect contract with the DIA ends in just 18 months, so who will pay their staff wages after that point?
Will it be TDC?
John Gully responded that it will not be TDC. However, Trish pointed out that the annual plan document showed that TDC expect to pay $156k each year towards running the proposed hub.

From the floor: This feels like a repeat of previous behaviour.
Chair response: DIA are floating the idea; Tapawera Connect didn’t know about it before 6th May either. DIA became aware of the two buildings, and thought it may be a solution if TDC pause the existing project. The rugby club haven’t received their expected funding from the rugby federation. We need to include discussions with them and other groups.

From the floor: How does the community get consulted? What is the hub for; Tapawera Connect offices?
Chair response: Maybe this could be a chance to revisit these issues. We must respect Tapawera’s other buildings.

From the floor: In the original proposed hub project, the community needed to raise $470k, but they have only raised about $100. Where is the support?

7/ TDC Annual plan Submission:

The verbal submissions can be viewed online, and on our website. Trish apologised to Gary Polwart re the survey figure, which she misquoted; this has now been corrected in the TDC minutes. The submissions went well, with mostly very good feedback from the community.

8/ Op Shop project:

We are hoping to open by the end of the month. Fifty bags of rubbish have gone, along with 10 banana boxes of damaged or out-dated books i.e. study books from previous school years. A ute-load of clothes went to ‘Helping families Nelson’… in return they are going to give us the hunting/fishing clothes they receive.
The re-usable nappies have found a home.
Julie offered a cash register; thank you Julie.
We bought a clothes steamer, which will help with clothes presentation.
John Gully kindly offered new clothing which just needs the labelling on the front covered.
The fire extinguishers have all been checked.
Trish purchased all the jigsaw puzzles, with the intention of gifting back the suitable ones, but so far there’s only been incomplete puzzles suitable for kindling.
The Community Bookshelf is now up and running, with free books, including modern non-fiction and kids/youth books. We hope to add another shelf, and will be rotating books so that there’s something fresh on a regular basis. Please let folk know that they can help themselves; no swaps required.

9/ Community Centre seismic reports:

We were kindly offered, through John Ellis, an opinion re the seismic report completed on the Community Centre. Roy will check with the writer to ensure it’s okay to be made public. However, of note, the original report wasn’t an engineers structural report, which needs to be done at a cost of between 5 and 10k. This must be done before we do or decide anything re the building. The original report, as we understand it, was essentially a tyre kicking exercise, making assumptions based on the buildings age, and thus was not a report upon which to make decisions. If the Govt. bill goes through re community buildings, TDCC will need to decide if we want to make the building safer, to what level, and this could be done with donated labour/goods. The bill is nearing its second reading.
Unfortunately, because the previous committee closed the centre, on the basis of the report. We need to keep it closed for now, to avoid liability.

10/ Village speed signs:

TDC have ordered the new lights for the village speed signs.

11/ FMG insurance:

We had to jump a few hoops, but now have the authority vested with the Secretary to deal with FMG. Therefore we were able to discover what we are, and are not, insured for; natural disasters are out, so unfortunately we are not covered for tsunami!

12/ Waivers:

Completed waivers are being kept in Secretary’s file as it’s counter-productive to hold them on-site.

13/ Dart Ford:

Roy spoke to Brian McManus at TDC as the issue isn’t just the ford itself, but also the river threatening the abutments.

Trish will confer with Geoff and Roy for the wording of letter.

14/ Tadmor Hill road:

The culvert is done, and it’s improved enough to drive on, but it seems like a band-aid. The water table isn’t catching the water, so the water is running down the tar seal, not going into the new culvert.

15/ TDC forestry trees too close to roads:

John Gully is working on this issue.

16/ Constitution:

With all the hoop-jumping and other work we’ve been involved in over the past four weeks, we have had to put this aside temporarily, but intend to come back to it shortly. We need to establish a consultation process for the constitution, which we should have out for comment before the June meeting.

17/ Consultation process/communication/emails:

The website is working well, with folk using the membership form and ‘contact us’ links. We are receiving on average ten emails a day from Russia; I opened one out of interest and discovered they are sending us recipes, with an offer to deliver meals direct! We haven’t accepted. Sugarcube have been terrific in getting the website sorted, prompt and quickly understanding our requirements. Going forward, our articles in the Informer will include our contact details, to save folk looking them up, and we will advertise TDCC committee names in the back of the Informer. Many of the local FB pages don’t allow group pages to comment, so we are not able to correct the misinformation which continues to abound, unfortunately. This was highlighted recently when a page had a post saying TDCC was using hub money for the op shop project. Thankfully members of the community responded, but it would have been nice for us to be able to post a link to our minutes and reports. When information/newsletters come in from other sources, we are now posting these on our FB page and website, so if your group are doing something, please let us know so we can spread the word. Tapawera Connect are reimbursing us for the website overpayment, and the AP has been stopped. Domain name ownership has been transferred from Phoebe Quinlivan to Sugarcube, who will host it on our behalf. The logo on the website was being used by the Hub steering committee and Tapawera Connect, so I made inquiries and discovered that the logo was designed for Tapawera Connect by Sugarcube. Therefore, we have replaced the logo with an alternative which Sugarcube designed for TDCC some time ago.
From the floor: The older links to the Informer are not working, Trish to follow up.

18/ Tapawera Connect:

We are working on establishing a good relationship. We’ve tried to talk to them about the messages their paid staff are putting into the community. DIA are aware of the issue, and have commented that they believe community comes first, building second. It was frustrating to hear only half the story in the verbal submissions to TDC by a paid staff member who talked about the issue of meeting folk in her own home, but failed to acknowledge that TDCC offered Tapawera Connect a free site for a meeting/office portable which they have failed to take up. She also implied that there were no sensible alternatives available within the community. One pleasing development is that Tapawera Connect have agreed to stop referring to the TDCC building as the ‘old building’ and now refer to it as the ‘Community Centre.’
From the floor: Tapawera Connect staff are paid whilst doing their advocacy work and they are spending lots, whereas community members have to use their own time and own resources to raise issues, which creates inequities.

19/ Medical rooms:

We put a reminder in the Informer that folk should turn the radio on in the centre if they are needing privacy for their consultation. Trish noticed that on both occasions when she contacted the medical centre she was offered Tapawera appointments, without asking, so there appears to have been a change since TDCC wrote. We have asked Wakefield Health centre for contact details for the building’s owners.

20/ Firewood:

An article went into the Informer, and we note a new supplier has entered the market. Please note that the wood being stored on site is hangi wood being stored on behalf. Tapawera Connect notified us that they have resources available for firewood if anyone needs it.

21/ TDC contractors carting rocks instead of using local:

John is following this up.

Correspondence (As below):

Financial Report: (Gill Hammersley)

TDCC Transactions

Tapawera Opshop

Informer