Keep NZ Beautiful worth it?
By Jamie Melbourne-Hayward
Keep New Zealand Beautiful has called for entries to the Best Town and City Awards, but a Hutt City Council environmental advisor says they won?t foot the membership bill because of ?behind the scenes pressure?. The Keep NZ Beautiful website has no entries for Keep Hutt Beautiful or Keep Petone Beautiful under its ?regions? section, but both groups exist and are active. Petone fall under the Keep Hutt Beautiful banner and Keep Petone Beautiful convener Roy Hewson says he would like the Council be part of the organisation. ?We run our own programmes in Petone, but it would be good to be part of something larger ? I?m in the minority on that one. ?[Keep NZ Beautiful] has been trying to get us to join ... and we have a problem attracting younger people, so joining might help out,? he says. Hutt City Environmental Sustainability advisor Sandy Beathcroft says joining ?caused more problems than it was worth?. ?It?s the behind the scenes negotiations that really get me ? you can?t have one set of rules for one and another set for another,? says Mrs Beathcroft. In previous dealings with the organisation she has ?been bullied and verbally abused ... and it had a very corporate role?. Busy coordinating local environmental efforts Mrs Beathcroft says she doesn?t have the time or the budget to ?splash out? on Keep NZ Beautiful. ?It?s an add-on really, a promotion, it?s the last thing I can afford.? She says the idea behind Keep NZ Beautiful is good, if a little token. ?We don?t pay $1,500 dollars to be a member of something that?s not good value for money. ?National funding for Enviroschools has been pulled, but we fund it locally and that is really doing something in the area,? says Mrs Beathcroft. CEO of Keep NZ Beautiful Simon Johnston says the idea that councils? or any other group have to pay to be involved with them is ?horribly, terribly wrong?. ?It doesn?t cost anything to register; you just need to fill out a form.? If councils? want to join up and receive information they can pay up to $1,500, but registration doesn?t cost anything. Mr Johnston says the groups displayed on the website are active volunteer groups, and he was ?truly surprised? the Hutt was not registered. ?It?s something for all New Zealanders, anyone can join, and we even had a two-man-band register. ?We want all past members back on board, and are in the middle of a new membership drive right now,? he says. Keep NZ Beautiful wants to pull together environmental groups from around the country and create a central hub for posting projects to the web and discussing ideas, similar to the Transition Towns concept.
