#10 Youth Council

Kia ora my name is Jack Karetai-Barrett and I’m a year ten student at Whakatane High School. This months article is going to be about Youth Councils throughout Aotearoa and using your voice to be part of making change. 

Last month, I was elected as the co-deputy chair of the Whakatane District Youth Council. The other co-deputy chair is Jasper House, and our chair is Charlotte Billings.

In Aotearoa, Youth Councils give young people a chance to share their ideas with local leaders and decision-makers. They help young people get involved in their communities, learn leadership skills, and make sure their voices count in decision-making for the future of the community. For most people who get involved in political roles, it is becuase there is something in their community that they want to see changed. But you also have to be interested in whats best for the whole community, not just the things that are important to you. 

The things that matter the most to me in my role on the youth council, are waste management, mountain biking, and recreation spaces for kids. It’s the importance of those things in my life that made me want to get involved. But since getting involved, I’ve started to get really interested in all the different jobs our council does in our community. 

According to LGNZ, (Local Government New Zealand) a Council's role is “to enable democratic decision-making by and for communities and to promote their social, economic, environmental and cultural wellbeing. In practice, this means everything from footpaths and lighting and the supply of freshwater/wai to resource management and environmental health and safety.” 

According to the Whakatane District Council website, our council’s “vision is to be known as the place of choice for people to live, work and play.”

They also say:

“In achieving our vision:

• Our community will be safe and surrounded by people who are friendly and caring

• Businesses will be thriving

• There will be respect for and pride in our history

• We will be successful guardians of our natural environment

Our purpose is to lead the Whakatāne District to sustainable economic, social, environmental and cultural well-being.

As a District Council we will achieve this through:

• Good governance, leadership and advocacy

• Integrated, long-term planning

• Effective and reliable community infrastructure

• Outstanding service delivery”

The important thing to understand about a council’s role in the community and their aspirations, is that their vision has to be funded somehow, and no one is ever happy with how much they have to pay for things. Councils are funded by several different sources, the first and the one all adults seem to complain about the most is “rates”. Rates are paid by people who own land. The more land you own and the more the land is worth, the more you have to pay - that seems fair to me.

There are so many rates! General rates, targeted rates, differential rates, uniform annual general charges, and water rates. Mum says theres also another rate that we have to pay to the Regional Council. You can learn about how all the rates are caculated on the LGNZ website - it is very helpful.  As well as all the rates, there are development contributions, subsidies and grants, and fees and charges. 

A council has so many responsibilities, and quite a few different sources of income to pay for everything. But how do they choose what to pay for? Every three years, we have an election where we elect the people who represent what matters most to us at the table where all the decisions are made. They also set the future plans for the community, and figure out where they can get money from and how the money will be spent. When I read the letters to the editor of the Whakatane Beacon, it looks to me like people just vote so they have someone to complain about. But actually, I know some of our councillors very well, and I know how hard they work and how much they care about our community. I think we should complain less and have more conversations about whats important to us. 

At the moment, the Councils long term plan is being renewed. At our Youth Council meeting we learned that the council has to renew it’s long term plan every three years to make sure it’s still heading in the direction the community wants it to go. As members of the public, no matter if we’re a school kid, or retired, or anywhere in between, we’re allowed to make a submission on the long term plan, to make sure that our councillors understand whats important to our community. The council will read and hear all the submissions, set it’s long term plans, and then find the money that it needs to achieve it’s plans for the community. Last time we had a long term plan, I went with my mum to talk about mountain biking, but nothing really came of that. I felt a bit cynical, but mum reminds me that COVID happened, lots of weather events happened, and Whakaari happened. Those all happened unexpectedly, so the Council's plans and priorities had to change since the community's needs had changed. I’m going to have another go this year to talk about mountain biking, and how important our recreation spaces are in the community for us kids. But the thing thats most important to me right now, is what I learned from attending the EQC public meeting at the War Memorial hall last month. They taught us that we need to prepare for an earthquake that could be as high as a 9 on the Richter scale, and cause a really big tsunami. I think our council needs to make preparing for that its number one priority. It’s hard to prepare for, but it’s really important that we do. 

I hope that you take the time to have a look at the Council's long term plan, and make a submission. You can find the plan and the online submission page on the Council website. If you don’t like using a computer, then you can visit the Council and someone will help you.  If we can’t be bothered to let the Council know whats important to us, then we probably shouldn’t complain afterwards when we’re not happy with the decisions they make. 

I would like to give a shout out to Andrew Isles and Toi Iti (BOPRC) for being amazing role models for me. They have shown me how being involved in something like Council gives you the chance to have your say. Please have your say by Friday 12th of April 2024. You can make your submission online,  send your submission in, or you can ask to speak at a meeting to the Councillors!

# 9 Mountainbiking with my team

Today I’m continuing from last month's story about mountain biking. 

As you may recall, last month I wrote about my role models and how important it is to have good role models who care about us and help us work out the hard things in life. I’ve been really lucky to have Richard Hamer, Jonny Evetts and Michaela Wellauer in my life, who support me in my mountain biking. 

When I was at Whakatane Intermediate, not long after I started riding, I heard in the notices about Aims Games. I looked into it some more, and I saw that there was a section for mountain biking. I was starting to get more confident with riding around then, so I decided to try out for the team. I talked to the teacher, Mr. Cochrane, and he told me some more about it - he said I needed to be much fitter. From that day I started to ride up the Mokorua hill every day. I wasn’t very fast when I started, but I got a lot faster as time went on. 

Before we could get to Aims Games, I was offered to compete in a relay race at Onepu MTB Park, on the Zephyr trail. I was familiar with Zephyr, so I was really excited. I started training on Zephyr a lot, and I was happy with my results. I had two coaches while I was training for racing: Hannah Thompson and Josh Barry. They both helped me with cornering and jumping, along with general fitness, and lots of encouragement. On the day of the Zephyr race, I was doing really well, having fun doing some jumps. Then, around 30 minutes before my race, I went really flat on the last jump on the easy jump line, and I went flying into a pit of mud. My entire body was covered, and I looked like I was straight out of a war movie scene in the trenches.  Sam Knapton picked me up out of the puddle, helped me check my bike, and made sure I was ok. I didn’t hurt myself too badly, so I could still race.

Soon after my crash, we lined up, ready to go. My first teammate went, and he was quite fast, so I knew I had to be ready to go quickly. He came flying around the corner and tapped me in. I quickly put my dropper post up, started sprinting up to the line, and at the line, quickly hopped onto my bike. I rode as fast as I could, all the way to the start of Zephyr. I kept a consistent pace all the way through, and as soon as I got to the end of Zephyr, I quickly did a skid into the corner and started pedalling as hard as I could. I sprinted hard, and I got to the end where I saw my next teammate ready for his turn, I then hopped off my bike and ran with it as fast as I could before tapping him in. I was exhausted! We ended up getting second in our relay race, and we were stoked. I have never really cared much for winning races, but I like it when I am on a team and the team does well.

I was really into racing from this point, and the Aims Games race was coming up fast, so I kept on training hard. I got really fit and had very strong legs. Then, when I finally got to the race, I was feeling so ready for it. I rode as hard and fast as I could - I did my absolute best. I was nowhere near winning the race, but I was happy that I even finished it! It was two laps around Summerhill, and they were difficult. Not to mention it was a crazy 28⁰C day, in September - it was so hot that riders were fainting, and many did not finish the race. From that point on, I have loved racing on my bike, and even more than racing, I just love being on my bike, training with my mates. 

This month my team has competed in the North Island Secondary Schools MTB Champs in Rotorua, as part of the international Crankworx events. Our team has 12 people: Arran Dominic, Liam Burgess, Logan Jephson, Noah Vullings, Walker Turner, Luca Goodman, Ollie Peat, Beren Pearce, Barclay Fort, Kalani Robinson,  Mason Philpott and me. Arran had an injury that prevented him from racing this time - but he is still on our team.

At the end of last year we started with me and my mate Logan. I had asked Mum if there were any enduro races coming up that we could compete in for school. We found some local races that we ended up competing in, and got excited about the North Islands. We asked our Head of Sport at Whakatane High School,  Mr Sexton,  if we could enter and he said we could. He offered Mum the use of the school bike trailer and a van. Mum didn’t expect us to have 12 people, but that is what happened, and Mum became a Team Manager for our team. 

Every weekend for 13 weeks, often twice a week, Mum would drive a van full of us over to the Redwoods, so we could practise on the actual competition enduro and cross-country tracks. All the members of our team competed in the Enduro. Enduro is the one everyone wants to ride in, so it is very limited. Only 500 riders can compete and there are always a lot who apply, but don’t get in. Amazingly, our whole team made the start list. For our Enduro race, we rode Box of Birds, Gunna Gotta, Te Huinga, and Old Exit. All of us completed the course within time and all of us were happy with our results. Kalani Robinson even got a top 20 finish. My actual race was really amazing, but I did have a quite bad crash on my first stage on Box of Birds. Because of that crash, I ended up not being at a level of competition with others, so I was quite disappointed, but also just so happy that I was there. I know that next year I will be stronger, faster and will do better. 

Whakatane High School also put in a relay team (Mason, Logan and I) and  two XC (cross country) riders (Noah and Ollie). We all did well. 

Mum said that she's committed to our racing team for the next three years until I finish high school. My Mum really is the best person to have in the world when you have something you want to do. She is always there to make our lives better, gives us advice, and cooks sausages for us after our training and our races - every time. 

On behalf of our team I want to thank all the people who helped us in our races, not only on the race days but also in the leadup to the race. First I want to thank Whakatane High School and Mr Sexton for saying “yes”. Thank you to our teacher in charge,  Ms. Rachelle Owen-Cooper (OC) for taking us to the WAIBOP race when Mum had to work, and supporting the team at the North Islands. Thank you Brenda from Cafe Coco for providing fresh muffins and baked goods for the team on multiple occasions, and for giving our team and the Whakatane Intermediate team fresh muffins on XC day for breakfast. Thank you Renske, our school sports coordinator, for doing all the background work to get our entries in on time - Mum says Renske could be a cat juggler. Thank you to all the families who provided kai for us and helped Mum with getting things organised. And thanks to BlueLight Whakatane for the use of the van when the school did not have a spare van. 

Now we are back to training, for the Nationals in Christchurch in October. I’ll tell you about that then. Good luck to the Intermediate riders who will soon race at Aims Games.