ALTERNATIVE TECHNOLOGY AND LIFESTYLE ASSOCIATION

P O Box 27475, Upper Willis Street, Wellington, New Zealand Phone: (04) 382 8343

Hi everybody! Welcome again to another issue of ATLA NEWS. Since our last issue there have been several changes within ATLA following the AGM:

A new President was elected. Yes, I am ATLA’s new President. My name is Clyde Lambourn (I operated the Energy Display Trailer last year) and I replace Alastair Nicholson, who has done an excellent job holding ATLA together over the last three years but now has decide to move on. Someone made a quip about a new broom sweeping clean, and I don’t blame Alastair if he feels a bit worn out after three years of sweeping. But a broom is only as good as its bristles and I regard each member of ATLA as a bristle, which means a commitment from each of us to be involved. More of this later.

We also have a new committee:

Secretary: Tony Dean (3698369) is our new secretary, who took over from Seelan. Thank you, Seelan, for your hard work setting up the ATLA database, organising the Energy Display Trailer visits to schools, and administering our office (while we had one). Tony is an active committee member.

Treasurer: John van Nortwick (4796651) comes from Dallas, Texas, but gained experience in the Alternative Energy field in Australia before settling with his partner, Jill, and their two daughters, in Wellington. John takes over from Neil Pryor, who organised our finances over the last three years or so. Thanks, Neil for your efforts sorting out the tax/GST, paying our bills, handling subs and so on all this time.

Committee members:

Toni Atkinson (2357689, toni@ethos.co.nz), Dave Prout (4726087), John le Harivel (04 298 1962), Jackie Burton (5637992), Alan Daniell (4772453) and Bruce Gillanders (5282892) are a group of hard working individuals. They have a wide range of skills and interests, which, combined with a desire to work to protect our environment and live healthily, will be effective in furthering ATLA’s, and that means our, interests.

Next new item: For those who don’t already know, ATLA is on the Internet. Our website address is: http://www.converge.org.nz/atla/index.html so look us up! We are also getting an e-mail address – we’ll keep you informed.

Each month Toni and John v. N. compile ATLA notes with a synopsis of our latest committee meeting, and times and venues for upcoming meetings etc. To help save time and cost please send them your e-mail address. Other members will get theirs via post.

We recently attended a seminar by EBANZ (the Earth Building Assn of NZ), which was excellent. Apart from a wonderful slide show on earth building and straw-bale houses, we listened to a speaker from the Building Standards Authority. She was very enlightening on standards, their criteria and necessity, especially when building non-standard dwellings. We hope to get her for a future talk. Most importantly, we were able to give ATLA a plug. This has resulted in several new members, and we’ve been able to meet requests from people needing information on RAPS expertise and hardware. We aim to compile a directory of experts and suppliers. We’ll need assistance!

Finally, I would like to give a special welcome to Ruth Denniston (4773131), who has generously offered her time and skills to lay out our newsletter. Thank you, Ruth. I really appreciate your offer and hope you get heaps out of working with us!

Well, I’ve got to go now and sort out work on our Energy Display Trailer. I really hope we hear from you soon.

CLYDE.