The Bay of Plenty Times welcomes letters and comments from readers. Below you can read the letters we have published in your newspaper today.
TODAY'S LETTERS:
Teachers' holiday break well-earned
Re: Strikes end just before holidays (Your View, Dec 4).
Teachers are not crops of vegetables who can be replaced every year like the reader suggests,
but teachers need holidays too, to refresh and renew themselves before the intensity of the new year begins.
Many teachers need a couple of weeks of getting "back to normal" pace before they can start to relax and enjoy the festive season after working in an intense environment of a modern secondary school.
Remember schools are "coerced environments".
Students have to be there by law and teachers try tirelessly to find ways to encourage them to want to be there in order to have a positive outcome in their lives.
Especially since a better education usually equals a better future income and a more fulfilling life.
By the middle of January I am back in my classroom planning for the new year - choosing new resources, analysing what the students I have not even met yet need in terms of credits for NCEA, creating a welcoming space, cleaning the desks because cleaners don't do that job.
I appreciate the holidays, because without them I would not be able to sustain the energy I need to be a good teacher.
Teaching is for the strong-hearted and if the reader feels that twinge of envy over teachers' holidays, he is always welcome to join us in the classroom. We have some excellent training institutes in the Bay of Plenty.
RACHEL RYAN Secondary teacher Te Puke
Thanks for your time
As this year draws to a close, we at New Zealand Red Cross celebrate the Kiwi spirit of voluntary contribution that has brightened a very tough year.
Thank you to everyone who has chipped in with time, money and support to look after people in strife.
People in Haiti, Pakistan, Canterbury or Pike River are better off, thanks to you.
We'd especially like to acknowledge Red Cross volunteers from all over the country who went into action when tragedy struck Canterbury and the West Coast.
Hours of training - hoping the worst would never happen - went into the kind, practical help Red Cross offers our communities.
Every week in the Western Bay, hundreds of volunteers deliver Meals on Wheels, drive community members to appointments, serve breakfasts in schools, maintain patients' flowers in hospital, raise funds to support the humanitarian work of Red Cross and prepare for when emergencies strike.
Volunteers give their most valuable resource - their time - to make a difference in their communities.
Every year, thousands of New Zealand Red Cross volunteers deliver 750,000 hot meals, serve more than 213,000 breakfasts to hungry children and help people in need.
To all those volunteers and donors, on behalf of those that Red Cross helps, we thank you.
HEATHER DABROWSKI Western Bay New Zealand Red Cross
Equal pensions for all
If the proposed hike of the age at which people will draw their pensions in 25 to 30 years is passed, I would have no objections if all those in Parliament get the same amount of pension when they retire as they expect the people who employ them, the workers, to live on. There should be no special pensions. They get well above what their employers take home each week and when they leave that job, they should get what the rest of the country gets and no more.
On the pay they receive, they can save more than enough to supplement the same pension as the workers get.
As for pay rises, that should be put to their constituents. If they have served them well, the people who pay them should decide what they are worth and whether they deserve a raise. Taxes are for the benefit of the people and the country, not keeping a select few in luxury telling us what they will take from those who really hold the power.
A TAYLOR Tauranga
Support shines bright
It has been three months since Christchurch residents were awoken in the early hours of Saturday, September 4, by the devastating earthquake which changed our lives forever.
On behalf of the people of Christchurch I would like to extend a very big thank you to all the people in the Bay of Plenty region for the support shown to Christchurch residents following the earthquake. Christchurch has appreciated your care, generosity and kind thoughts.
I'd like to make special mention of the efforts of Karen Summerhays who organised the donation of a very special morning tea for the Civil Defence staff. The staff were touched by the effort your community went to in baking all of those wonderful goodies.
Not only has the earthquake demonstrated Canterbury's resilient community spirit, it has also shown how caring we are as a country. You are brilliant. From everyone in Canterbury we wish you a very merry Christmas, and a happy and safe new year.
BOB PARKER Christchurch Mayor
TODAY'S TEXT
* There I thought Route K might be made FREE so scary trucks would stop using Moffat (or even Cambridge illegally), just to see the opposite will happen! Mariana
* Re fast broadband. Wow overnite we turn into a super economy. Wat rubbish. Yor email gets there split second quicker. Big deal
* Route k toll road. Up the toll by 100% & u can kiss the 4840 vehicles a day good bye. Increases r understandable but not when its doubled. Signed.. Average joe
* If they fixd accss 2 toll road at 15 ave heaps mor cars wod use it. No need 2 put up toll. I would use it twice a day 2 and frm wrk not twice a year 2 beach
* If NZ transport agency will not consider taking over route K and debt until it is viable will this reduction in proposed toll increases delay this happening?
* Why is The Rock (+ other organisations) allowed 2 "promote" such activities as "crate day"? How naive R these people REALLY!! What do they think will B the outcom
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