Is nothing real any more?
It’s not enough to be ‘curious and beautiful’. Especially not when Tourism Dunedin parades support for a 28-storey $100m hotel to be plonked on the waterfront – a complete stranger to business viability – the visual manifestation to destroy, not enhance, Dunedin’s cultural heritage landscape.
Sounds more like your death wish, TD. Y’know, the times when young boys get squelched by tired old hacks, the paunches in suits sprinkling loose cash made from the stadium con.
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### ODT Online Sat, 23 Jun 2012
Tourism drive draws response
By Rosie Manins
Tourism Dunedin dropped 75,000 flyers in letterboxes throughout Christchurch, Canterbury, Central Otago and Southland late last month to advertise winter events and specials in the city. The Curious and Beautiful campaign was shaping up to be a major success, with bookings flooding in and thousands of visits to an associated website, Tourism Dunedin chief executive Hamish Saxton said.
Mr Saxton said the online traffic was considered “very good” and had been backed up by positive feedback from Dunedin tourism operators and accommodation providers. “We haven’t got actual booking figures from them yet, but…”
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How can you tell it’s winter in Dunedin? Treat the locomotive house as your very own barometer. Climatically, the thing acts like a (tourist) bus.
### ODT Online Sat, 23 Jun 2012
Loco lost in mist
By Rosie Manins
Condensation is the latest issue plaguing the locomotive display at the Otago Settlers Museum in Dunedin. Sunny days and chilly nights have caused condensation to form on the outside of the glass case recently, prompting a review of the structure’s design. Project manager Adrian Thein, of Octa Associates, said the condensation problem came as a surprise because natural ventilation had been factored into the building.
Read more
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
What if? Dunedin... 
‘…shaping up to be a major success, with bookings flooding in and thousands of visits to an associated website…’
It’s funny, isn’t it? The marketing folk at or behind the DCC continue to blow their trumpets loudly, choosing to ignore the many people speeding up to get past them with hands clamped firmly overs ears. The tune is grating but immediately recognisable as another bureaucratic remix about budget justification and self-preservation.
Trust your eyes, pet:
“‘Along either side of the building there are louvres meant to naturally ventilate but we are asking our design team at the moment whether that is enough,’ Mr Thein said.” If you can see condensation I think you can take it as given that the louvres meant to naturally ventilate are not ventilating naturally to anyone’s definition of adequacy.
While standing there watching condensation forming you might helpfully draft DCM letters for the design team in case whoever it is whose job it is, is busy on Facebook.
That’s 0 from 2 for the DCC. First it cost DCC $4 million to replace the faulty ventilation system designed by David Poulson at the Edgar Centre. On top of the $3 million the paid for the original design and construction. David had the good sense to leg it to the UK beforehand. Now we’ve got the other favoured child of DCC, Faris Marlow failing to deliver on a simple task. As FM were the people gunning after Mr Poulson, I’m assuming they will be dipping into their own pockets to fix their own cock ups.
“Dipping into their own pockets” – in DUNEDIN? What planet have you been on, Phil? The very idea!
The Plonkers!!! Call themselves engineer/designers. What happened should have been obvious even to the dopiest of them, every winter’s morning he drove his car to work, if it was parked outside overnight. Simple, heat will always migrate to a cooler environment in order to reverse to the mean. One of the first laws of thermodynamics. If the air is moisture laden and it meets an impermeable surface the heat moves through leaving the moisture behind. It has lost enough heat and condenses when the ambient is right, depositing on the glass. Simple. Answer, remove the glass. Why was it necessary anyway? A simple people barrier was all that was required. The roof keeps the weather off the engine, end of story. But no, they have to make a statement. And as I have stated elsewhere, $700,000 is a phenomenal amount of money to spend. You could build a very acceptable house, (including land purchase) which would have all mod cons, non sweat windows and a toilet or three. It just again proves that these design consultants/project managers who do it for fees which are a proportional to the project cost, are ripping the poor deluded dorks in the town hall (and by extension the ratepayers) off for huge amounts. We’ve seen it all along, the town hall/conference centre (as we speak), the OSM, and of course, the stadium. It will always be thus, as long as we have these incompetents in charge of decision making in the DCC. A solution would be to give them all the DCM and employ a fully qualified mechanical/civil engineer and a mature qualified lawyer instead. That way we would at least have a chance to avoid being taken to the cleaners every step of the way. Could it happen? Would turkeys vote for an early Xmas? Forget it.
Enclosing the train was also the stuff of sheltered, pompous fools who think their vision is more important than life itself. Let people get close to it, touch it and climb over it. Sure time will have its effect but in the now, that’s how you appreciate history instead of locking it away behind a ridiculously expensive glass vault.
[Queue joke about that Middleman who did the same with his Harley.]
On the subject of senior staff competence; read Mick Reece’s comments about the John Wilson Drive conundrum.
Community and recreation services manager Mick Reece said his staff were trying to find someone who had the technical expertise to tell them whether such a barrier, suggested by a submitter to the annual plan, was feasible on an ocean-side road.
Huh!!!?
Why is a lowlife council manager speaking to media on this subject?
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/214315/speed-hump-work-awaits-news-subsidies
Fix/maintain the road* (a commemorative drive) and restore it to full public use by vehicles. No traffic calming measures needed.
*I don’t care what the legal status is, of the road. Council can blister away on impediments to common sense, or remove Mick and use the savings to fund some road repairs.
How long ago was it before all this piffle started?
The previous threads:
https://dunedinstadium.wordpress.com/2010/08/26/john-wilson-drive/
https://dunedinstadium.wordpress.com/2010/08/05/john-wilson-ocean-drive-quick-submissions-due-6-august-to-dcc/
It’s one of the few things Bill Acklin got a-hold of and exercised his mind over (and over, and over) because as a wise man of my acquaintance remarked, Bill doesn’t often get an idea but when he does he’s more tenacious than any dog with a bone.
Search engine term:
how to make money in dchl
### radionz.co.nz Friday 7 September 2012
Checkpoint with Mary Wilson
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint
17:36 Cowboy tour guides could turn cruise ships away
All tourism operators servicing Dunedin’s cruise ships will have to be accredited to stop cowboy operators threatening the business. (3′08″)
Audio | Download: Ogg Vorbis MP3 | Embed
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### ODT Online Fri, 7 Sep 2012
Course run for tourism operators
By Rosie Manins
A tourism operator accreditation programme is being launched in Dunedin ahead of the city’s cruise season, which is set to comprise 90 ship visits between October 14 and April 5 next year. Tourism operators will receive free basic training about how to maintain professional standards in dealing with cruise visitors, offering services and supplying information. Transport providers, including taxi drivers, are included in the scheme.
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